There can be very few professions that require
such a high level of physical fitness, flexibility and overall health as Massage. Even professional athletes do not expect to continue beyond the age of
40. Yet many Massage therapists only “discover” our profession after
this age, as a second or even third career. So we must take our own health very
seriously if we wish to survive. I could write a whole series of articles about
the measures we should take in order to stay healthy, however the simple truth is that none of them will make any difference at all if what you
are using in your Massage consists of the conventional strokes taught on
Massage, Reflexology and Chair courses these days.
The actual statistics show this very clearly.
There have now been six studies into the health of Massage professionals,
worldwide. Despite the fact that each was done without any reference to the
other and had different methodologies, the results are almost identical.
Whether it is in Taiwan, Canada the UK or the USA, the results of ALL these
different studies is the same. 70% - 80% of any population of Massage
therapists who are asked about their health are exhibiting the early or later
signs of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) or MSD (MusculoSkeletal Damage). Click here to download a summary of these studies.
The only way not to know this is to make
sure that every time you meet a Massage therapist you stick your head into the
ground, like our proverbial ostrich. Frankly, I feel the same way about the
Massage profession as Deepak Chopra feels about the world: “All you have to do is look at the news
every day - if you don’t
think you’re in a mental
asylum, then you’re
an inmate.”
This unlikely discovery happened quietly in the treatment room of a single practitioner over 12 years - it started as a survival strategy after injuring both my hands on the same day. Click here for the full NO HANDS story.
As word got around that I had not only overcome injuries to both my hands, but had built a highly successful practice using a totally original approach to Massage, therapists started asking me to teach them. So I met with small groups for one day a month over several years and showed them what I did. Only after we had completed over 250,000 treatments on clients using this approach, did I even begin to think about putting together a training course to teach this properly to the profession.
What I teach is not the “techniques” that all inexperienced Massage therapists clamour for, but the principles of movement behind all effective zero strain Massage. There are just 7 of them and when properly understood and used, they guarantee a career of clinical effectiveness, ease and health. These came out of the treatment room and have nothing to do with “Proper Body Mechanics.”
Actually, the more “proper” your body mechanics become, the more likely you are to sustain injury. This is because if you align your body behind a Massage stroke and apply deep effective pressure you are putting that force through your wrists. Newton’s second law of Motion tells us that the client’s unmoving body, then sends those very same forces straight back into the wrist. Most therapists know this and so avoid putting much weight into their hands, which then creates back strain because they are getting no support from the client as they lean forward. The more we try to work with our hands, the more problems we create. We need to create a new paradigm for massage, one that is solidly based on Swedish Massage and protecting the hands and bodies of our practitioners.
It does not matter whether or not you use your hands or your forearms, actually. If you do not understand the postural principle of SUPPORT with the allied concept of VERTICALITY, then you “are up a gum tree” for your wrists and your back. This will not be a problem for you if you Massage in outer space, but for everyone else the simple laws of physics mean that Massage is intrinsically damaging. Which is why the Taylor brothers were both producing Massage machines within ten years of introducing Massage to America in the nineteenth century. I write about this in more detail in my first book about NO HANDS® Massage.
“If you do not understand the postural principle of SUPPORT with the allied concept of VERTICALITY, then you “are up a gum tree” for your wrists and your back.”
Most advice that people give to injured Massage therapists is to either exercise the injured part or to rest. Exercising an injured part of your body is usually the worst thing you can do. The “rest option” is interesting because it suggests we all have a patron who will pay us while our clients go elsewhere. In the real world, the harsh reality is that you have to be healthy and turn up for your clients, or you simply lose them.
The only thing that works for your clinical survival is to stop putting all this weight through the hands and use other body parts to deliver force and power. This means that we start with the practitioner, not the client. We ask ourselves what movements will heal the practitioner whilst we are working? I will write more about this in the next few weeks - you can subscribe to this blog using the "Follow by email" box on the left hand side.
The one thing that you can be certain about this British Massage Revolution, is that what you are taught has been tried and tested and proven by THOUSANDS of Massage practitioners on all their clients over the last 25 years. These are not “nice ideas” designed to make someone money because they are bored of actually doing Massage so decide to teach. These are the most essential tools imaginable for surviving in the Massage profession.
This required a complete rewrite of the Swedish Massage rule book. When delivered with the full power and weight of the practitioner’s body, we discover that Per Henrik Ling’s Swedish approach really did have all the answers to any client’s “body” question.
To find details of courses in the UK click here. For details of schools offering TRANSFORMING TOUCH courses in the States click here.
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