Category Archives: Massage Video

Video: How to Sit More During Massage

New massage video! This one is on how to sit more during your sessions (yes, I’m serious about the whole “massage lazy” thing):

The benefits of sitting more: Less time on your feet, which is also kinder to your low back than a full 6 hours of bending and lunging. More variety for you AND for your client — you’ll find that the same techniques feel much different when performed from this new angle. And most importantly, easier access to the lateral portions of the body!

I love seated massage for prolonged, deep dives into the lateral hip, the fibularis group (aka the peroneals), and the shoulder, both in supine and prone. In the video I demonstrate a brief routine for working with the entire rotator cuff group while the client is prone, but just realize that this can be extended considerably. You can sink doubled up thumbs toward the lateral scapula and target the teres, you can strip supraspinatus and infraspinatus and look for points of exquisite tenderness, and you can sink into that subscap for as much as a minute, inviting your client to breathe as you do so. ... continue reading.

How to (safely!) use your thumbs for massage

I know there’s been a movement to reduce thumb use in the massage world, but I think that there are a lot of effective ways to use them without risking injury.
The secret? Follow your natural ergonomics rather than trying to force your thumbs to do movements they don’t want to do:

Find positions of power and stability and let those guide your tool use and body mechanics. In the video, I demonstrate ways to strip, compress, and petrissage that should feel fairly easy and intuitive. Reduce or eliminate the effortful circular movements that seem to find their way into a lot of Swedish routines, and instead rely on stacked joints and body weight.

Something that I neglected to say in the video: Switch tools early and often. Don’t wait until you’re feeling fatigue in your thumbs or wrists before you switch. Instead, anticipate your limits and change things up frequently enough that your muscles never tire. By doing this, the only part of your body that should be tired at the end of the day are your feet 🙂 And that reminds me, I need to make a video on how to sit more during a session… ... continue reading.

Video: Abdominal self-massage (and self-acceptance)

This is ostensibly about abdominal self-massage (it even includes 5 different techniques!), but it’s really about getting back into the therapeutic headspace.

As you might imagine, I made this one for myself. I haven’t started back yet thanks to some resurgence here in the South, but every time I get back to the planning phase I think, “do I even know how to do massage any more? Where would I start?” In my head I try to play back a whole massage all at once, along with all the techniques and draping and communication that requires, and it feels overwhelming.

But then I remember this: It all starts with one touch. If I can do that, then the rest follows. Trying to game out every moment, or imagine everything that could go wrong, those are barriers that we put up to flow. The essence of massage is self-sustaining and self-guiding, with the interplay of hand and body showing you the way. If we simply make that first contact and then get out of the way, the rest can easily follow. ... continue reading.

How to End a Massage Session (With Cranial Cradle Demo!)

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. ... continue reading.

Video: 6 Tips for a Better Massage

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? ... continue reading.