Find Touch: Massage Therapy Community

How to Sell Without Selling Out

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:13:51 PST

When massage folks work in spas, an ugly reality crops up: spas depend on sales of retail products and extra services for income. They expect their employees/contractors to sell to clients, and to get “good” hours and “good” rooms.

I, too, have worked in an environment where folks expect you to sell other things rather than just provide the massage service. Most of my peers were horrified at the prospect of having to sell anything because it was somehow bad to sell anything to clients. They were pure of soul and energy, so they should not have to do anything so visceral as to sell things. There were a lot of put-off therapists at my spa who considered sales “unethical” and were set to do what they could to get out of a sales requirement.

I wasn’t one of them. I had worked in other places where sales were part of the scene: a department store, a restaurant, etc. Sales were just means to help out by increasing the amount of income for the business to keep places going. At the restaurant, the owner counted on us to make things better. At the managers knew who sold what and how. The people who had higher sales got more money and more perks.

It also didn’t seem at all conflicting to sell products to clients. They, after all, are consumers of such things as massages and came in to the spa expecting not only services but suggestions on things to buy. Our aestheticians sold lots of things to their customers, little tiny jars of things that cost $25-$75 and they did not explode or melt or join the forces of the undead.

I was clearly in the minority, however. My colleagues felt sales to be dirty, like selling cars or children. One of the therapists quit, saying she was not going to do sales. The rest, well therein lays a story.

Meanwhile, I was perplexed. How should I sell? What should I sell? Where was I going to learn selling?

It turned out, the answers to my questions were right under my nose..

Insurance Envy and Other Melancholy

noreply@blogger.com (Lynna Dunn) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:20:40 PST

I am not by nature a person who covets, or who spends a lot of time envying the fortunes of others. But lately, I admit, I have had insurance envy. And I look back to the days when I was a technical writer, an educational non-profit worker, an English professor, even a Starbuck's barista, and think, "Oh, I wish . . ." Even my childhood was privileged in that way--because my father was a doctor, I rarely even had to pay to see one, which is sort of like an insurance in itself.

Last fall, my husband was laid-off, and lost his insurance. Then we found out that I was pregnant, and I had certainly not planned on becoming pregnant until--that's right--he had a job again and could get insurance and could get me on that insurance. In my four-odd years as a massage therapist, the only time I have had medical insurance was the first full year I worked over 26 hours per week at a Massage Envy. My pay was nowhere near what it is now, mind, but that medical insurance was a definite benefit, something that we in this field all keenly recognize. I have never known a massage therapist yet who had medical insurance on her own behalf who did not work for a large corporation. I believe that there are probably a few massage therapists working for medical clinics, etc., who are lucky enough to have this coverage provided/available, but I have certainly never met one. In fact, most of the therapists I have met who have coverage, have it through a spouse or for the younger ones, a parent.

When I found out I was pregnant, the scramble began to find some sort of financial help, and frankly, I have never been so humiliated or frustrated. I swallowed my pride, and applied for DSHS. "No," they said, "Your family makes too much money. We might help you, though, in the event you spend more than $20,000." Ooh, that really helps, thanks. Once DSHS rejects you, you can apply for Basic Health, or you could if that was even available right now. Instead, I was lucky enough to get state insurance called Community Health Plan of Washington, for which I pay $186 per month. In return, I get . . . well, not a lot. See, it doesn't pay for things like sequential screening (two blood-draws, two ultrasounds), which a 41-year-old woman really needs, and which so far has cost more than $3500. Oh, and it has a $5000 deductible for what it does cover, based on the beginning date of the insurance and the birth of my baby. If my baby is born within 6 months of my insurance start-date, then the deductible is $5000. But if my baby is born 6 months or more after my insurance start-date, the deductible drops to $500. Of course, since I was almost 6 weeks pregnant when I realized that fact, and I had to apply and get rejected for DSHS first, then apply for Community Health Plan, and get accepted for that . . . well, it is unlikely she will make the 6 month cut-off. In fact, to add insult to injury, she will most likely miss it by about 1-2 weeks. After the $5000 deductible is met, I still have to pay 30% of remaining costs. The birth clinic wants it's 30% now ($1300), just in case; so heart-warming.

I love my baby; I don't blame her or begrudge her this ordeal. But sometimes I get so tired of working so hard to make the world a better place, a less painful place when sometimes the world seems to care so little about me. I traded the benefits of the corporate world for a more purposeful, healing existence. And yet what benefits those were: days to be sick, and yet paid; days to get snowed-in, and get paid; medical insurance to help insure that one sweet little baby doesn't financially cripple a whole family.

Sometimes I wonder why I, why any of us, put up with this. Many of us are highly educated, most of us are skilled and hard-working. Most of us are exhausted from working so hard that we find it almost impossible to get political, and none of us can truly afford this area; when I told my father in Arkansas--the man who was a successful OBGYN for over 30 years--what my prenatal costs were here, he thought I was kidding him. "That's highway robbery," he said. And it is. And how ironic, by the way, that so many people working as medical professionals cannot acquire affordable medical insurance on their own behalf that pays for more than accidental decapitation? That last part is a joke; it just isn't very funny.

Handy Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:15:27 PST

We use our hands and arms all day, we massage therapists, so we should be taking the very best care of them, right?

So when was the last time you iced?

I can hear the reply: Oh, I don’t need to ice, I’m in great shape.

Uh-huh.

We are, in a way, baseball players, and we are just as good as our last few at bats. We should, like those guys on the diamond, be icing before and after our intensive activity rather than waiting for pain or tingles.

The cure for chronic inflammation leading to the major cause of massage disability – carpal-like pain in the hands and arms – is right in our refrigerators. Is your gel-pack lonely?

I was thinking about this the other day while reading about cryo-saunas. These are quick-freeze saunas that people jump into for about 45 seconds at 40 or so degrees below zero. The idea is to nail inflammation quickly before the cold does any damage.

The cryo-sauna does the same as the dreaded athlete ice-bath without much screaming. Plus you can buy a really big, cool machine and charge people for treatments.

