Heal Your Soul Through “Heel and Sole”

It is amazing how people love work on their feet and therapists often love working on the feet and yet…Most therapists don’t know the anatomy of the feet! I myself didn’t! I don’t know how many years it was before I really studied the intrinsic muscles of the feet…probably ten. But finally I really explored…

Read More

Being out of Synch – with Massage Therapy!

I sometimes wonder if those of us involved in massage and the art and science of high touch (rather than high tech) are a little out of synch with the times. Well I don’t wonder – I know I’m, at least a bit, out of synch. Then I remind myself of how a piano is…

Read More

Loving Time #2 – in Massage and in Life

“The element most grossly omitted from treatises on harmony up to the present is the element of time. The question of the time-interval that must elapse between one sound and another if the two sounds are to produce a pleasing consonance or an interesting relation, has been avoided. And yet the simplest consideration of the…

Read More

What Happens When Your Massage Client Disappears?

I have received student sessions for years – it’s a requirement at our school (I know – tough life for us teachers!) I commonly have the experience that, in the best sessions, one forgets the therapist is there.  The touch feels so trustworthy and clear that the focus is not on the therapist’s touch, but…

Read More

“It Looks Like It’s Dancing to the Rolling Stones”

This morning I took me and my dog, Phoebe, for a walk.  I guess the opening of presents brought me back to the biggest present, my own body.  I’d been having a little back pain and hoped to relieve it by visualizing the sacrum and its ligaments.  I could feel, refreshingly, movement in that area…

Read More

Marketing with Your Body! Massage Promotion with one’s Whole Self

The more you learn about massage and bodywork, the more you learn about life as a whole.  I have been a therapist now for 35 years and a teacher for 25.  I have run my school, The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School in Austin, Texas, for 23 years.  I’ve learned that the same principles that apply in…

Read More

Helen Keller was Right about Massage (and life)

Helen Keller was right – “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” In some ways every day is an adventure; every day a hero’s journey. We don’t know what will happen. We can see the obstacles and opportunities that arise as part of the incredible journeys, short and long, we take in this life.…

Read More

Massage – A Blessing for Everyone

In Deuteronomy it says, “Blessed be the work of thy hands.” When I was a child, I was entranced by the beautiful book, The Family of Man.  This had incredible photographs from all over the world.  People in families, giving birth, dying, at war, at work, playing, kissing, making music, leaping up in the air. …

Read More

“Wisdom of the Body” – Stanley Kunitz on poetry (and massage)

These words are excerpted from the essay “The Wisdom of the Body” from Stanley Kunitz’ book Next-to-Last Things.  I’ve found them inspiring my massage therapy again and again over the years. For ages before (human writing), “immense quantities of human experience,” in Alfred North Whitehead’s phrase,”had been accumulating in men’s bodies.”  The body, in its…

Read More

Peace is a Need, So is Work! Massage Combines Peace and Work.

Seth Godin writes a fantastic blog.  Every day he comes up with brilliant tips on life and work.  Here’s his from today – “When is it due? Here’s the schedule. Follow it. There’s your in box. Empty it. When something is imminent, speed up. When you’re off the deadline machine, take a breath and poke…

Read More