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Favorite Modality

If you have to choose one modality that you use all the time, what would it be? Anything from swedish to Thai.

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Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on October 12, 2011 at 2:33pm

But, the books -- or experienced friends like you-- point a beginner toward new techniques that, where possible, allows him or her to use on herself.

I guess I misstated. I do enjoy giving relaxation massage-- and I think I'm pretty good at it. Moans of pleasure just because it feels so good are every bit as satisfying to hear as moans of relief when pain begins to dissipate.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

Well massage styles and the different concepts and approaches is never ending...Its like martial arts.. You cant learn all the martial arts styles..So you look at it differently.. Ranges...learn techniques for long range, middle range, very close range, ground fighting...so on....If someone wants to give you money cause they are burnt out, or no real presenting symptoms. And you wanna make money.. You better know how to give a really good rubdown.. If someone has presenting symptoms( pain, numbness, so on.. You better know some trigger point approaches.. The soft gentle approach to trigger points are therapies like Positional release, and Orthobionomy. If an elbow on a trigger point doesnt make it go away. Then shift into a positional release style. See if that makes the trigger point go away. My advise would be to learn how to give an awesome flowing firm rub down of sorts....I had a lady the other day with no particular problems...She just said she was under a lot of stress,and needed a break... She paid $95.00 for an hour session, and was so happy with the massage that she tipped me another $40.00.. So I dont mind doing a boring rubdown at all.. lol I got a pretty good flow now with my work..However fixing or helping someone that has pain in their body is what rewards me the most.. Yea..It makes me feel good... I dont use these Positional release techniques very much..And Im not an expert with them.. But I have used it on people with neck pain a few times, with some success when my usual techniques didnt work.. Find a sore spot on your own body..and experiment . You can learn from a book or on yourself... Yourself is better.

Gary W Addis said:

Now that makes sense!

Now, in my admittedly inexperienced viewpoint, the obviously necessary requirement that MTBs must continue their studies in order to maintain certification has made CEU provider into a lucrative business. Many of these providers are very generous with their time--lots of free educational material available to members in ABMP seminars and in ABMP archives, and there must be hundreds of free youtube MT videos, at least one in every known modality and some no one but the developer has ever heard of. But my point is the money/fame incentive is a powerful motivator, reason a-plenty to develop a named therapy. Some of which (on the surface) appear to be almost identical to established techniques, except for the name, of course.

With even my limited experience, commonsense leads me to accept the fact that in all fields, experimentation leads to progress. With my limited experience, I recognize the fact that no two massage therapists work exactly alike. That every massage therapy session is unique, to that therapist, to that client, to that time of day. Already I recognize that we as MTs must guard against massaging by rote.

Boredom is the enemy, isn't it, Gordon? Swedish is great, both for the therapist and for the client. But, to me, performing back to back to back relaxation massages can become boring. I mean, when you drive ten miles, you are aware of every minute of the drive, but no one maintains that same degree of involvement during every mile of a 3-day cross-country drive--the conscious mind divorces itself from the process and muscle memory performs the tasks under direction of the subconscious.

For that reason, I claim the many modalities of clinical massage-- NMT, PNF, MFR, Deep Tissue petrissage, and those yet to be developed-- as my preferred modality. Restoring ROM, eliminating pain, engages the conscious mind while the subconscious employs knowledge gained in the classroom and muscle memory developed through experience to benefit the client.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

An easy version is Fold n Hold. You can do it on yourself..You keep one finger on the trigger point..and then bend and fold your body around it until id disapears or is at least 80% better. You create maximum slack around the trigger point. Once you find that position. You hold it for 90 seconds...Then, and this is Very Important as to if it works or not...You very very slowly unfold out of that position.. And when you do, sometimes the trigger point is gone. Experiment on yourself....Ive used it on clients that had sore necks. That positional release stuff has been around for some time.

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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on October 12, 2011 at 7:51pm

Yea the fold n hold is sort of counter intuitive...And the finger that's on the trigger point is just there to monitor the trigger point.. You just press hard enough to know its there... Then fold around it, and find that position of maximum slack, where you dont feel it anymore,or not much..Hold it for 90 seconds..You might find yourself in a weird position, but it doesn't matter...After 90 seconds... you very very very slowly(move to quickly, it wont work) move out of that position. Back into a normal position...And you find that about 50% of the time..When you get back to a normal position, that the trigger point is gone....You can apply that same concept on a client that has a difficult trigger point, when your usual techniques aren't working. Its good to know.