Yet here we are, our one-time investment fridge ice-packs sitting idle. Ice is so cheap, so effective, so non-addictive, so good for us, etc. So when was the last time you iced?

Regarding the Future of Our Labor

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:47:01 PST

It is an interesting question. Should massage therapy become a college degree?

It is a question that is being proffered by those who would like massage to become part of the medical care system, with regard to how little training massage therapists have in comparison to those in the medical field. Standing next to people with four, seven, and eleven years of college and post-college, should massage move on to a more formal education system?

I wonder.

One of the nice things about massage therapy is that it is an easy-in business. A technical course of a few months and one can be in the working field, depending on your state of residence. After initial training therapists can and do take more education, developing their niche as they see fit.

On the other hand, do they fit in with other professions that require much more training, and should they even aspire to such?

Education as an entry to the working world has changed over the past generation. Folks in the computer industry, at first, rarely had degrees. The internet billionaires are still “drop-outs.” Their inventive brains have made it possible to get college degrees on-line. Bill Gates himself has predicted the end of the four-year institution thanks to on-line education.

In big-firm finance, post-college degrees/Ivy League is the way to get in at big firms. Thanks, guys, for the last five years of recession.

Yet in medicine, and in education, college and post-college rule, not only as a training ground but as a way of differentiating those who make more to those who make less. Ask any teacher or nurse how much fun it is to go to school at night to get a degree. But the degree pays off immediately in salary. One wonders, though, when a PhD. is teaching kindergarten if it is a little crazy.

I am a college graduate, not in massage or health sciences but English, and my piece of paper sits on the wall above my computer. It was tough getting it, but it has shown employers over the years that I can finish what I started.

Did it prepare me well for my original profession, journalism? It certainly helped. I think I learned a lot more about working in the field in the first few weeks of employment at a daily newspaper than I did in four years of school. But the degree did get me in the door, and I know how to find things in a library.
So, are we just being a little insecure about the degree thing or should massage therapy “grow up” to a health-related degree? If it does, does that mean non-degree therapists are less effective than those with degrees? Or will they just be better-paid?

Intakes, Histories and Human Nature

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:20:30 PST

I have been listening to clients for a few years now, and I am getting more impressed with the intake form as time goes on. I had a doozy the other day.

Intake forms are important for good massages, giving the person some time to reflect and think about what they want from their sessions. They also keep the therapist informed about rare contra-indications for some types of massage, and have our back in case people do not tell us pertinent information.

I’ve developed a “hot list” for intake-fillers. These are signs that will let you know to tread carefully, ask questions and find out what you need to know before doing a massage.

Mr. Quick: He’s here for a massage, but he has not answered a single health question. He is such a healthy guy he does not need to bother with intakes. Tread carefully, this guy probably has a few issues he is keeping to himself. I like to pick the form up and go “Oh, you haven’t answered this section.” Then I go over the intake verbally and fill it out for him. Don’t be surprised when you find out he just rolled his sports car, or that he has blood pressure problems.

Evel Kneivel: This intake looks pretty bare, except for the area where you ask about pressure. The heck with “firm,” this guy will cross that out and write in “super-deep.” Oh, he hasn’t had a massage for a year and he just moved, but he wants his nickel’s worth. I like to ask if he doesn’t mind not being able to get out of bed in the morning and feeling like he has been run over by a trash truck. That usually gets us into a conversation about firm and its meanings. Later, expect a story about going to a spa for a massage and getting a 50-minute application of oil.

War & Peace: This person has had so many knots, achy spots, accidents and therapies, the intake is filled to the margins. Before you can ask if Bronsky has got to Moscow yet, this person asks to have it all fixed in one session. Hey, and make sure they relax, too.

Ghosty: This intake looks great until you get to the informed consent part. No checkmarks, no signature, etc. “Me? Oh I didn’t see that.” One of the consents I use is asking the client to say during the massage if they are uncomfortable in any way to let me know and I will address it right away. I started doing that after a client told me she quit her last therapist because the lady had a hangnail. Anticipating it during the massage ruined the experience. “Just tell me,” I say. “I won’t get all huffy and offended.” p.s. I mean that.

Hey, intakes are going to tell us a lot about clients when they come in, especially when they fill them out funny. Wonder what would happen if we ever started to analyze the handwriting.

Putting Our Feet Down

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:50:20 PST

People who give massages need to get massages – and lots of therapists, like myself, get a massage once a week or so. It helps a massage therapist “keep in touch.”

I got in touch with an old massage therapist friend over the holidays and was dismayed to find out she had taken a backwards flop over a storage box several months ago and had been working in pain.

She had tried a few massages and had some acupuncture and some energy work, but the hip had kept throbbing. It was slowly getting worse, and it was getting very hard to do massages. “I had to go to work,” she said. “So I just kept working through the pain, hoping it would clear up.”

After pointing out she had violated all the advice we give our clients (if I am your friend you can count on me to do so) we arranged for a massage over the Christmas holiday.

The pain had gotten a little better and a lot worse, waffling back and forth for several months, making it hard to walk, to drive, and especially to do massage. Sometimes it hurt to sit. It especially hurt to play racquetball. The pain was deep inside the hip joint, radiating around the capsule and now heading down the leg to the knee.

To make all of this more fun, my friend is hyper-mobile. She easily Gumbys through all kinds of twists and turns and impossible yoga stances. I like a challenge.

The pain and discomfort was evident when she came in for a massage. She stood, sort of, the affected side flamingo-ing up her good leg. A very frightening injury, to say the least. I asked her to stand up for me, feet even and weight 50-50 on each leg, while I looked at her feet.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” I asked. “The good news is I think I see what has gone wrong and can massage it. The bad news is you are just as human as the rest of us.”

Most of the time I look for hip trouble in the low back, but this was different. Here I was dealing with deep-seated pain, hypermobility, a backwards fall, and a few months of pain-enforcing activities. I checked the glutes for trigger points, massaging through the sheet to make the experience less gruesome. The glutes were sore and the sacrotuberous ligament felt taut on both sides. On the affected side, the right, the quadratus femoris felt like stone.

