I am excited to report the results of our last workshop to increase flexibility and movement.
I recently enjoyed seeing a dear long-term client for her massage appointment. She thanked me for our workshop and told me she kept practicing the exercises she remembered. When I worked on her neck, her body responded and received the work easily.
I received a message the next day from her reporting that her neck felt one hundred percent better. I was pleased and of course patted myself on the back whilst saying good therapists! Truth be told, while I am very pleased she felt better, sometimes I wonder if I could have done something to allow her to have felt better sooner.
The reality is that she participated and did the work that is her part. We both did our job, but is there more?
When I first started my Massage Career, bodywork was more of a passive modality. Along the way, I met like-minded practitioners like Julie, who did some things I hadn’t thought of and so I watched them and I would incorporate some of what they knew into my own teachings. But I also wanted to learn how to help clients take responsibility for their structural health, and that can’t be passive, it has to be active. It’s no longer a case of massage therapist working on a body, rather it’s one of us working together to keep the body healthy and flexible.
When we worked together teaching a class or helping a client,we wanted the same things for our students. We realized if we armed our people with knowledge of their structure and gave them logical helpful ways to tune their bodies they would have a better shot at longevity.
Our hope for them was and is to have comfortable bodies,not just old beat up bodies,but gently used kindly treated ones.
We were way ahead or the game really. The insurance driven medical market provides more life saving surgeries and joint replacement,but less time is given to help with hands on healing. They operate on people, who then go home and don’t understand how to properly heal from their surgery. It’s a good idea that never works the way it should for many people.
The boomerang effect of that is a general public has begun to take things into their own hands. They tend to learn more about their bodies and what other ways there are of keeping them going. It’s a side effect of living longer,the people who want a high quality life with put in the effort, and we’re here to help tt manifest with them.
Valentina Boonstra