Gary W Addis said:

But, the books -- or experienced friends like you-- point a beginner toward new techniques that, where possible, allows him or her to use on herself.

I guess I misstated. I do enjoy giving relaxation massage-- and I think I'm pretty good at it. Moans of pleasure just because it feels so good are every bit as satisfying to hear as moans of relief when pain begins to dissipate.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

Well massage styles and the different concepts and approaches is never ending...Its like martial arts.. You cant learn all the martial arts styles..So you look at it differently.. Ranges...learn techniques for long range, middle range, very close range, ground fighting...so on....If someone wants to give you money cause they are burnt out, or no real presenting symptoms. And you wanna make money.. You better know how to give a really good rubdown.. If someone has presenting symptoms( pain, numbness, so on.. You better know some trigger point approaches.. The soft gentle approach to trigger points are therapies like Positional release, and Orthobionomy. If an elbow on a trigger point doesnt make it go away. Then shift into a positional release style. See if that makes the trigger point go away. My advise would be to learn how to give an awesome flowing firm rub down of sorts....I had a lady the other day with no particular problems...She just said she was under a lot of stress,and needed a break... She paid $95.00 for an hour session, and was so happy with the massage that she tipped me another $40.00..   So I dont mind doing a boring rubdown at all.. lol I got a pretty good flow now with my work..However fixing or helping someone that has pain in their body is what rewards me the most.. Yea..It makes me feel good... I dont use these Positional release techniques very much..And Im not an expert with them.. But I have used it on people with neck pain a few times, with some success when my usual techniques didnt work.. Find a sore spot on your own body..and experiment .   You can learn from a book or on yourself... Yourself is better.

Gary W Addis said:

Now that makes sense!

Now, in my admittedly inexperienced viewpoint, the obviously necessary requirement that MTBs must continue their studies in order to maintain certification has made CEU provider into a lucrative business. Many of these providers are very generous with their time--lots of free educational material available to members in ABMP seminars and in ABMP archives, and there must be hundreds of free youtube MT videos, at least one in every known modality and some no one but the developer has ever heard of. But my point is the money/fame incentive is a powerful motivator, reason a-plenty to develop a named therapy. Some of which (on the surface) appear to be almost identical to established techniques, except for the name, of course.

With even my limited experience, commonsense leads me to accept the fact that in all fields, experimentation leads to progress. With my limited experience, I recognize the fact that no two massage therapists work exactly alike. That every massage therapy session is unique, to that therapist, to that client, to that time of day. Already I recognize that we as MTs must guard against massaging by rote.

Boredom is the enemy, isn't it, Gordon? Swedish is great, both for the therapist and for the client. But, to me, performing back to back to back relaxation massages can become boring. I mean, when you drive ten miles, you are aware of every minute of the drive, but no one maintains that same degree of involvement during every mile of a 3-day cross-country drive--the conscious mind divorces itself from the process and muscle memory performs the tasks under direction of the subconscious.

For that reason, I claim the many modalities of clinical massage-- NMT, PNF, MFR, Deep Tissue petrissage, and those yet to be developed-- as my preferred modality. Restoring ROM, eliminating pain, engages the conscious mind while the subconscious employs knowledge gained in the classroom and muscle memory developed through experience to benefit the client.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

An easy version is Fold n Hold.   You can do it on yourself..You keep one finger on the trigger point..and then bend and fold your body around it until id disapears or is at least 80% better. You create maximum slack around the trigger point. Once you find that position. You hold it for 90 seconds...Then, and this is Very Important as to if it works or not...You very very slowly unfold out of that position.. And when you do, sometimes the trigger point is gone.   Experiment on yourself....Ive used it on clients that had sore necks. That positional release stuff has been around for some time.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Gillispie on October 31, 2011 at 9:10am

Craniosacral therapy :)

It is my passion & the more I practice it, the more fascinating it is (and this is after 16 years of specializing in it!).

My original plan when I went to massage school was to go into sports massage - I was a ballet dancer in my previous life ;). Once I was licensed, I took the first continuing ed course that was being offered locally which happened to be CST. I fell in love and have never looked back. Life's funny like that sometimes!

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