I had her go sideline to check the adductor magnus. Oh yes, this felt like a speed bump. I cross-fibered up and down the hump, hoping to feel some sign of the muscle letting go. I did the stretch, finding about half the expected range. Figure on a hyper mobile person, one-fourth the range.

It took another session, this one also to balance out the super-stressed pectineus and adductor brevis. The second time the adductor magnus felt more like muscle, but it still held trigger points like a string of pearls. I ended up working all the stressed muscles in the glutes and groin.

“So what did you mean about me being human?” she asked.

Ahh. Forceful lateral rotation of the right foot. She was massaging, and doing probably a lot of other things, with the right foot pointing laterally, heel in, toes out.

A pretty basic lesson that we all might take for granted. I had done a forceful lateral rotation while flipping out Wii bowling last year. I had to scream every time I took my foot off the gas pedal to touch the brake. While driving to work.

“Remember that both feet point in the direction of your stroke,” I said. A simple bit of advice that hopefully all student therapists hear in school. And if we forget, our hips will remind us.

Knee-Deep in Sheets

noreply@blogger.com (Lynna Dunn) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:00:54 PST

I love clean cotton sheets--I really do. At my business, we each did our own laundry when we were still very, very small, and I didn't mind a bit. Well, I didn't really like the hauling them to and from the business, to the car, to the house (repeat cycle), but the washing and folding process was very orderly and calming. Well... until there got to be so very many sheets, that getting my own household laundry done starting becoming a problem.

When the sheets started getting out of hand, my employer started looking at professional laundries. Now by professional laundry, I mean places like Darcie's, where individuals can go to use coin machines for their personal laundry, but where businesses can also drop off laundry to be washed and folded. The first one of these we went to charged us about $1.25 per pound to wash and fold our sheets. Sounds pretty cheap, right? Well, until you figure out that one sheet weighs roughly a pound, and that a sheet set is costing you about $2.50. And if you've basically been paying nothing while doing your own sheets, then turn around in one month and pay over $400 to a laundry for the same sheets, you can end up shocked and resentful.

Our next step would have been to get a quote from one of the larger services who deal exclusively in sheets, tablecloths, etc., and who pick up and drop off . . . cause if you're going to pay anyway, why do all that lugging? Or to ask the landlord if there was any chance of getting washer/dryer hook-ups in the basement of our building (not likely, but worth a shot). But then we thought, hmmmm, is there anyone on the team who needs extra funds? As it turns out, our newest LMP hire still had a patchy schedule, and she was willing to do the laundry for roughly $3.50 a load, detergent provided. If she charged the professional laundry fee of $1.25 a pound for one of her loads, it would be around $10--so you can easily see savings right there. The business not only saves money, but an employee who needs the cash gets it, and these sheets and loads add up.

Now at some point, this therapist's schedule may become so full that she can no longer do laundry for the business, but for now, I'm enjoying picking and choosing different top and bottom sheets for each massage on my massage table canvas. Maybe THAT'S actually my favorite part of doing the sheets :-)

Life Goes On

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:12:06 PST

Every week for the past 10 years, this client has come in for a wellness massage. This client’s plate is full. A small business, multiple children in expensive colleges, and the biggest reason he has for a weekly massage: his wife has lupus.

Weekly massages have helped along the way. Last month, this client told me “If I hadn't been getting massages, I think my head would have exploded a long time ago.”

It has been a hard row. Multiple treatments, some experimental, and now the lupus appears to be gone. But the damage to internal organs is great. His wife had emergency surgery last week and it is possible that the end is near.

I feel compassion for this client; I feel helpless, too. The one thing he and his family want most of all appears to be slipping away. This time the family Christmas may be the saddest of all.

I must say most people could not handle the stress of all this going on at once. Lots of people would shirk at least some of these problems if not all. It would be easier to think, “I didn't sign up for this.”

An acquaintance said those exact words to me one day when I was relating the story of how my spouse had a heart attack and bypass during a Hawaiian vacation. She would not stayed around, she said. It would have been a good time to exit, stage right, leaving the “relatives” to handle the situation.

I was shocked. I have to say, “I did not sign up for this,” never crossed my mind.

We don’t sign up for things knowing they are coming, of course. Things happen, life changes and we make the best of it. It is our lot in life to take good and hard times, challenges and joys.

How we do these things is our measure. Heroic measures by the day.

Rotating Migraines and Other Bumps on the Ligamentum Nuchae Highway

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:11:09 PST

Feeling around for trigger points all day, I am most impressed with the Ligamentum Nuchae. It has such abundant thickness, depth and tension. I marvel at the cummerbund design featuring what I feel is an actual forest of referring trigger points. It could be called the secret garden. There, all sorts of things grow in total seclusion.

I first started spending time on the ligamentum because of how it felt to massage people suffering with migraines. The migraine is by most accounts in the medical literature is a phenomenon of stress-dilated blood vessels. That said the recommendation is to do a general massage to release stress and avoid the pain zones.
But the dense thicket of TrPs in the posterior cranium has always pointed me straight to the ligamentum as the origin of pain.

Following where my fingers lead, I find that the root of migraines often land in the convergence of two muscle tendons – the twining fascicles of the rubbery sternocleidomastoids and the tough-as-nails suboccipitals right in the heart of the ligamentum.

Slowly rotating the head to the affected side, the SCM fascia pops up, usually leading clients to say I am on target. Moving the cranium in a slight nod, the dense fibers of the suboccipitals cross and intertwine with the SCM. This zone is a perfect storm of adhesed, anaerobic connective tissue. That is usually when clients volunteer that I have found “ground zero.”

If my hands can suppose what is going on during a migraine, I would turn away from the dilated blood vessel model and instead look to chronic, cumulative TrPs, activated by stressed posture. As the connective tissue tightens, the TrPs activate and begin to send impulses to the pain zones associated with migraines – usually the unilateral area near the temples.

This zone is a literal highway of headache and stiffness.

Infographic: Benefits of Massage

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:23:00 PST

The amazing crew at SubmitInfographics made a chart about benefits of massage for massage therapy patients. Feel free to share with clients!

Clients Say the Darndest Things

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:16:29 PST

It's the time of year when I can enjoy the lively recollections of table-talk from my massage clients.

