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Massage is not an industry that is heavily regulated. It is not like medicine, or psychotherapy, even though it can be intrusive, and treats the body with all kinds of potential outcomes. This article is not setting out to argue for regulation, but it does offer some food for thought to those who are serious about the practice of massage, and of learning how to do it well. Perhaps even how to achieve a level of mastery.
What does that process look like?
Wax On/Wax Off
Perhaps you are already familiar with that reference to the movie, The Karate Kid. In that classic, a young boy wants to learn karate from a master, who happens to own a junk yard full of cars. His first lesson in karate ends up with him being sent to wax all the cars in the yard. He puts the wax on with a circular motion moving inward, and takes it off with a circular motion outward. Wax on; wax off.
And, of course, eventually he complains at the apparent ridiculousness of the whole exercise, only to be shown that he has, in fact, developed quick responses and a technique for hand movement that will serve him very well as he starts to truly learn. Surprise!
So, what does this mean for you and learning massage? Please come wax my car. Oh no, wait, that’s not where this is going. It offers a simple message you can clearly see yourself. We start with practicing basics and fundamentals of hand movements, until the muscles develop, and the technique itself becomes second nature. That is level one for this task, like many others, and, as much as it may at times seem tedious and tiring, it cannot be skipped.
For massage, the fundamental stage of mastering basic technique can be long and tedious, but it is necessary and worthwhile. You will need to watch “teachables” like videos, receive direct instructions, review notes you may have from instruction, practice-practice-practice, then watch the videos all over again. This is not because it’s really hard, but because, in order to do it right, it must be precise. If all you want to do is fake a massage for the TV camera, that is easy. But if you want to authentically deliver quality massage, technique must be acquired, and sometimes it is comparable to waxing a whole yard full of cars. But it’s worth it!
Bootlaces
What? I thought we were doing massage. What difference does my footwear make? Good news. It doesn’t make a difference. It’s a metaphor, as you might have guessed. And it may be one you’ve heard before. When you lace up a boot, you put the lace through one hole and then go over to the other side to the partner hole, then come back again. It’s a slow process, and you must methodically accomplish what needs to be done on one level before moving up to the next one. Starting to make sense?
The study-practice-review-repeat process that we described above is your golden ticket to success. Slowly you will make your way up the boot! Slowly but surely, you will come to memorize the steps, techniques, and stages, of whichever specific massage technique you are learning. You will develop a sense of rhythm and flow, as your hands become more familiar and develop some finesse. You will come to move more smoothly between techniques and/or body positions. If you keep practicing, this is unavoidable, and it is no different than riding a bike.
More things will slowly happen as your experience accumulates. You will be massaging different people with different bodies. Your hands and your working knowledge will continue to advance in skill, as you become more familiar with working the skin, the muscles, and the joints of different bodies. You will adapt, expand, and become more versatile, without necessarily seeing it happen until the skill is there. It’s like focusing on the boot so much, that you don’t realize how much you’ve accomplished until you pull it tight, and it all comes smoothly together.
This is a natural learning process for things that focus on experience. Keep going, and this will likely become your experience as well.
Refine, Refine, Refine
Since metaphors seem to work so well with this topic, we’ll throw out one more, which is the metaphor of climbing a hill on a long hike. You put your head down, and focus on where your feet go, and sure enough, after a while, you reach a vista, lift your head, and suddenly see that you’ve come a long way, and climbed a great height. This is true even if you’re not yet at the top.
There will come a time when the ‘wax on/wax off’ has become second nature to you (at least for that specific type of massage) and then you can enter the stage of refinement. And there is nothing in your practice that you can’t refine. It will happen naturally. You may refine the flow you feel when moving between techniques or body parts. You will refine your technique for working around certain joints, or things you’ve learned about different body types. You can refine your own attitude toward yourself, your practice, your clients, or even the basic topic of massage.
What happens is basically, you advance on your path. And like all things, you start to become aware of, and practiced in a higher, more subtle and refined set of skills that sit on top of a good foundation, built step by step.
If you do take the time to partake in a Moving Crafts course, you will see that, in addition to technique, a good amount of time is dedicated to the intangible aspects of massage. The discussion of the learning process is no different. The ‘how we do what we do’ for massage is not always the most complicated thing; it is not rocket science. It is, however, specific, and demanding. And there is a method to how we best achieve the levels we aspire to.
We hope that you partake in a Moving Crafts course, where we dedicate time to your learning process. We aim to provide thorough materials that give structure to every part of you as a masseuse, learning how to become a professional, and how to develop an aura of professionalism around yourself and your practice. We do this in an authentic way, knowing this is the only path to success.
We hope you feel inspired to join us!