Getting Clients to Try New Services

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Gael Wood is a friend and colleague and wanted space for a guest post. Working in the mainstream of the massage industry she touches on some of the issues I see with Thai massage and getting clients to try a new service. She recommends what I usually recommend. The slow incremental take over. 🙂

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Enjoy her post:

We’ve all been there, we take a CEU class, learn some great new techniques, that we know will help our clients, and we don’t end up using them as much as we would like.

Why is this? I think it’s because we just don’t know how to seamlessly incorporate new techniques into our massage and we worry about our clients’ expectations. We know most people get a little concerned about change and our clients like what we do already, it’s hard to rock that boat!

Try some of the following ideas to work your new skills into your massages:

  1. Keep practicing at home and reviewing your class resources. This will increase your confidence level and your skills.
  2. Challenge yourself to use 1-3 new techniques every massage for a month. Before you know it, you won’t even have to think about it.
  3. Watch your wording, it’s all in how you say it! Asking a client to book a full Thai massage is asking them to take a risk with their money on something they may have never even heard of. Instead ask if they would like to try some new “stretching techniques” and explain the benefits. For example: “Susan, I would love to incorporate some of the stretching that I learned recently, I think it will help your neck and tight shoulders, does that sound ok?” After the session, you can explain that you have a new service with even more of that good stuff!
  4. Offer a free upgrade, like 15 minutes of Thai stretching with every hour booked for a few weeks.
  5. Create a new service and a great special. For example, Thai Herbal Fusion, you could incorporate Thai techniques, massage, and some herbal healing balms.
  6. Do a giveaway for a full session of your new service, and everyone who enters but doesn’t win gets a 25% off coupon to try your new service. I wouldn’t announce the coupon, just send it out after the giveaway is over. And, as a bonus you can grow your Facebook page and mailing list.

A big part of your job as a therapist is to make recommendations to clients, whether it’s how often to come back in or which services will give them the most benefit, you are the expert. Proceed with confidence and grow your business!

Sciatica Pain?

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Sciatica is something I see in clinical practice regularly. Clients have this pain that runs down the posterior of their leg and nine times out of ten their piriformis has clamped down on their sciatic nerve. They don’t have a clinical case of sciatica or nerve degeneration they just has a case of what I jokingly tell students is, “tight ass.”

Use this simple video and see if it helps. If it reduces your symptoms and pain imagine what I can do with fourteen years of clinical experience in a session with you. It’s not uncommon to remedy the bulk of the issue in a single session.

Sciatica is like many other issues I see with client where soft tissue is somehow stimulating nerves and causing pain in this cascade that won’t shut down. It’s so simple to reduce symptoms just try the video above. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Tense muscles that won’t go back to neutral seem to cause a huge range of pain issues I see in clients. I just find the tense areas, help release them and clients feel like it’s magic. I’m still learning about the science behind how it works but it’s the same techniques I’ve used to work no myself and my own chronic issues over the years. See you in session soon.

What is Thai Massage?

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What Is Thai Massage?

I used to think I knew. At least I thought I had an idea. Over time Thai massage has vaporized in my mind in the way that American history has changed due to revisionist history. When I first studied with my teacher it was just Thai massage sometimes called Thai yoga massage and the yoga was just to let people know it was something like yoga where you stretched the client.

At that time that was enough. My interest in the practice was immediate and I felt a deep longing to travel to Thailand and study more in time. Due to life, finances and work I continued using what I’d been taught over the years and noticed my confusion as to why massage therapists worked as they did. Mat work was easier on my body more pain relieving and effective for clients but I couldn’t for the life of me find work in Austin, Texas. Austin being a progressive hub I was quite confused at the lack of diversity in the bodywork marketplace. Swedish and deep tissue ruled the landscape. In places I interviewed for work they made it very clear that they have no idea what Thai massage was and wouldn’t be offering something consumers weren’t asking for.

In my search for information I could find schools in the U.S. but they didn’t seem to be talking. It was as if they existed in isolation. I did what I always do. I got up and went. I started the US Thai massage group on facebook and brought many of the prominent teachers to myself. Immediately they began arguing with each other and even moreso subtly announcing that I didn’t know anything. This westerner was teaching Thai massage having never been to Thailand.

I produced a free Thai massage workbook that I gave away on my website. I was criticized even more for polluting a sacred tradition with my theoretically errant writings. I’d never presumed to know everything. I just presumed to know more than the students I was teaching. Most of them were completely floored by what I was sharing as it was nothing like anything they’d been taught before. They did massage on a table with the client under a sheet and blanket using oil or cream on bare skin. I was working on clothed clients on a mat using things that looked more like Brazilian jiu jitsu than massage. I had full use of my whole body including legs and feet.

Six years in teaching later I still don’t know what Thai massage is. I teach something called Thai massage but that label only seems to work for people if they’re not interested in lineage. I read articles. I follow the traditionalist camps and listen to their rally cry of tradition and lineage but deep down it doesn’t resonate for me at all. I was never really interested in Thai massage in that way. I was interested in helping people overcome pain. Thai massage was just the vehicle to help them there.