My favorite Thanksgiving comment this year: "l love my parents but thank g-- they live in New York."

What pops out of people's mouths in a session can be very touching, funny, sad and true.

Nothing brings people to share more than close quarters with their extended families.

Some more favorites:

"No matter how many times I try to change subject to the weather or the dog, my sister manages to start WWIII."

"My family had plenty to talk about at dinner this year. I refused to cook so now I'm the Grinch and Scrooge."

"Next year we are going to Ecuador so we can get out of seeing everyone."

"This is our first year without mom. We sat around and told funny stories about how she would trick us into behaving while she cooked."

"We had Chinese food and went to see the Muppets."

"My gift-wish this year is for the kids to get jobs and move out."

"What happens during Thanksgiving dinner usually comes up again during Christmas."

Yep, it's my busiest time of year Thank heaven for the holidays. Perhaps I should order extra oil. Happy Holidays!

Finding the Right Position

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:04:36 PST

I have had a couple of massage students ask me how to find a job when they graduate from massage school. Oh heck, that’s a big one. How do you look when you are not sure what type of massage practice you want? If you have an idea of where you want to start, that is a big step forward.

Given the sluggish economy, though, going for your ideal setting may not be in the cards. You may be in an area where you need experience before you can decide what you want to do. How do you know you will like or fit into a setting before you have tried it?

My sage advice on this subject is to jump in. If jobs are tight, apply for lots of them. If no one is hiring, tell people you will cover on-calls or vacations. Get your license/credentials so you can start right away. Just get out there.

How you apply matters. I used to hire people a lot, and I saw some potentially spectacular therapists go down in flames for dumb reasons. It doesn’t matter how good you are, be on time and dress for an interview as if you are ready to start work. No jeans, no sleepy-head. No broken cars or missing babysitters. If you can’t show up and look nice for an interview, no one will ever discover your gifts.

Also, pay drops when jobs are tight. If you expect to be paid well even though you have no experience, it is not going to happen. Get in the door and ask during the interview for your performance goals. Keep notes and ask for help in achieving those goals. When you perform, managers will notice and will want to keep you around.

If you experience rejection, or blow an interview, remember everyone has an experience like that. Use it to your advantage and learn from it. Persistent people get jobs and become successful. People who give up at the first obstacle show up at bars at opening time.

There are lots of “you”s in the above paragraphs, and that is what it takes. Effort, focus and follow-up, all done by you. Hey, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

P.S. Make sure your nails are trimmed and beveled. You don’t want to kill the client during an interview massage.

A Trip to Inglewood

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:16:00 PST

I have been putting this trip to Inglewood off for five years. Sunday, it was finally time to go, to get it done.

We drove up the world’s busiest-seeming freeway to Inglewood, a city across the I-405 from the infamous Los Angeles International Airport. I vaguely remembered the wide city streets, the jumble of 50-something apartment buildings, the “You Buy, We Fry” joints. I’d been there 26 years ago, on a bittersweet, horribly hot summer day. On this return trip, Sunday, Nov. 20th, it was raining.

When I do massages for people going through life changes, I can feel the tension, the anticipation, the dread, the excitement. The life change might be a wedding day, a retirement, the death of a spouse, death of a parent or child.

When the client is in mourning, I have felt the grief inside the thoracic area, the held shallow breaths, the emotional disconnection from daily life. I’ve always found it special to be able to do massages to relax someone in mourning and help them reconnect with the fact that life goes on.

Life does go on, and it seems to help to share those feelings and be nurtured with a massage. I felt that empathy again on the way to Inglewood, wondering why this neighborhood seemed so different yet unchanged at the same time.

Inglewood Cemetery is incredibly large, set on rolling hills once used for farms. It dates from 1905. The massive entrance opens to huge statues of winged angels, mature trees, ringed by high-rise mausoleums with incredible stained glass windows. I watched ducks and geese peck at the lawn by a man-made lake. It is so large, you need to get a map and drive in.

My first trip here, I had brought my mother, who had never healed from the fact that her Dad went to work one day and never came home. He was killed in an industrial accident when she was 3 years old. She didn’t quite remember everything that had gone on, and shortly after his death, her mother moved the family away from Los Angeles.

I did the research at the public library, sent away for the death certificate and found a copy of the news story that appeared in the paper when he died. He had been trying to save two other construction workers from a live wire when he died of electrocution. The death certificate listed Inglewood Cemetery.

We drove up the same freeway to this now-inner-city neighborhood, got lost and asked directions, trying not to look like rubes. What had been farmland and orchards in my grandfather’s time was now a bedroom community, largely African-American, dense with people, soul-food restaurants and cars.

My mom and I found the grave with the help of the cemetery caretaker. A flat marble headstone, dated 1929, in the center of a massive pot of single graves. She sat by the grave and talked to her Dad for a long time while we fried in the sun. We made the drive home in near-silence. When she was able to speak, she said: “Thanks for taking me.”

Mom died five years ago, and I have had her ashes sitting in the entertainment center at my home. At first, I couldn't even look at the box, let alone think of making the trip to Inglewood again. Finally on Sunday, her birthday, I was able to make the drive.

We found my grandfather’s grave and placed her ashes there. My spouse held the umbrella while I said a few prayers and thanked Mom for taking care of me. I thanked her Dad for taking care of her. My mother was my first experience with nurturing touch. It is because of her that I have the empathy and nurturing touch to be a massage therapist.

Northwest Academy for the Healing Arts

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:09:07 PST

We are pleased to introduce Seattle’s newest massage therapy school. Northwest Academy for the Healing Arts is one of Seattle’s only independent and privately owned massage schools. Located in the heart of West Seattle, this school is dedicated to a high standard of education for its students. Students benefit from structured programs, small class sizes, student-focused instruction and open communication.

Northwest Academy for the Healing Arts is approved by the Washington State Board of Massage, which allows students to apply for a Washington State Massage License upon completion of the program. Northwest Academy offers a 7-month morning program, 9-month evening program and 12-month weekend program and boasts the smallest class sizes compared to other Seattle Massage Schools. Smaller classes allow teachers to get to know their students, creating student- focused lesson plans which reflect the needs of the class collectively. This not only improves the retention of students, it also allows for open communication.

