Jewelry

Nearly everyone knows to remove their jewelry before a massage; necklaces encumber any work on the neck, ankle bracelets get in the way of full leg strokes, and rings and bracelets will curtail any work on the hands and fingers. Most people would prefer to have their therapist massage their skin instead of their jewelry, but like everything else, there are exceptions to the rule.

Some people can not take off certain pieces, like rings that are now stuck due to weight gain or bloating, or maybe it's a Cartier slave bracelet which requires a tool to open and remove. Sometimes the reason is sentimental, not physical, like a promise made to never remove a wedding band or an inherited piece from the family's lineage.

However there are also just plain eccentric (or insane) people who refuse for no apparent reason. I had one Asian woman who refused to remove any of her 10 pounds of ornate gold jewelry during her massage, including a huge tiger bracelet that was literally two inches thick and wrapped around her wrist twice. Needless to say (but I will anyway), I did not massage very much of her body since she was almost literally covered from head to toe in heavy metal.

One client who did remove her jewelry called me in a panic after her session asking me to search for her uncle's wedding ring which she had worn since his passing. I searched high and low but no ring. She found it several hours later in her purse, but the moral of the story is to simply make sure that when you remove your jewelry, you also place it where you are sure to find it afterwards so that you can put it back on when you leave.

Jewelry is precious for many reasons, but when preparing for a healing, relaxing, and restorative massage, please leave it at home so you can show it off with your glow after your session.

Referral Worthy

When I can't get to a client or don't want one, I refer another therapist to them. This works both ways as other therapists refer clients to me when they are too busy to work on them or simply don't want to work on them (see my last post).

What makes a client referral worthy? It could be as simple as being overbooked or a conflict in appointment time for a regular or a new client. It could be someone who requires skills or is a size that that would be better suited to another therapist; as I mentioned in my last post, I do not like working on the dense muscles of professional athletes. It could be a new client when I am already booked with a regular. It could be an annoying client for a reason that is only annoying to me, but maybe no problem for another therapist. One couple I worked on had Fox News on every time I worked on them and their choice of background "music" annoyed me so much I asked another therapist to take them from me. It could be a personality clash that has nothing to do with massage, but simply a mismatch of energy or communication, like a hyper client who insists on techno music and wants a percussion massage.

What makes a therapist referral worthy? Ideally it is someone who has worked on me or whom I've worked with in a tandem, so I have seen how they work. Next best is someone who has trained with a school or teacher I know. And lastly it is someone who has been referred to me or has been hired by the same people as I have worked for as an alternate. These are the only people I will refer to my clients. I would rather clients find someone else on their own if I can not provide someone who is as qualified as I am (or more). Qualified also includes showing up on time and bringing all necessary supplies (like a table and clean sheets). I know many therapists, but there are only a handful I would refer to my clients.

Referrals are always for personal reasons, and a good match for massage is more important than all the bad ones that came before you found it.

Size That Fits

Yes, size matters; anyone who says differently is either lying or inexperienced.

One therapist I know asks all new clients how tall they are and what they weigh before she takes an appointment. She feels uncomfortable (and unskilled) working on anyone she considers "big", and she refers those people to me. People who call her and are referred to me are sometimes so upset that they never book an appointment with me.

It may seem unfair and cruel for her to screen her clients like this, but clients routinely screen therapists based on their sex, age, weight, and attractiveness. In a perfect world, clients should care more about a therapist's skill and a therapist should care more about a client's well being, but sadly that is only true sometimes.

One therapist I know refused to work on women (he is a gay man), and another refused to work on anyone except women (she is a straight woman). Every therapist must decide where their personal boundaries lie, just as every client must decide which therapist they want to work on them.

I have worked on very big athletes and when I have a choice, I always choose not to accept them as clients simply because they are very big and muscular and I am usually half their size; it is like I am the little green giant working on the big green giant. That is the only boundary in regards to size I have with clients, but of course, rude and inappropriate behavior immediately puts them into the unacceptable category.

I work on heavy people (over 300 lbs), tall people (over 6'4"), old people (over 75 years old), disabled people (ALS/paraplegic), fit people (massage therapists), skinny people (models), couch potatoes, week-end warriors, people in pain, and people who need pampering. My boundaries are very broad. I include many people in my acceptable clients that others do not, but other therapists usually have no problem working on athletes.

Everyone must decide what size fits. A massage should be a pleasant experience; both therapists and clients should be comfortable, and only you can decide what makes you comfortable.

Pressure

What constitutes heavy pressure to one person is a feather light touch to another. The size of the client or therapist really does not matter as much as you might think in the definition. I am about 5 feet tall and weigh around 115 lbs but I have worked on men over 6 feet tall who weigh more than twice what I weigh and they have screamed for mercy when they ask me for "heavy" pressure. On the opposite side of the scale, I have had men who are over 6 feet tall and weigh around 200 lbs work on me and I have told them that they were not giving me enough pressure.

Why the apparent anomaly of size and pressure? In the first case where I am the therapist, the client may not know that the psi (pressure per square inch) can be more intense if the person uses all their body weight on a concentrated spot. If I was to try and use only my arm strength, then of course I could never give pain to someone twice my size, but I don't do that. It's all about leverage and I know how to use all of my 115lbs on one point. The only time this does not work is if the person I am working on is heavily muscled (like a professional athlete) or a masochist.

