Posts Tagged ‘massage philosophy’
STEP FULLY INTO YOUR NEW LIFE AND NEW YEAR
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao-Tzu How many steps, how many thousands of miles did you travel last year? How many thousands of steps and miles we will take in the next year? How can you make this journey more full of life, goodness, beauty, and excitement? The…
Read MoreHelping Veterans and Wounded Warriors
This nation’s military veterans and wounded warriors continue to fight, long after they come off the battlefields. They fight to be whole again and to reclaim their physical and psychological health. Many forms of massage and bodywork can help them do just that.Therapeutic MassageWith its ability to meld body and mind, massage is an excellent…
Read MoreHeal 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 MoreLoving 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 MoreWhat 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 MoreThe Deep Massage Book – update!
About a year and half ago I wrote about the process of writing The Deep Massage Book, which I’ve been doing, off and on, for a number of years. So here’s an update. I’m done with the writing and the commissioned illustrations from a fantastic local medical artist, Christy Krames, MA. I’ve pasted the table…
Read MoreWhen First We REALLY Meet – Massage and the Nervous System, Part 2
It is not the therapeutic intention that is fruitful, but it is how we really meet that is therapeutically fruitful. (paraphrase of Martin Buber) The nerve cells which sense pressure and vibration were discovered in 1831 by the Italian anatomist, Giovanni Pacini, who also discovered the cholera bacteria. Named “Pacinian corpuscles” in his honor, these…
Read MoreWhat Exactly is Clinical Massage?
By David Lauterstein We hear the terms “medical massage,” “clinical massage” and “orthopedic massage therapy” used in our field these days. But what is Clinical Massage really? Clinical massage therapy uniquely focuses on the treatment of soft tissue to maintain, develop, augment or rehabilitate the patient’s physical function. Clinical massage therapy can improve the functioning…
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 MoreThe Evolution of Slowness – Massage Helps Thoughtfulness
Deliberation is born of joy. — Rumi Andrew Taylor Still, Osteopath’s founder, said the body contains all the healing substances it needs. And indeed humans have within their nervous systems equally the antidote to the social epidemic of excess stress. The autonomic system embodies the advantage of a speedy, whole body response to changing circumstance. …
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