Since Northwest Academy is a small facility, administrative staff has an open door policy. Instructors and students always have access to the director of the school and administrative staff which increases communication and leads to constructive feedback about the school. This environment lets students directly shape the school and improve experiences for future classes. It also leads to accomplishments such as Northwest Academy graduates maintaining a 100% pass rate for the National Massage Licensing Exam on the first try; a huge accomplishment for both students and faculty.

By dedicating their efforts into creating structured programs, maintaining small class sizes, student-focused instruction and open communication, Northwest Academy for the Healing Arts is re-defining the massage school experience.

We are thrilled to welcome Northwest Academy of the Healing Arts to the Find Touch community!

The Sophie Pregancy Pillow: Pregnancy Prone

noreply@blogger.com (Lynna Dunn) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:53:39 PST

When I first started doing pregnancy massage, I went for the old "grab a big pillow in side-lying and slide another between the knees" method. I really hated the "pregnancy cushion system" that we had: it seemed to have about a million mysterious parts, none of which wanted to hold together in position.

However comfortable they are, though, side-lying pillows do have their limitations. For one thing, you really can't get in enough good neck work. For another, you spend precious time switching sides and restuffing the pillows into position. And most importantly, the client, doesn't ever get to lie face-down. In interviewing pregnant clients, I found that lying facedown was a much missed luxury, and that they would please-please-pretty-please love to lie facedown for an hour.

Then I got pregnant myself, which decided the issue: we would try a "pregnancy cushion system." I avoided the awful one that I'd first been exposed to, and ended up coveting the Prego Pillow. However, the Prego Pillow retails at about $350, which was too rich for our blood at this time. Instead, we opted for trying the Sophie Pregancy Pillow, which retails for a much more affordable $129. We purchased the professional version instead of the home version, which means it's a little sturdier and made of wipe-able material. The Sophie comes with a bag that covers the entire system: in this way, the fabric itself forms a sling over the structure for the client's belly. However, we found that covering the system with a flat sheet and tucking it loosely around the Sophie works just as well. The Sophie does lack the built-in headrest of the Prego Pillow, but we found that double-stacking unattached face cradles works really well (the instruction videos show the use of a regular bed pillow).

Thus far, our clients are very happy lying on their tummies using the Sophie Pregnancy Pillow. If you too have been coveting the Prego Pillow or another more expensive pregnancy pillow system, give the Sophie a try instead--it may be well worth it for your practice.

Goals in Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:30:33 PST

One of the things I do every few months is look at my practice goals. Am I working enough? Too much? Am I happy with the clientele? How do I feel about my own massage health and abilities? Enough clients? Doing the work I want to do? Does my practice meet the clients’ needs? Am I making enough money?

Those questions, I suspect, come up to any massage therapist wherever or however they practice. I make a special effort to not only phrase the questions but craft the answers. Am I working toward goals? Treading water? Am I feeling behind or ahead of the curve? These are not easy questions, and it takes objectivity, which about oneself is often in short supply.

Of course, the economy has taken a hellacious slide, and there have been challenges to meet in the face of shrinking income. For all therapists it has been a rough couple of years in terms of business conditions.
I started my private practice in a recession, although that one was shorter-lived and less severe, some days it was a challenge to simply put one foot in front of the other. I remember having itsy-bitsy goals and trying to expand them as my confidence grew. I practiced my practice a lot. I learned to not take rejection to heart, and to stay positive and go with the flow.

If that sounds easy, of course, it isn’t. This year when setting goals I had to list quite a few. One was spending more days at the office to lengthen opportunities to fill the book. More effort to arrive on time whether booked or not, and that’s a tough one, especially after a late night of work. Some of it simply came down to having faith – faith in myself and faith in God above, that I can do what I set my mind to do.

Mind-set is only part of the deal. One of the concrete goals I set was to add about $300 to the weekly gross, in order to make some other goals possible. I looked at what I could do, what my counterparts were doing, and decided to stick to my core business – massage – instead of looking for multiple streams of income that required selling other products.

That was a tough one, because I am good at selling products. I often trained other therapists at my spas on how to sell services and products to customers. But I looked at the sign next to my door – it said massage, not vitamins, essential oils, health water or other products.

I also decided to reward clients for their regularity and faithfulness, rather than giving percent-offs and specials for new clients.

Now as the calendar year draws to a close, I can say I did well on a few things, not so good on others. Getting the gross increased took practice, but it has been steady improvement and now seems second nature. I’m still leaving my house like Dagwood running for the bus on some mornings, and I’m not consistent with client rewards.

These last two months of the year, I’m going to hit the goals again and try to make them work. When I need to alter my practice, I look to myself. Can I do anything about the big things like recessions or more competition or market pricing?

Absolutely. I can work on my own goals and do better. Who was it that said: There’s never any competition going that extra mile in the fast lane….Good gravy, I think it was Mary Kay.

Stress and the Disappearing Client

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:31:20 PST

This client was as regular as clockwork. Once a week, during the day, she would come in for a massage to help with an achy hip and stiff neck.

Over the course of several sessions, we identified some contributing factors, such as a high truck step-in that aggravated her hip. We also changed sleeping pillows and adjusted her sitting and walking posture. She liked her massages most of all, however, because it helped with the stress of caring for her ailing husband.

One week she had to take a break for a cold, the next week I was on vacation. She made an appointment for the third week, but called to cancel.

Time slipped by, I called and left a message here and there. I thought something was up. Did I do something she didn't like? Was she seeing another therapist? Did my office look dirty? When clients disappear, you go over the questions in your mind. Is it possible that they have voted with their feet? That’s what most people do, when it comes to doctors, hair stylists, massage therapists, etc. The feet vote and they make tracks.

I looked over my notes and decided to just wait and see. As far as I could tell, she had gotten good results and was doing better each time she saw me. I knew something was up, and my radar, it turned out, was working just fine.

I saw her last week. “ I've driven passed here so many times, and I wanted to stop in,” she said. “But I just couldn't. I had to go to the hospital and be with him.”

