Connecting with Clients

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As a massage therapist there’s a huge amount of public image that goes into our work. After all, when I sell bodywork I’m essentially selling myself. People come in and interact with me based on a huge number of factors. I strive to be professional and respectful to clients and I always tell them that I’ll give them 110%.

Over time my personal facebook is less personal and more business as people find me online. My business facebook is a constant ongoing ticker tape of news and updates about my business dealings and growth. I noticed on online facebook groups that massage therapists fancy themselves to always be publicly calm, serene and all their meals are healthy.

I can tell you that my business has grown through effort, hard work and that includes work on myself. I eat well, do yoga regularly and just like you, struggle to remain calm. I don’t teach yoga and practice bodywork because I’m the most calm, enlightened or smart person around. I do these things quite frankly because I have to. My body hurts but I work on it. To be brief I teach what I know. I don’t share what I learned in a book, I share what I’ve learned from life.

At the end of a week of dealing with clients, students, stress, strain, clients tales of broken relationships, job stress and back pain I sometimes sit down to a beer. You may find me in the line at Whataburger every once in awhile. Beyond that you might find me at the local comedy club saying things you’d never hear in session with me. When I’m done with clients for the day I may be playing ac/dc and eminem in my car on the way to the local bar. Doesn’t mean I’m not a good yoga teacher or massage therapist. It does mean that just like you, we’re all trying to deal with complex lives and our stress load.

You’re human, I don’t expect anything less than your foibles. Accept the same in me. I’ll see you soon for another Thai massage.

Low Back Pain

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Low back pain is one of the areas that Thai massage excels at providing relief. In my 11 years experience nothing provides such consistent results other than a regular yoga practice, fortunately I do both.

The complex interplay between hips, pelvic bowl, sacrum, lumbar spine and all the musculature involded means it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what every back pain in the area comes from. The psoas is often involved from being shortened and the hamstrings often pull the lumbar spine towards flat back. Long term these are bad, in the short term you feel stiff and immobile.

I started using the Ma roller in a more advanced way to help clients help themselves at home. Thai massage has me doing these sacral movements and stretches for you but the Ma roller allows you to work on yourself. Notice the lumbar flexion or flat back then the lumbar extension or temporary lordosis we create. You’re stretching and pressing into some of the deeper structures at the base of your spine and if you’re like most of my clients, your back pain will get better.

Go slow, breathe and keep moving. I’ll see you soon for a Thai massage session or class.

Thai Massage Open Practice

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Thai massage open practice fell into my lap over a year ago. Someone started the event in their home as an offshoot of the acroyoga community here in Austin and the first night I wandered in I was asked to teach a short sequence. Now, a year later, when new people wander in I can watch a regular teach someone new a similar short sequence and smile.

Currently our community on facebook has 260 members. You can join to get regular updates about our events. To my knowledge we’re the largest organic Thai massage community in the United States. We’re not affiliated with any particular teacher or lineage and we’ve taken Texas independence seriously. From the beginning I decided to lay no ownership over the group and to allow it to create its own community that’s self policing.

Thai massage open practice

Our numbers have grown and thanks to the help of Casa de Luz we’ve had a constant space to operate in this past year. People who come are nearly religious about their zeal for what we’re doing here in Austin, Texas. I laugh when I ask someone how they found out and they announce that a friend of a friend mentioned it to them. In Austin, laid back and organic has shaped how we do things, including one of the most innovative Thai massage communities in the U.S.

Thai Massage Is More Effective For Low Back Pain

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Thai massage is more effective for low back pain. Of all the things I’ve used nothing else comes close. I can go into explanations but come get a session and find out. Here I have another discussion with Tyrone Chuang about Thai massage and some of the differences between it and deep tissue or swedish massage.

Long term as a teacher I try to give students more tools. My goal is to help educate and refine students options so they have longer more lucrative careers in massage and bodywork while helping their clients. Metta <3

Relief For Lower Back Pain

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Relief for lower back pain is something many are looking for. In all honesty I can do little for low back pain on a table massage. Thai massage allows me to give you real relief for lower back pain by allowing me to access the structures that are causing it to begin with.

This video shows a piriformis stretch you can do in a chair to help you see how the gluteals affect the lumbar spine.

The problem often goes deeper into the hips and pelvis than most realize and the psoas in particular is so tight and restricted it allows little of the fluid movements we had as children. Release the musculature, allow normal contraction and relaxation and whoila, pain goes away. People look at me like it’s magic but it’s not. Thai massage is just common sense. Don’t waste your time going to a spa, they don’t offer Thai massage…yet.

