Monthly Archives: August 2017

Massage Video: Deep Tissue Massage Basics (Working with the Whole Body)

This week’s video is another deep tissue basics tutorial: How to work with the body as a whole.

One thing I love about massage is how it can make me feel more deeply connected to my body—and, as a client, an occasional frustration I have is leaving a session feeling cut into pieces, or treated like a flat surface.

In this video, I emphasize four ways of highlighting the interconnectedness of the body, hopefully in ways that are easily integrated into any modality. Let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see in the future!

Massage Tutorial: Serratus Anterior (and its friends)

Does your massage client have rib pain? Would you like to work with the thoracic region more thoroughly? Here’s how I go about it.

Something that I hope to demonstrate with this video is an approach that was years in the making—instead of working on specific muscles, or stripping longitudinally or transversely, I’ve started to embrace the torso as a whole. By hooking in and dragging the thoracic region in different directions, purposely changing the shape of the client’s body, I’m able to work with the many muscles that criss-cross the region while acknowledging the holistic three-dimensionality of the upper body.

Let me restate that in a way that’s less weird: I’ve found clinical value in working more broadly with the thoracic muscles. I used to isolate them, stripping and compressing muscles that I thought were responsible for low back pain, or chest pain. By broadening my approach and moving beyond origin and insertion, I find that my clients get a better sense of how their torso is put together, and they tend to stand up with tangible results: Being able to breathe easier and stand taller. Even if these are temporary (and they are), that change demonstrates that such things are possible. It lets the client know that touch and movement are capable of making them more comfortable in their own body. ... continue reading.