Her ailing husband, turned out, had major surgery that did not go well. He had not one but three drug-resistant internal infections after surgery. It had been touch and go for months, to the point they had said their goodbyes to each other one night in intensive care. She had slept in the horrible orange visitor chairs, ate cafeteria food, went home just long enough to feed the dogs.

I suppose that massage therapists expect clients will increase their visits during periods of high stress, but I must admit there are some things that capture all of one’s attention.

“It sucks when all of the people at the hospital know your name,” she said.

I have to agree. I had been on vacation in Hawaii five years ago when my spouse had a heart attack. We had stayed in Honolulu for an extra month while honey recovered from a bypass. I had slept in those horrible chairs, ate the scary cafeteria food (in Hawaii they love SPAM!) and in general ignored myself while taking care of my sweetie. Two nights before we left, I realized I felt about 140 years old and went for a long massage. My, my how it felt good.

“All that matters now is that he is better and you can relax,” I said. “And believe me, I know how you feel.”

How Well Do We Remember Our CEU’s?

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:40:21 PDT

Most massage therapists take continuing education classes, our beloved CEU’s. They usually start with a bit of lecture, some demonstration, a bit of practice. Then break for lunch. Back for a bit of talk, a bit more practice, and it is a wrap.

I am thinking I learned a lot in those classes, I usually take about 20 hours or so a year, and heck, I must have learned some good stuff. Or did I?

At school, we got the same deal but with a lot more practice during, after and then at the start of the next class. We practiced more, got yelled at a bit, then take a practical test. I’m wondering if the extra practice review and testing made us learn more and with better retention.

I have to admit, after a Chinese food lunch, no one in my muscle skeletal ceu class looked like they would remember what they practiced. There’s a lot of shuffling on and off the tables and there are always a few participants who are showing their own stuff during the practice stuff instead of trying to imitate the teacher. Or something happens in the class that makes it memorable, but not its subject matter. For instance, one fellow in my forearm class had scouring-pad body hair. Tough on my forearms but nothing like what his forearms felt like during my turn. Talk about a body scrub!

Oh, well.

When I was in school, I would try to practice again as soon as I got home from class. It was a good 30-minute drive home, and I would run in to the house and practice on the cat, convinced one more run-through would improve the “memory in my hands.” One happy little Tommy cat, I must say. Then I graduated. For months Tommy would flop on his side on the couch the moment the key turned in the door. He would look at me long time.

I flipped through my CEUs recently while renewing national boards, and I realized I have the brain of a feeble hamster. I learned in Thai massage class that I hated massage on the floor and might one day need a hip implant. Snorting up blinded samples in an aromatherapy class gave me a floor-dropping migraine. I worked in a plasticized cadaver class with a psychic lady who told me to eat mangoes. At the start of a lymph class, the teacher admitted to having never taken a lymph class. I got to work with one fellow in a shoulder sideline class who I swear wore Richard Simmons gym wear.

Wait a minute, where is the fine anatomy, the finesse of positioning, the goody inside stuff that we paid for?
Frankly, I have no idea. I think I am doing things I learned in class, but I have no idea if the teacher would recognize it if demonstrated. Trouble with a lot of classes, there is no time for review and re-practice under the watchful eye of a teacher. I could be doing MFR of the intracostals, or I could be playing chopsticks on a toy piano.

Well, perhaps. I try to get a practice in with another therapist as soon as I finish a class. I would rather find out from a test-body therapist how something feels than experiment on a client. And I have to assume I have some clue to basic massage techniques as they apply to different areas of the body. And if it is intricate and I don’t think I have it, I don’t do it on clients.

I think procedural doctors must have this quandary, too, when they take a CEU class. Is a weekend in Vegas class watching surgery and doing it on cadaver or animal parts enough training? Would I get a nose job from that doctor? Perhaps the doctors should give each other nose jobs first. But I digress....

P.S. Find Touch now has a CEU board - check it out if you haven't already.

Where is all the Carpal?

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:00:26 PDT

So, going on my 16th year in massage therapy, I have to ask: Has anyone out there in practice-land ever seen a real case of carpal tunnel syndrome?

Please, I wish to be enlightened. I’ve been beating the flexors for years, and this condition seems as elusive as Sasquatch. Every time I think I see a CTS coming in, I find something else entirely. Not that I’m complaining, it just seems with so much CTS surgery out there, I should have, by this time, seen at least one.

What do I find? Well, most of it is on the TRP charts by Travell & Simons, but enough is different I’ll run it by you.

Mostly, I find screaming, adhesed flexors. Flexors so stressed from computer work, driving and video games that they feel like steel bedsprings in wet cement. And heck, wringing them out with some myo-fascial release combined with pronation and supination seems to open them up. Then they seem to respond to active stretching while under compression. Then 20 minutes of ice. Overnight, some sporty stretch tape helps draw lymph from the flexors up through the elbow. Does this work for other massage therapists?

Then I track down parasthesia. For funny feelings on the back of the hand, I flush triceps up into the armpit, followed by Trigger Point Release and Passive Range of Motion. The ants-on-the-hand seems to clear up as soon as I do the TRP.

For the rubber-band around the wrist feeling, I go for massive TRPs in the infraspinatus and teres-ses.

Definitely sideline and definitely slow and easy with lots of Swedish warm-up. I swear the back of the arm rotator TRPs are like Roman Candles.

For the stigmata feeling in the center of the palm, I look to the subscapularis. But on most adults it might take two or three sessions of sideline Swedish and light probing to get near it without killing the client. Once I can get my pinkies in there, I’ll go for light TRP compression. If they are excited by the results, I’ll venture into soft, slow range of motion.

Latissimus, egad, seem to do the last three fingers, while pectoris major does the first three. If I can get permission to get near the pec. minor with just the lightest, touch, it works just dandy in opening the entire thoracic outlet.

Massage for the scalenes, of course, eliminates distal finger tingles.

Now looking back at that list, where exactly is the need to rub the carpal tunnel? Heck, I am a massage therapist, so I always rub them anyways. But come on; is there any real carpal out there?