Complementary Medicine

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Complementary medicine is the term I would choose for what I do. There are many reasons for this but one major factor is that I don’t feel I’m in competition with the predominant western model of healthcare. Before we get too deeply into this discussion I have to set the record straight. Western medical doctors have done nothing to help me heal. I’m not saying they can’t help you I’m saying they haven’t helped me. All of the damage I sustained was made worse under their care and I had to drop out of school and go my own way to find people who could help me.

Most of those who did help me are quite frankly considered snake oil salesman. A cranialsacral therapist, a yogi named BKS Iyengar, a yoga teacher in the U.S. named Bikram Choudhury and a Thai massage teacher doing some odd stuff I now do for a living. I got more help from asian bodywork and care than I ever did from western doctors after a horrible whiplash. Drunk drivers aren’t on my love list.

Within this complementary medicine that I’ve tried over time there’s been a whole list of things that have not been studied my western science as it should. I’m not saying that it has Not been studied but the depth just isn’t there. There’s a reason I take antibiotics if I have a root canal needed, antibiotics work. I’m not interested in the slightest in inefficacious medical care. When I was 22 I had a choice, I could figure out how to get better on my own, or I could become a junkie. Think about that for a minute and how my life must have looked. Chronic pain, every day, intractable and the people who presume to know the human body look at me and say, “You look fine according to the x rays. We can’t give you pain medication because you will become addicted. You’re too young.”

All these years later I still ache. I work on it, I’m better, my health is better than most I know but it’s taken years of hard work and dedication, not to mention sampling what others consider snake oil. The only thing I did pick up as a philosophy student was looking at the big picture and asking questions. When it comes to our current medical model let me explain this so you understand. There are two major issues when it comes to what is considered science. The scientific method works, there’s a reason we hold it in such high regard. When we study something we can prove and show repeatedly that something works then delve more to find out why.

The gap is that on the one hand we only know so much so we need to look at specific things. What we Choose to study is just as important as the results. The other factor and hold onto your hats, medical research must be funded. Funding=$. Do you or I have money to dedicate to the study and research of complementary medicine? Homeopathy, acupuncture, Thai massage, massage, cranial osteopathy, yoga, tai chi? These things are difficult to study but not impossible. The catch is who will pay to have them studied? In the U.S. alone we spend more money dropping rockets and bombs on other countries than goes into research on these things. Maybe they don’t work and if they don’t, let’s find out and move on with life.

The fundamental issue is that insurance and pharmaceutical companies now own medical care in this country. They pay for research. Does anyone care to prove that I can within a single session help someone feel better for an entire week even if they suffer chronic low back pain? There’s no money in it for anyone but me. Pharamceutical companies have no interest in my helping people because they can’t profit. Please remember, I Love western medicine, our emergency care is superb and if I get hit by a bus please rush me to the ER. Afterwards, I’m seeing all of the complementary medical personnel who’ve kept me off of the needle.

The questions are: What do we study? Why do we choose to study it? That’s science and science is ruled by $. The $ is in the hands of insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in you taking more of their products and sealing the deal on their market.

If you see me and have back pain, try a few sessions. I’ve been conducting “research” for 11 years. 😛

Back Pain

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I’ve seen so much back pain over the years it’s become a joke. I don’t take others pain lightly but having had so many structural issues myself then seeing clients complain about being in an office chair for 60 hours a week becomes tedious. If I could do anything for middle America, it’s showing them how to use gravity to help open their rib cage while back bending their thoracic spine. I see too many office warriors collapsed and growing old before their time.

The above video shows you how to use a foam roll to help you passively back bend through this area and soften the stretch. If done daily, what back pain? will probably become your mantra. Correct the posture, pain often goes away. We don’t cure things but what if you’re symptoms go away?

It’s so simple most people miss it. Correct the posture, align your body, physical freedom happens. Gravity is your friend in this back bend.

Learn Massage Techniques

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Anyone can learn massage techniques. You don’t have to be licensed and what’s good for you, is good for your family and friends. The Austin Thai massage group has been so active recently that we’re drawing attention from locals and others online via facebook. A licensed therapist was asking questions and trying to figure out what was up with the group because it didn’t resemble anything she’d ever seen before. The group has slowly turned out 20+ people every Thursday for the last several months and as we grow, we diversify and things get louder. There’s acroyoga in a corner, some flirting going on in the other.

It’s taken time for me to grow accustomed to what we do. In all honesty I’m a licensed therapist and teacher in TX so I began joining the group in a teacher/mentor role and taught little bits. Now it’s been so long I can watch people I taught teaching new people who come in. In some ways it’s a much more traditional model than the spa/client industry and marketing we do in the U.S. It’s starting to ruffle feathers. People aren’t licensed, don’t know contraindications or medical history and have never attended massage school.