What is Thai massage is still the most searched for keyword term for Thai massage via google. No one knows what it is. Increasingly what I notice is there’s someone as white and as western as I am smiling and telling you he can teach you the Thai secrets for a large sum of money. What is Thai massage? I’m not really certain but I enjoy a good debate and find people fun to watch.

At this stage in my career I’ve written eight hundred pages of some of the most detailed sequence manuals on Thai massage in the western marketplace. I’m biased of course but my materials were writtien with massage therapists in mind. I was helping them transition from the table to the mat, no small undertaking for a table based culture. Saying I don’t know what Thai massage is means I wrote eight hundred pages of what exactly?

My soul. Mostly that’s what’s on those pages. My toil and care for others over the last thirteen or so years is on display. Much like youtube video comments people will have much to say about my being fat. I’ll be told what I do isn’t Thai enough. It’s not this enough or that enough and doesn’t include prayers to Jivaka and the Buddha. If you’ve a keen eye you’ll take something out of context and tell me I’m off hara and not moving correctly. You’ll announce I’m doing it wrong.

At this stage I’ll just sit back drink some scotch ponder my age increasing belly fat and laugh. Frankly, I don’t care much about tradition. I’m a Scots-Irish born man from south Louisiana. My people are the ones you saw during hurricane Katrina on tv and in protests over Alton Sterling in my hometown of Baton Rouge, La. Critics? Oh I’ve got plenty of those. I’ll continue to have them as long as I live.

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”~Aristotle

What is Thai massage? I’m still not certain. When you dig enough the pieces start to fall apart. Is it Thai? Is it ancient? Is it sacred? Is it for sale?

Your Thai massage is what you make it. Don’t let anyone criticize your practice. We all have opinions. My question to you is what you are doing helping others? Then keep going. Do you ask good questions and self reflect? Then keep going. I’m not as interested in Thai massage as I am in how you treat your neighbors. I help mine. Do you? Is that Thai massage?

What is Thai massage jam ®?

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Thai massage jam ® is a community bodywork and massage event I’ve hosted in Austin for four years. During that time we’ve seen thousands of people wander through our event and wonder what was going on. No one has ever seen anything like it. We meet at least once a week in Austin, Texas and hope to open chapters in your city soon.

In our culture a licensed therapist pays someone for a massage. A licensed massage therapist pays an educator for a class to get continuing education. When they wander into Thai massage jam ® and see people all working on each other communally I can sense their confusion. The questions start, “is everyone here licensed?” I’ll look around and say, “those two folks are and everyone else is just part of the community.” Since I’m there to supervise it’s easy to show people techniques and help them with the basic skills needed to work on their friends safely.

The usual barriers break down. We’re not charging for massage and we’re not selling massage education. I teach, share, educate, host and receive work because it’s one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever been a part of. Almost nightly someone will give me a hug and tell me it’s the best night of the week. We’re have regular events in Austin at various facilities including the Lauterstein Conway Massage School.

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Our event info is put out through the Austin Thai massage group on facebook and also on our meetup group. We work on each other, network and share great clothed bodywork in a group setting. We’ll see you soon and you can find more information on my social media.

 

 

 

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Snapchat? 🙂

Snapchat rgwellness

 

Is Massage Healthcare?

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As my practice develops I continue to challenge myself to improve my craft. I couldn’t perform the highest quality bodywork in settings under someone else even medical ones. Every work environment I encountered had practices that prevented clients from receiving  the best bodywork for their issues. Insurance will only allow an hour etc.

To allow customers to receive the best work I had to create Reboot ™. My own challenges with my health led me to blending elements of yoga, yoga therapy, Thai massage, myofascial release, MacKenzie rehab exercises, pranayama, trigger point therapy and self care into a cohesive whole. It’s amazingly effective for pain management but it never gelled until I was in solo private practice. Your insurance company will not pay for what I do. To be frank, doctors, physical therapists and other healthcare providers did nothing for me and based on what I see in practice they’re often doing very little for you. The treatments I see are often we have these pills or we can perform a surgery. Those are wonderful options and I’m a fan of science but American healthcare is a shambles.

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My sessions are 3 hours and are the equivalent of the manual therapy a physical therapist might provide if they took the time to. This is an art. I’ve dedicated my life to what I do and I’m still learning as I go. Clients with chronic pain related to car accidents, sports injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, thoracic outlet syndrome and other things they feel a massage would never help regularly improve from my work. It’s a great honor to provide nonsurgical carpal tunnel relief but as a massage therapist in our culture it’s a challenge to convey what I do and why.

What you will notice when you get a session is that:

There is no massage table.
You do not get undressed.
I use my legs and feet to perform deep compressions in addition to mobilization of your limbs.
The session lasts 3 hours.

What I basically just told you is that what I do ***is not considered massage in any way in our culture.***

Law in TX says that massage is manipulation of soft tissue. What I do is legally massage but it looks nothing like the sessions consumers get at local establishments. It’s more effective for most chronic pain that’s muscle and tissue based but is it part of healthcare? I know it’s healthcare but it’s too outside of the usual framework to bill insurance for. If you’re ready to improve and work on yourself I’ll be here in Round Rock waiting to help you.