Support Hose: Stodginess Never Felt So Good

noreply@blogger.com (Lynna Dunn) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:28:41 PDT

Everyone has her Achilles heel: mine is actually an Achilles vein. Or veins.

Even as a small child, you could track these fine blue veins under this nearly translucent skin. By my early teens, I was getting spider veins around my knees, and the children I babysat made up games involving my legs: "Here's a road, and here's a road, and here's a town . . ." It drove me nuts. I ask my doctor father what I could do to make the spider veins stop. "Walk on your arms," he said unhelpfully. "Or you could go ahead and start wearing support hose." Support hose! So not-sexy. I absolutely would not do it.

Well, I was 25 years younger then. And being sexy was much more important than being comfortable. Oh, and I wasn't 11 weeks pregnant, which I am now. And let me tell you: by week 9, some of the superficial veins in my calves and around my knees were already bumpy and sore, not giving me happy visions of what they might be when I reached 39 weeks pregnant. I bought the damn support hose!

Well, not without some primary research, which can be a little confusing. The good news is, support hose--at least "medical grade" support hose, known as "compression stockings"--really work. The pain was entirely erased by wearing them during the day. The bad news is, they can be pricey, starting out at around $25 and going up to over $100. Also, medical support hose come in about four "tensions": light, medium, firm, and extra firm. All of these tensions have numbers associated with them, and the highest tensioned hose actually require a prescription! That blows my mind, since squirming into my medium tension hose requires about ten minutes and the help of a small construction crane. Finally, they also come in knee-high, thigh-thigh, and waist-high, not to mention foot-less versions of the last two. So you have to find a happy mix of affordability, sizing, etc., though I would definitely just avoid knee-highs (talk about cutting off circulation).

Some medical supply stores will measure you to determine size, though I threw the nice store lady off when I presented her with a large thigh, extra-large waist, and queen calves (no, I don't often get to wear the more stylish boots). But, the extra-large size ended up fitting me just fine. Actually, I have heard that you can get "custom" support hose which are fitted every inch or so all the way up the leg, though I shudder to think what those cost. My pair were about $43, and worth it, since I now have no pain and no (current) worry that my legs are going to cut short my massage work during my pregnancy.

So if you or any of your clients are suffering from leg pain--pregnant or not--due to venous issues, I HIGHLY recommend support hose. Sexy is good, but sometimes stodgy is so much sweeter.

Why Do Men Do What They Do?

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:35:06 PDT

Massaging folks who like to exercise and play hard, I have to say that some people amaze me. Well, actually, specifically men who do some of the strangest, most dangerous things in the name of fun and fitness.

Here, direct from the secret hidden files of my massage practice, is a list of the worst, hall-of-fame list of strange things guys have done having fun and staying fit.

While pitching for the local adult baseball league, he threw out his arm at the start on the big regional tournament. No problem. He just pitched with the other arm. All five games.

After working two solid weeks of unreal overtime, he decided to go for a teamwork dinner with the guys. Hey, let’s go to the big family-style Italian restaurant late at night. Let’s eat five courses. Next day, let’s go to the gym to try and burn off 11,000 calories at once by doing lots of snap jerks. Seemed like great ideas at the time.
He picked a balmy, 100-degree day to go bicycling in the hills. A muscle-building, stamina challenge pedaling five miles uphill. Just before he got to the top, he had to find some thick bushes so he could throw up while soiling his pants. I suggested he take identification on his next bike ride so the widow wouldn’t have to wait long for her check.

Hey, running those big hoses off the fire truck all day can be pretty tiring. Why don’t we all go to the new trampoline place after work? A bunch of stressed middle-aged firefighters playing team dodge-ball on trampolines? What could possibly go wrong?

I just don’t understand that behavior. Why would anyone play dodge-ball on trampolines when they could relax after work with a bubble bath and a gossip magazine?

It Never Rains in Southern California – That’s Why Everything Leaks

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:15:21 PDT

Ok, it is my turn to whine about weather and keeping the office dry. This time we had an inch of rain – nothing to most folks outside of my little slice of heaven, but it was a positive drenching in parched Southern California.

And I thought all was well. I popped into the office to set up for a string of clients, the rain soaking my little-used rain jacket – and I noticed the door seemed a little sticky. The threshold was wet. Hmm. Well, it was raining out.

I made some phone calls and realized while I was talking to my favorite acupuncturist that the doormat inside was dark with wet. Hmm. It should just have a footprint or two….

Oh Dear! The rain was flooding in from the soaked threshold right onto the wood floor. The laminate wood floor.

Thank heavens I had a nice batch of freshly laundered hand towels. I mopped up the entryway only to see the water flood in again. I stepped over to the sink. And heard a squish. As I walked across the office, water sprang up in between the laminate planks. Not good. Apparently when I opened the door that morning, I had broken the seal between the door and threshold. All that water was wicking in underneath the floor jamb and soaking the laminate.

I had a new set of designer bath sheet towels (off the screaming discount aisle, dontcha know) and I put them to use. The landlady and super came over and clucked. Fans. We need fans.
My first client was in the middle of a book tour and had done six conventions in like five days. “We can still do the massage, right?”

Ah, sure. We’ll be fine. I did massages while the super sopped incessantly in the reception area. At the end of the day, I felt a bit frazzled as I loaded my soaked, now-brown towels into the hamper in my car. The building crew would take care of it.

The next day my first client was a new client. I escorted her over the towel dam and through half-removed sponge-bob oak floor and the giant hair-dryer fans. She filled out the intake. I realized I could not talk to her about why she was seeking massage with the fellows there.

“We’re going to use the office next door while the guys sort this out,” I told her. The acupuncturist next to me graciously donated the use of a room. Nice table. A face cradle from about 1980, the kind with three hard pads on a square fixed frame. I don’t think they use the prone position much. My fancy-adjustable-memory-foam face cradle didn’t fit the holes.

Lucky for me (!!!) she was coming in for chest pains. After running up a nice bill at the doctors, this lady was here to find out if trigger point could get rid of her chest pain, which radiated down her left arm.

“I’m beginning to think I’m crazy,” she said. “They can’t find anything wrong.”

