Advanced Clinical Massage and Bodywork Training at TLC

On November 7, TLC’s Advanced Clinical Training (ACT) starts!  We are now beginning enrollment for this unique class! Nowhere else  in the US can you learn to systematically integrate in Clinical Practice – Structural Bodywork, Deep Massage, Shiatsu, Zero Balancing and Psychologically-Oriented Bodywork. To be a well-rounded therapist, we need these competencies with advanced techniques,…

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Energy in Bodywork & Massage Therapy

The broadest use of the term energy in bodywork has been applied to bodywork that consciously aims at more than just soft tissues.  The scientific method is empirical.  It looks at and works with what is there.  In the case of a human, what is there is a body, and certainly mind and emotions as…

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Muddy Waters on Energy

“She moves me, man.  Honey, now I don’t see how it’s done.” – Muddy Waters The concept of energy in bodywork has historically had, and I think wisely, a wide definition.  It retains the mystery Muddy Waters evoked.  Yet maybe we can see with a little less muddiness “how it’s done”. In physics, it is…

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Massage Therapy with Two Eyes

Energy work and structural work are two sides of the same coin. The most effective therapy arises from an approach that respects the unity of structural and energetic aspects of both therapist and the client. The various arguments for and against energy work, for and against insistence on evidence-based therapy, are certainly passionate. The best…

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Energy Work Defended (Against Devotees and Detractors)

Energy is too important a subject to be, on the one hand, defined only by its devotees – some of whose ideas or practices have been shown to be false or dangerous or with claims made for scientific validity where there is insufficient scientific evidence or disproof. On the other hand, energy work has been…

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3-D Massage – Disease, Disposition & Destiny

In my last blog piece, I outlined three realms of massage/bodywork – wellness, orthopedic, and holistic.  We can also look at three purposes for massage and bodywork.  These relate to the “3 D’s” – Disease, Disposition and Destiny. DISEASE People come to us with dis-ease.  It may be a physical disease – an injury or…

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Medical Massage is Not the Best Kind of Massage

Over the last few years, some practitioners of so-called medical massage have implied it represents the highest level of our profession. First problem, most state laws say massage is NOT the practice of medicine.  Many therapists persist in blithely ignoring that. Second problem, assuming the superiority of a medical approach ignores the client.  The best…

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The First French Hippy Gets a Massage?

In 1785 Claude-Étienne Savary wrote about his experiences receiving massage in Egypt. ‘Perfectly massaged, one feels completely regenerated, a feeling of extreme comfort pervades the whole system, the chest expands, and we breathe with pleasure; the blood circulates with ease, and we have a sensation as if freed from an enormous load; we experience a…

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If You Love the Body – poem for massage therapists

IF YOU LOVE THE BODY If you love the body you must know the bone that ribs and peoples it; deeper than flesh you feel the beauty. That will last, simply as stone upheaves in season where the winter rain rakes asters and drooping cornstalks from a hill. If you love the body you must…

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Massaging the Windows of Life: Where Your Muscles Meet Your Bones

When we do our strokes in Deep Massage, when we pause, particularly at the beginning or the end of a stroke, it creates a kind of “window”. These pauses naturally occur at the beginning and near the end of the muscle – at the origin and the insertion. As in most stories, beginnings and endings…

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