Are you ready to Reboot ™?

What Is Reboot ™?

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We’re gearing up to start offering Phase classes of my Reboot ™ curriculum. Students and the public are asking questions and I hope to provide answers with some website changes and a plethora of videos that demonstrate what I’m teaching and why it’s so important for the public and massage therapists.

When Reboot ™ is mentioned the first question is, “I thought you taught Thai massage?” Fundamentally what I’ve developed is based on the biomechanics of Thai massage but the theoretical framework is completely different. Although my work is based on a foundation of Sen lines (you can see those in the Intro to Thai massage workbook I give away for free) I interpret those lines in a completely different way than what I understand from other teachers. As a westerner I felt it my duty to push forward, innovate and do the best bodywork I could create. That bodywork has nothing to do with tradition and everything to do with clinical experience and a desire to continue learning about pain management and pain science.

Reboot ™ classes and certification means that I’m also teaching a massage therapist elements of yoga, yoga therapy, pranayama, anatomy and physiology, trigger point therapy, myofascial release, self care and rehab exercises blended into a cohesive whole that is easier for the client to pick up and use. This isn’t asian. This isn’t tradition. This is innovation in America.

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The deepest respect I can pay to tradition is to take what I know and move forward. I’m going to take you along with me. Consistently what I see is that there are two groups of people who freak out after having sessions with me. The first are those in chronic pain who didn’t realize they could find relief. The second were massage therapists themselves. When I worked on them they inevitably got up and said, “I don’t understand what this is.” I often ask them questions to clarify and when I ask if they didn’t like the session they often reply, “It’s amazing but what you just did isn’t massage. I don’t know how to describe it.”

It’s not magic. It can be taught. It’s good bodywork, patience and care over years of practice and pattern recognition. I’m not just trying to help clients. I’m trying to take a massage therapist from poverty to affluence while helping their clients lead pain free lives. I’ve had many teachers along the way. Some who’ve I’met in person some who I’ve not.

My best two teachers were a drunk driver and poverty. The drunk driver taught me pain management. Poverty taught me business. My struggle with both means I know our art and business from the inside out.

The challenge isn’t whether I’m going to change the bodywork industry in the U.S. The question is whether you as a client or student are ready to Reboot ™.

Thai Massage or Thai Yoga Massage?

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Someone wrote me to ask what the difference was between these and I felt it’d be a good idea to write a post about it. I’m tied into this confusion myself and if you download my free Thai massage workbook you’ll notice something if you look very closely. The cover page says Thai yoga massage. The copyright page says Thai massage. So which is it? What’s the difference between those things?

In America marketing is king. If you can’t sell something then it’s far more difficult to continue sharing with the public. My understanding is thus, years ago as the first westerners were encountering Thai massage and learning it they compared it to what they’d seen before. It’s not typically table, cream and glide like Swedish massage which most consider the norm so what did it look like? Yoga. It’s done clothed on a mat and involves stretching so Thai yoga massage was born.

I’ve asked about this on the US Thai massage group before and I’ve been told the same basic story for years that then comes with heated debate about what traditional Thai massage is.  Adding another category causes even more confusion for potential clients just looking for relief.

If you were an early practitioner of Thai massage and told a westerner you did Thai massage what images rolled through the consumers head? Thai? What’s that? Frankly the images rolling through their head were asian massage and if you were lucky the word parlor didn’t roll through. Thai yoga massage as a marketing strategy worked quite well. The potential customer knew that they were clothed, being stretched and it involved something akin to stretching like in their popular yoga classes.

So what is Thai yoga massage? It’s a western creation to sell Thai massage to the budding yoga community. That has its own challenges and caveats. What’s happened recently is more and more yoga teachers were learning the work since it’s related to yoga right? It’s just a passive form of yoga correct?

What’s now happening is the yoga community is grabbing onto Thai massage that they were once calling Thai yoga massage and now they’re just calling it Thai yoga. The issue is that there’s no licensure, no rules and no regulation of yoga and teaching it. Slowly the yoga community encroaches on what I’m struggling to teach to licensed massage therapists. As much as I try what I’m selling is so different that guess who picks it up more easily? Yoga teachers. The problem has grown large enough that the largest certification organization, the Yoga Alliance, has stepped in declaring you can’t use their certification and practice anything called therapy or yoga therapy. Thai yoga therapy anyone? What a great way to avoid massage licensure and massage school.

Welcome to regulation in the U.S. If you’re not a licensed surgeon you can’t just change the name but if you’re a yoga teacher looking to skirt around massage regulation and going to a massage school it’s an easy switch. Drop the word massage from your Thai yoga massage and you can work on whoever you wish with no license.

There are still debates about the historical accuracy of these issues but in my case I’ve always been a yoga teacher and a licensed massage therapist. I’ve understood that these two traditions influenced each other but were separate entities. I use both. I teach both. I share both but with the understanding that they came from separate cultures and theoretical backgrounds.

What happens next? No idea. In TX the massage board is moving under another regulatory agency and there’s hope that there will be a crackdown on unlicensed massage practitioners. Until then, caveat emptor.