“Well, you might be crazy,” I told her, “And it is quite possible I’m crazy too. But it may have nothing to do with this pain.”

Cane and Able

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:20:37 PDT

Ok, I admit it. Like a lot of massage therapists, I have a vast collection of self-massaging tools. There are vibrators that can twist around to the upper back, magnetic chi vibrators, full back shiatsu rollers, tennis balls in hosiery, and of course heat pads, ice packs, moist heat packs, liniments and therapeutic salts.

Hey, I don’t really need all that stuff, it is market research! Uh-huh. That’s it. Market research. My clients need advice on what helps and what doesn’t, sure.

Well, having been in the spa biz and now independent practice for 11 years, I’ve got a big bunch of white storage boxes full of payroll records, receipts, etc. that have been looming in the garage for quite a while now. Supposedly you only have to keep the stuff for seven years, and I have never cleaned out the crud.

Sunday morning spouse and I, and a good friend, reached out to the crud, dragging it out from the back of the garage and filling bags for the shredder service. Of course, first we had to move a bunch of stuff to get to the boxes, and organize the Christmas stuff and pull out the herbal wrap system I bought used (and never used because of the huge linen sheets) and shift tons of other stuff including my mother-in-law’s collection of folded happy meal boxes and paper dolls.

We stretched first; we had water and chairs in the shade; and we took breaks.

Five hours later we looked like an assisted living glee club.

Which brings me back to my personal massage tool collection: I’m proud of it, having spent hours foraging at massage conventions, gadget stores, garage sales, etc. First I used my neck-holder, called the Real-Ease, which provides passive traction and restores the cervical curve. I drew a bath and tossed in Epsom salts and Kniepp Herbal bath. I highly recommend the Melissa variety.

Then I sprawled on the yoga mat, running my tennis-balls-in-hosiery up and down the spinal lamina grooves. Then I hit the knots in the levator scapula and rotator cuff with the magnetic chi vibrator. As I write this, sort of sitting up, I’m thinking about using all of my ice packs. I like the gel ones with the Velcro straps best. Where did I put the MSM/Arnica cream?

Who Is Tougher? Big Bruisers or Delicate Dynamos

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:25:13 PDT

Lots of massage therapists enjoy working with athletes so much they make a specialty of it, which is to say they look for people whose routine is extreme. I’m not one of those people, though I have to admit when I get one pro hockey player on my schedule, it naturally tends to fill up with a few more players referred by their friends.

I found myself actually watching games as this happened, largely because I was trying to match up the mayhem I ran into on the table with the events that created them.

Hockey apparently is exciting to watch, but this was lost on me. I couldn’t see the tiny object of the game as it whipped by, and I watched in horror as people dressed in what looked like fat suits charged at each other at 50 miles per hour. The saving grace of this game, it appeared, is that people collided on ice, keeping the momentum going instead of stopping into the corpus delecti.

“Hockey guys are the toughest people in the world,” I thought as I watched what would later end up on my table as separated shoulders, massive bone bruises and protracted hamstrings.

Then she came in.

Swan Lake was playing down the street at the big theater and this lady was one of the swans. All 94 pounds of her.

“I am so sore,” she said. “And I have two shows tomorrow.”

She was, of course, hyper mobile, but she had spots of neck and lumbar tension that reminded me of steel-bound cables, like the ones that hold up the Golden Gate Bridge. Then I saw the bruises. Huge, purple, gold, yellow and green, going up each leg and one the serratusi.

“How did this happen?” I asked, thinking this was from some violent encounter.

“Well, when the guys catch you in the air, if they don’t catch you right, they just grab hard,” she said. “They try to do it right, but if they don’t, they can’t just drop you. We have to make it look like everything is perfect.”

Wow. Dancers, especially ballerinas, have to make it look good even when it isn’t. At least the hockey guys get to grunt and scream and even get an icepack before going back to the game. There are no corner guys in Swan Lake.

“Ballerinas are the toughest people in the world,” I concluded.

Good Intentions and Messy Manifestations

noreply@blogger.com (Sue Peterson) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:42:19 PDT

Working with clients who have had early interventions for muscle-skeletal problems has proven quite interesting. Along with all the reasons to have a massage, these clients have an extra agenda: They want to feel good about areas of their bodies that have been identified early on as not being quite right.

For some people the area that has not been right has a special meaning to their whole. If knock-kneed or pigeon-toed, legs are often restricted by braces, leaving the child locked down while others their age are learning to run and play. A good amount of senescence, the sense that the body is in balance and harmonious with gravity, is lost unlearned and unavailable.

One response to bracing is the good-sport carry-on persistence that leads the child to ignore pain and awkwardness in an attempt to keep up and fit in. In adults, I have noticed this is big trouble when it comes to recognizing the difference between signs of injury and simple fatigue. The attitude is that no matter what, they will finish the task – even if it is an impossible distance for someone with rotated hips.

Iron Man had managed to complete nine of the Hawaiian endurance races, despite having pigeon-toes corrected forcibly with heavy braces when he was an infant. During his last run season he had developed a deep joint infection and inflammation in his hip, yet he had pulled off the training and races.

I met him five years later, when he was long past his Iron Man ambitions and found himself limping and in pain. I had hopes it was soft tissue hardening, but a visit to the orthopedist showed a fully necrotic trochanter and femoral shaft, leading to the conclusion he must have run with a massive infection. During that infection, the vein supplying blood to the bone had been destroyed.

Part of his recovery included a hip implant and a new attitude toward pain. Yet how do you establish pain boundaries when a person is used to ignoring the pain? I found that massage helped him somewhat with his recovery from surgery, but the big issues really were the purview of another type of therapy.

Another client had struggled with sciatica for several years. As a youngster her pigeoned toes had been over-corrected with braces. I was able to suggest early on that she avoid walking through pain, and her hip responded to massage therapy.

As she recovered, however, she kept firing her personal trainers for not being challenging enough. About a year later she had another bout of sciatica. I asked how she would handle hip pain in the midst of one of her favorite activities, walking the dog.

“Just keep going until the pain goes away,” she said.

I fought the urge to bang my head on the massage table.