In the second case, when I am receiving and not getting enough pressure it is because the therapist thinks that because of my size I can not take it. Wrong. During my training I actually had the deep tissue teacher (a man) use his entire body weight with another person leaning on him before I said, "Ah that is good!". Appearances can be deceiving. Nearly everyone who has every worked on me has been surprised when I say I want more, more, more pressure. One 200 lb male therapist broke out into a sweat after an hour of work on me, saying, "I couldn't take this, I don't know how you can!".

What is light to one person may be heavy to another, so therapists should always ask the client if the pressure is enough or too much during the session (several times). Some areas may be more sensitive, so what is good for the back may be painful on the calves. A good therapist adjusts to the client both in terms of pressure and areas on the body. Always communicate with the other person about what is comfortable, (what I call good pain) and what is excruciating (please do not hit your therapist, just tell them it is painful).

We can all get exactly what we want, just like Goldilocks.

Session Time

Most spas offer 50 minute massages with an occasional option for 80 minutes. One of my clients actually asked a spa to prolong his hour session to an hour and a half and they refused because they did not a) have a therapist with enough skills to do more than a learned routine, or b) they did not know how to bill it, or c) both. That is a sad testament to the quality of most spa massage therapists and systems. The good thing is that people who seek a higher quality personalized massage will look for an independent therapist who will most likely also have more skills.

I will not work on anyone for less than a full hour, and three and a half hours is my maximum. Every therapist is different. I work for an average of an hour and a half with most of my clients, but there are other therapists who work anywhere from 15 minutes to 8 hours on a person. From the mall massage chair mills to the luxuriously personalized private professional practices, everyone chooses what they prefer. Some clients are not comfortable with more time, some are not comfortable with less.

A therapist who performs a longer session may be more skilled or simply slower. A therapist who performs shorter sessions may be more skilled at target areas or simply not trained to do more. The perfect match is a therapist and a client who are in sync with the pace and time of a session; time is only one component of a good match, but it is usually a good indicator since it is one of the first things discussed when setting up an appointment.

Personally I like two hour sessions, both giving and receiving. What do you like?

Aromas

Since yesterday's post was on good hygiene, I thought a good topic today would be smells, both good and bad.

Bad smells come from either bad hygiene (see yesterday's post) or from the body odors or musk that emanate due to a person's diet or natural body chemistry. I have had clients shower immediately before I work on them and they still have a distinctive smell. I've noticed that the most hirsute men are usually the most prone to this situation because their body hair retains their musk. Sometimes it is the person's diet, and just as in war when the Koreans smelled the lack of a kimchee diet in the enemy, a spicy or garlicky diet processes into a smell on the skin (and breath). Sometimes the process adds a bit of gas and when pressing down on the back or belly, that gas is released and unfortunately without a gas mask handy, the effects can be quite devastating. One therapist I knew said he would have been fired if he had left the room every time one of his clients farted. So if you are the instigator, relax, we all have done it at one time and we will all get over the smell.

Aromatherapy is based on the idea that certain essential oils have healing properties or bring about certain emotions. It is an old idea; remember the three wise men bringing three scents to honor the baby Jesus? Some scents are believed to uplift spirits (citrus), others to calm and soothe (lavender), still others are held as the harbingers of love (rose). An aromatherapy massage combines the associated emotions with the scents and blends them to create a heady mixture to cure whatever ails you. One of the best defenses against bad smells is a drop of essential oil under the nose. Eucalyptus is a favorite cleanser of the sinuses and senses.

Most therapists wear no perfume and most clients appreciate a naturally clean smell; hopefully the client will arrive with that same naturally clean smell so the only aromas are those of the oils meant to lift the spirits of all who inhale.

Good Hygiene

Throughout my training, good hygiene has always been a primary concern. My teachers all emphasized that to pass the practical test part of our grades depended on whether we would use the sanitized wipes, and we would fail if we did not. Unfortunately once therapists are no longer graded by their teachers, their practices for their actual clients may or may not be as sanitary as they were in school.

There are many common sense rituals for good hygiene, like washing your hands, but unfortunately there are also many massage therapists who ignore both common sense and good hygiene. Reasons for bad therapist hygiene range from the unavoidable, like body odor on a hot day after working for six hours (or more, especially at a spa), to the outright lazy, like the therapists who do not change their sheets between clients. If you smell perfume or body odor when you lay down on the table, get up, cancel the appointment, and explain your reason; it may make a difference to the next person with an appointment.

A good way to gauge whether or not you want a therapist to work on you is to check a few simple things before, during and after your appointment. 1) Does your therapist wash his or her hands either right before or right after working on your body? Either option is good because washing after shows that it is part of their general practice, and they may have just washed their hands before you came in to see them. 2) Does your therapist change the sheets when you get off the table? 3) Does the massage environment look and smell clean? A therapist with good hygiene would not work in a place that was not equally hygienic.

Good hygiene goes both ways. As a client, do you shower before your appointment? If your feet have been in shoes all day and you can not shower before, please ask the therapist for a wet wipe (we all have them for this very purpose, and if the therapist doesn't not have them, that is not a good hygiene sign). If you have come from work or at the end of the day, eat a mint or chew some gum before going in to your appointment.

Let's all make ourselves as pleasant and clean as possible so that we can relax and enjoy the experience of massage.