How to Have Strength in Massage Just as You Are: Self-Care for the Practitioner 3

If you’ve been following any of what we do here at Moving Crafts, you will have noticed that we take the idea of self-care for the practitioner quite seriously. If you are not looking after yourself and functioning well, you simply cannot deliver a quality healing experience to another person. 

You can’t give what you don’t have, as the saying goes.

On top of that, massage, at least as we see it, is part of a holistic approach to a good life. It is one of the subtle things that can improve the quality of your life because you feel better. If we as givers aren’t doing the subtle but important things to give this to ourselves, it’s quite hypocritical to think we can perform that for others!

There are many ways to make this point, but fundamentally, you have a responsibility to respect yourself, and to look after yourself. Period. It is doubly important when your vocation is to deliver that through massage to others. We encourage you to take this seriously.

And in the context of being a masseuse, that means taking the needs of your own body seriously. We need to look after our own muscles, especially the ones we use for this work. You don’t have to look very far to find someone who has sore tendons in their arms, or lower back pain from massaging someone else (to help them get rid of their back pain!) Ironic in a way, and ultimately not necessary.

Strength and Power Don’t Need Big Muscles

There it is. Perhaps the most important statement in this post. Maybe it’s because, generally speaking, we don’t live lives in which our physical strength is that important anymore, and that has made us unfamiliar with body strength and where it comes from. Everyone has it. It isn’t something reserved for big muscles. But you do need to understand your body in motion in order to harness it.

What are we talking about? At its most basic, we want to tell you that the secret is to stop using your muscles in isolation from each other. See, our civilization goes through paradigms, which really just means some ideas are popular for a phase for whatever reason, and for another silly reason we think we need to dismiss everything we knew before. That’s how we forget things as a collective. But you can bet that our ancestors knew how to move rocks and pick pumpkins all day without hurting themselves.  

The strength to give a good massage does not reside in the arms of anyone. That means that even the strongest person is going to wear themselves out and do harm to the small and fine muscles in the hands etc, if they try to massage using only these muscles. Strength in humans is comparable to strength in a tree, because it begins at the roots, and if it isn’t there, it isn’t anywhere.

Try this simple exercise. Stand in front of a heavy door that it closed, but not latched. Plant your feet squarely, and push it open using just one hand, relying on the arm only. Now do it again, only this time, place one foot back from the other, allowing the hips to be at a 45 degree angle to the door. 

Now, using the arm that is further back, you’re going to open the door again, BUT NOT YET! The first thing to do in this simple act, is to start to turn your body toward the door, leading from the hip that is further back. It’s less complicated than it sounds. Start your ‘open the door’ motion by turning your hip toward it, and let the rest of your body naturally follow. Once your body is in motion, then reach out and let your arm push the door.

If you did it right, the door opened with greater force, and yet you felt like it was much easier. This is not a trick. It’s a simple task in learning to use the strength of your core, and your legs, and the big muscles in your body to do the work. Let your arm be like the very last tip of a whip. It is where the strength is delivered from, but it’s the part that did the least work. This basic premise is 100% applicable to the act of giving massage. 

Practice Makes Practice

What we just described there is something known to most athletes, depending on the sport. Power comes from the big muscles, and from the ground up. You may not be the strongest person, but you have more than you think; you just need to learn how to harness it. 

Sounds complicated, right? How can I learn that from one short blog entry? You can’t. But you can try a number of critical exercises and disciplines that rely on this wisdom, and they will make you a better masseuse. Practice in another discipline, makes your massage practice almost perfect. 

And one of the best ones is Tai Chi (Taijiquan).

The reason for that is simple; Tai Chi, despite what many people think, is not about waving your arms above your head in slow motion. It is about harnessing the power of the body, particularly, by rooting yourself firmly on the ground, and in the power triangle of the lower body. It’s not a miracle, but when you learn it for the first time, it seems pretty darn close.

There is a lot of power to be gained by learning how to move the core of the body in order to deliver strength. Even a person with the strongest arms will be stronger, will last longer, and have fewer issues related to muscle strain, if they learn this technique. It’s not just Tai Chi, or martial artists who use this. Behemoth football players who push each other around do so with the power of their legs, whether it looks like it to you or not. Same with Sumo wrestlers. 

Rowers too, are not heavy people with big muscles… at least not the fast ones. But they know about technique, and that’s why it all works. They push with their legs, then their body, and the arms just follow through at the end. That’s where power comes from. 

Massage is really not that different. And when it comes to power, it is not different at all.

Taking Care

We can’t teach you all you need to know about techniques to harness body power in a blog post. But we can get you thinking about it. Also, if you’re interested in learning more, yes, we do offer courses in all of the above. You can find them elsewhere too. The important thing for us in this moment is to share we know about treating yourself well, while you’re trying to do that for someone else through massage.

Most of all, listen to your body. Your ability to earn a living in this industry should not cost you your own health or well-being, and, with a little knowledge and practice, it doesn’t have to.

Food for thought.