When we work I usually look around the room to see if anyone is doing anything that could do harm. If so I stop, go chat with whoever is working and guide them. For the most part the acroyoga community has enough intuitive sense to avoid things that don’t feel good and based on that response to pleasure, they do really wondeful intuitive work. At the same time this open space allows for the most interesting improvisation I’ve ever seen. Acroyoga and Thai massage mash together with friends in something that’s akin to the anarchy at Burningman, all for free.

The form this takes looks nothing like the formality of going to see a massage therapist. That is where I think the problem or in my opinion, the solution comes in. What if massage becomes fun? A group activity? That last part, a group activity is what I’ve been pondering more and more on many levels. Thai massage, because you’re clothed can be done publicly. Think about that for a minute, let it marinate. Public massage where other people are around giving and receiving work. That one point is so contrary to our dominant model is it any wonder we’re ruffling feathers.

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”~~Jesus

Thai Massage Is The Best!

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I’ve been doing lots of promotion on various facebook groups related to massage and Thai massage in particular. One of the things I’ve noticed is that other massage therapists talk about Thai massage as a modality. For the life of me I can’t fathom what they learned or were talking about. A modality seems to be something you add to your massage like Reiki, hot stones, reflexology and trigger point therapy. To me that’s akin to saying you learned this little thing that’s an add on.

Big Twist Robert Gardner Wellness

Thai massage is The Best Bodywork I’ve Ever Had. I’ve looked under every rock, nook and cranny for more and I’m still practicing it 9 years later. Thai massage is So vast I find it never ending. Much like Chinese medicine you become a master after years of work with people and developing pattern recognition. People seem to think that Thai massage is just some stretches and that is completely not the case.

Heel Push Robert Gardner Wellness

If you’re a client with back pain, it can help. If you’re a therapist trying to avoid burn out this is how you do it. Thai massage is deeper than any other massage I’ve ever had. I can, if I wish lean 185lbs of heel into you. Thai massage…is the best.

Thai massage, Yoga and Awareness

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Landon Sykes and I spend lots of time hanging out and discussing the nuances of Thai massage. As males in a female dominated field we share a rapport that often finds us trading bodywork then having beers afterwards. I decided to record one of our conversations so you get an idea of what we’re doing with amazing bodywork in Austin, Texas.

Landon has been a massage therapist slightly longer than I have but we both focus on Thai massage. When we discuss yoga and Thai massage and the effects we’ve seen in clients it’s from observation over the years. Putting your hands on that many bodies over 10 or more years gives you a solid idea about muscle tightness, rigid inflexible joints and what happens when you don’t get work regularly.

You can schedule a session with Landon by calling 512-318-4387

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

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I hear of carpal tunnel syndrome so often I grow sick of it. Computer workers constantly complain of pain in their hands and wrists. I think I used to have it. Syndromes in western medicine are complicated because they’re usually a list of symptoms that are given a name. In my case, I work as a massage therapist and I use my hands, all day. A few years into my practice and before I used Thai massage it was just too much pressure on my carpals and wrists.

In that position I do what everyone does, I go to the doctor and they look at my quizzically. I was told to work less and use naproxen sodium. If you’re anything like me you have Huge fear and anxiety about your ability to keep working to pay bills. It’s no fun to realize you type at a computer all day and are now going to have to figure something else out.

That carpal tunnel I had? I didn’t. Essentially I had trigger points in my forearms that were causing pain in my hand. Deal with the trigger points and slowly but surely hand pain, what hand pain? I’ve been working for 11 years with no signs of slowing down. That incident was 8 years ago. The video above shows the work I do on my wife periodically for her continuous use of her hands at a computer and from knitting.

If you’re having issues with carpal tunnel you should Come In and See Me. I can figure out within ten minutes if I’m going to be able to help you. As I tell people, I do not diagnose, I do not treat conditions but…what if I we can make your symptoms go away?

Patience

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As business is growing and my work shifts more towards teaching I remind myself to be as patient with myself as I am with clients. I have high hopes for my community and for bodyworkers and put myself to the test time and again. I don’t want to settle for second best and I don’t think you should either. My only concern is my pacing.

If I decline a session it’s because currently I only take a single day off each week. Soon I hope to make that two. I love working on people but even I have my limits physically and energetically. I promise to spend as much time taking care of myself as I spend working on helping you with your aches, pains and health.

So many clients mean I spend more time teaching and promoting other therapists to work with you. Teaching has it’s own joys and I love students seeing the light and how they can not only help others but live a good life in the process. Here’s a list of upcoming classes. Thank you for helping build my practice.