2020 is the year that I do some travelling and teaching around the US. I’ve got a class approved by NCBTMB and everything! If you’d like to join my mailing list to find out when and where (and to influence where I head!), click here and fill out the form. More on this soon!
In this video I talk about “floating” a lot. This is something that you’ll need to experience to appreciate. Have a friend or colleague apply some deep static pressure somewhere on your body (I demonstrate this on the low back), and then either swoop out, or take about 10 seconds to gradually decrease their pressure until they’re off the body. I think you’ll find that this second approach feels a lot different, and can leave you with a sense of buoyant freedom. It’s good stuff, and it’s great for creating that sense of finality at the end of a massage.
For the cranial cradle, this is another good one to try with a friend so that you can experiment with different approaches. Try varying degrees of finger curl and upward pressure. Try swooping in from the sides, or just creating strips up the paraspinals. Try supporting with your palms versus mostly leaving the palms out, etc. And once you’ve found your favorite approach, maintain it for at least 30 seconds and see what happens! This is another one that creates a floaty sense of freedom for me, and it’s one of my favorite massage techniques.
Here it is: A distillation of everything I’ve learned about massage since massage school, and how to really nail down that feeling of “flow.”
These tips might seem rather simple, but I invite you to take them, one at a time, into your upcoming sessions and see what changes happen.
These are all really about giving a mindful massage. What message are my hands sending when I place them on the body? When I remove them? How am I allowing my focus to change the quality of my touch in areas that I’m thinking about versus everywhere else?
My favorite tip, and the one that is probably most difficult to implement, is the last one: “Put yourself in your client’s place.” This one is difficult to describe because it feels like being in two places at once. While staying connected with your hand and its actions, what is their shoulder feeling? Can I feel it in my shoulder?
This is one of my favorite things: cradling the arm while working with the shoulder girdle.
From the client’s perspective, it feels floaty and stretchy and satisfying. For me, it means working with the traps, pecs, and rotator cuff from lots of angles with varying degrees of stretch. Once you’re done, the entire region should feel quite a bit warmer and looser, all without having to work too hard.
Some quick tips that I didn’t cover in the video:
By the way, there’s ANOTHER new video out today, just for the folks kind enough to support me directly on Patreon. It’s about places to pour your pressure on the pelvis, which is stuff I learned from Thai massage and shiatsu. A great way to round out hip work.
Let me know what you think in the comments! I’d especially love some trip reports from people who try this out. Did you have any difficulty working like this? Were the transitions easy enough, or were they awkward? Did you come up with any other cool stuff to do from this position?
This is a great way to start out your neck work, or to start your session. It’s a gentle way of introducing movement to the neck without saying a word, and it creates some myofascial stretching that feels really profound!
A couple of quick tips: Keep the palmar surfaces of your hands close to the client’s skin as you press and scoop. If you can keep your skin travelling along their skin, it will help this feel like a natural rock instead of a “press, press, press” sensation. Let this movement come from your hips, allowing your torso to rock from side to side.
This can also feel great without any oil at all, allowing yourself to move much more slowly and play with moving the fascia rather than doing much travelling across the skin.
Let me know what you think! Some cool things are in store, so stay tuned 🙂