Monthly Archives: June 2021

Ian and students pose for a picture

New Massage Sloth CE Workshops!

I’m back to teaching! I’m offering my 16 credit hour course for massage therapists called “Myofascial Swedish” twice in the coming months: In Pensacola, FL on August 5-6, and in Huntsville, AL on September 9-10. You can find out more (and sign up right online) by going here: https://massagesloth.com/ce/ This course is NCBTMB, Florida, and New York approved.

What is Myofascial Swedish? It’s a way for Swedish practitioners to slow down and add some fascial drag to their techniques. It’s a way for myofascial practitioners to get their flow back and bring some feel-good Swedish spirit to their routine. No matter your approach, we’ll practice using gravity to drive our techniques, and we’ll focus on bringing the body together instead of dividing it apart. When you leave you’ll have useful new routines for working with pain conditions in the back, shoulder, jaw, and hips (and everything you need to make your own routines). I’d love to answer questions about it below, so hit me up in the comments! ... continue reading.

Guided Meditation for Sleep (with soothing massage voice)

Let me know what you think! More like this? Stick to massage, for Heaven’s sake? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Video: Self-massage for Singers

I’ve spent the last year going slightly mad, and also watching lots of vocal coaching on YouTube. Over that time I’ve been using self-massage to keep my throat happy and healthy, which I talk about here:

Mostly this is an excuse to get back into gear with an easy video, but I’d love feedback from singers! For massage therapists: If you’ve got singers, public speakers, Twitch streamers, or other professionals who give their vocal cords frequent high-intensity workouts, just realize that you don’t need to target any muscles specifically, and that work in the area doesn’t need to be a direct confrontation. By engaging the superficial fascia on and around the anterior neck and putting it into traction, you’re sending powerful stretch signals to the spinal cord, both from the fascia, and from the embedded muscles. Just by dragging skin up along the track of the SCMs, you’re putting the extrinsic laryngeal muscles under traction. By going slowly here, you can send a signal that these muscles can reduce their tone — and in doing so, you can give your clients a better internal feel for these muscles. They might even use that awareness to prevent strain in the future! ... continue reading.