How to Be a Master Massage Therapist: Developing Your Mental Skills

Last night we had a class here at our facility in San Antonio and one of my favorite subjects came up. The question is what can one do to be a “master” massage therapist? Of course, we can look at training, innate ability or good mentoring. These will certainly help to take you to the next level (or levels). But training, ability and mentoring are no guarantee if they are not applied correctly.

For me a master massage therapist has to be an excellent and patient evaluator. (If we were in the medical field we would talk about diagnosticians). They have to be able to observe patterns, employ techniques or methods and recognize changes. The real challenge is being able to follow patterns or movements in the manner that the body/person requires. Frequently there is a sequence that will release pain and dysfunction better than another sequence of applications. Sometimes the pattern of release can take a long time.

What happens, than, if you have a pattern that requires 20 minutes to release but you only have 10 minutes of mental stamina. After 10 minutes you will likely move on to something else and the pattern is never fully released. What about if it requires 45 minutes??

I was fortunate to get an Ortho-Bionomy® session from Kathy Kain, an Advanced Instructor, in the mid 1990’s. She began to move my neck into comfortable positions when my neck started to move on its own in a very subtle, small series of movements.

She mirrored what was happening and followed my pattern for at least 45 minutes without a break. I remember lying on the table and being in amazement that she was keeping up with me and I never felt “dropped” or unsafe. It was an incredible experience and my neck was much better after that wonderful session.

I started thinking immediately after that session about what had happened. Kathy demonstraited incredible mental stamina but also she was able observe, watch and follow my unique unwinding pattern to its completion. She never got lost or confused. She was able to evaluate and match my pattern of release.

I have thought a lot about mental stamina and how to create it since then. I have read many books and practiced very specific exercises to develop my mental stamina. I still work on it today.

The other key element that struck me after the session was how to see outside the box, how to see things with an open/beginners mind. I began to consider:

“How do I see patterns?"

“How many different patterns can I observe?"

"Which ones do I work with?”

In considering these questions, I think sucess requires being comfortable with the unknown, the unfamiliar and being able to analyze and evaluate in that state of mind.

During my reading on this subject I saw a passage that said, “Problem solving involves making the unfamiliar familiar and the familiar unfamiliar.” It seemed to me that this was how a great detective operates. Detectives like Sherlock Holmes or Columbo have to look beyond the obvious to analyze and evaluate the facts until they determine the truth.

So to my definition of master massage therapist (besides mental stamina) I have to add: being a good detective. This means developing mental skills like observation, analysis and evaluation. These are skills like any other; enhanced and strengthened by practice and exercise.

So, what can you do to develop mental skills? Play games that involve problem solving, do puzzles, practice with mazes, crossword puzzles, read about subjects that are totally unknown, enjoy a game of scrabble, use art and creativity, read books on lateral thinking or try to solve a Rubik's Cube. Constantly challenge your mind in different kinds of ways the are unusual or unique! You will be amazed at how quickly your mental skills grow and develop. (I have listed some helpful books below).

Develop your mental skills and you may become a master massage therapist.


BOOKS THAT WILL HELP YOU TO DEVELOP YOUR MENTAL SKILLS:

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day by Michael J. Gelb

Labyrinth by Helen Raphael Sands

Lateral Thinking Puzzlers by Paul Sloane

The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain's Untapped Potential by Tony Buzan & Barry Buzan.

Pumping Ions by Tom Wujec

Rapid Problem Solving with Post-It Notes by David Straker

Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative Thinking Techniques by Michael Michalko

A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative by Roger von Oech

The History of Zone Therapy and Reflexology

The Zone Theory was the precursor to modern Reflexology, which began with Dr. William H. Fitzgerald, M.D in 1913. Dr. Fitzgerald, an American ear, nose and throat surgeon, noted that pressure on specific parts of the body could have an anaesthetizing effect on a related area. He called his work Zone Analgesia.

Dr. Fitzgerald divided the body into ten equal and vertical zones, ending in the fingers and toes. He concluded that pressure on one part of a zone could affect everything else within that zone. Dr. Shelby Riley, D.C., N.D., worked closely with Dr. Fitzgerald and further developed the Zone Theory by added horizontal zones across the hands and feet, together with the longitudinal zones.

Eunice D. Ingham (1889-1974) a Physical Therapist worked closely with Dr. Riley and was fascinated by the concept of Zone Therapy and started developing her foot reflex theory in the early 1930's. She had the opportunity to treat hundreds of patients where each reflex point was carefully and thoughtfully checked and rechecked until she was able to determine that the reflexes on the feet were an exact mirror image of the organs of the body.

Dr. Riley encouraged her to write her first book entitled Stories The Feet Can Tell where she documented her cases and carefully mapped out the reflexes on the feet, as we know them today. This book was published in 1938 and was later translated into seven foreign languages.

Amazing Disappearing Embolisms

One of my regular clients developed over 100 plus embolisms in her lungs. Generally when this many of these blood clots develop Doctors only see them during an autopsy. That she was alive was somewhat unbelievable.

“In medicine, an embolism occurs when an object (the embolus, plural emboli) migrates from one part of the body (through circulation) and cause(s) a blockage (occlusion) of a blood vessel in another part of the body.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embolism).

I was in the hospital with my wife when the Doctor brought in the image of her lungs with so many embolisms. It was a quite an image. They told my client that it would be 6-8 months before they could hope that many embolisms could be broken down by the body with the help of several drugs.

The question was: What could I do to help without dislodging an embolism? It was clear I had to do something that was not invasive and that I had to not have any intent to minimize any direct impact on the embolisms.

So, I started doing 5-10 minutes of stimulation of the Reflexology lung points in one of her hands about 3-4 times per week. Using 3 to 4 fingers I would monitor the energy and sensations without any goal, protocol or inclination. My touch was light. I just watched what happened. It felt like a 4 dimensional wegee board as energy and physical changes to temperature took place.

Occasionally I would notice that my orientation of observation would shift. So if I was watching with a North orientation to the hand, I might feel my orientation shift to the West or East or somewhere in that range. Again I noticed what I felt, gave no importance to it nor did I discount what I felt. Whether any of my sensations were “real” in a science sense did not matter. I just watched until something told me she had enough.

About 8 weeks into the project she had another round of images taken of her lungs. The Doctor was first concerned that he had the wrong image. The embolisms were gone. It was miraculous.

I felt excited that she was clear again, but I tried not to take the credit. She had healed herself. I had only helped the process. The amazement was how easily the body can heal itself with a little help.