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Massage Therapy

Massage is a healing art. If you develop good hand skills you will become a competent massage practitioner; if you study hard and really think about what you are doing, you will become a massage therapist; if you add to this a loving and open heart, you will become a healer. Without Love there can be no Healing.

Deborah and I started our careers as Massage Therapists and even though I rarely do a full, stand alone, massage treatment these days, the art of massage will always be fundamental to my perspective.

Massage comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. There are a wide variety of massage categories, with new fancy variations being made up on a daily basis. Here's a brief guide to some of the more common ones:

Acupressure

Direct pressure on the sore bits, with thumbs or palms or finger tips. Acupressure is used to reduce spasms and stagnation in the soft tissues. Like other TCM practices, acupressure is practised in the context of the full range of Oriental Medicine theories and perspectives

Deep Tissue Massage

As it sounds, this style of massage focuses on the deeper layers of soft tissue. The idea is to soften the deep muscle structures and to break up adhesions in the layers of connective tissue. The technique makes extensive use of a deep, slow, concentrated, sliding pressure with the tips of the thumbs or fingers and sometimes the knuckles or palms. Naturally, if the therapist is skilful they will take care to thoroughly warm the tissues before applying heavy pressure and will remain sensitive to the pain threshold of the patient.

The term Deep Tissue Massage is virtually interchangeable with others such as Connective Tissue Massage, Myo-Fascial Release, Myotherapy and Neuromuscular Technique.

Invigoration Massage

This is the diametric opposite to relaxation massage. Rather than sedating the nerves you would stimulate them with fast stroking, hard rubbing, friction and percussion. The massage would of necessity be much shorter and the effect is to leave the patient with glowing skin and feeling very much awake.