Monday, April 20, 2009

The Most Important Thing

  It's now been twenty years since my encounter with Gene, the massage therapist who helped me to recover from my injuries and realize that I was on the path to becoming a bodyworker, myself.  
  At the time I was living in Atlanta, Georgia, home to, 
Atlanta School of Massage, one of the best massage schools in the United States.  Enrolling in their program was the natural first step.  It's hard to describe how perfect the ASM program was for me. I was a very happy fish swimming in the Sea of Massage! My principal instructors were Laurie Craig and the late Don Scheuman, two of the greatest massage teachers of all time. The program at the time covered many different styles of bodywork with emphasis on Swedish Massage and Deep Tissue Therapy, (a LOT of Deep Tissue). 
  One thing that I really appreciated was the importance Don placed on being "present" and focused on each moment during the massage.  Farrah Allen, an ASM founder was leading the school at the time and he gave weekly classes that also stressed the importance of being completely present in the "moment" and developing intuition while working. One series of classes was even called "Being verses Doing". The idea being that  if the person giving the massage is really listening to the person receiving the massage, there is a very pure exchange that makes for very powerful work.    At the end of my time in ASM, it was easy sometimes to feel  overwhelmed by all the different "techniques" and styles of working, not to mention all of the anatomy and physiology involved.  So, I was very, very relieved one day when the instructors started saying, 
  "O.K., we now want you to FORGET everything we've taught you and just WORK.  Listen to your INTUITION and let your work HAPPEN.  Make it your own work."
That had such a nice and familiar sound to it.  I remembered Granny saying, "Just open your heart and listen". (see story 1.)
  For me, almost twenty years and over 20,000 massages later, this very basic idea remains the foundation for every single encounter in my practice.  It is what I attribute most to my success, 
my lack of "burnout".... and the reason that my clients are so happy.  

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