The Enlightened Body Blog

7 Deep Marketing Tips for Massage Therapists

The more you learn about massage and bodywork, the more you learn about life as a whole. I have been a therapist now for 32 years and a teacher for 27. I’ve learned that the same principles that apply in every bodywork session apply equally to every aspect of our lives. As a matter of fact, it seems we can only have both success and satisfaction when we attend to these things. Some of these principles are: to be centered: to meet people openly; to really get to know our clients through their tissues, nervous system, history; to take actions that will profoundly help them; to monitor and make sure we are helping; and to periodically disengage, re-examine how things are going and celebrate our successes.

Principles of Deep Marketing

The beginning, middle and end of Deep Marketing is centering yourself. Without being centered you can’t do anything well! It is the precondition for all success in the practice and in the business of bodywork. For instance, we all know if your heart is not in what you are doing, there is little satisfaction. The same holds true for the rest of the body!

Marketing with your body means attending to the following with respect to being centered. Often when I sit down at work, I will center myself before I initiate any other work. And I connect with these seven levels of body/mind.

1. Are you grounded? Do you feel literally and figuratively supported by the earth underneath you? Realize that however high your aspirations, you are each just another animal inhabiting the earth. Feel supported by your legs and feet. What do you really stand for? Who and what principles do you stand by?
   
2. Are you excited? If you can’t contact your excitement for growing your business, you will not mobilize the energy required. This is associated with so-called second chakra. Awkward to say but the successful therapist cultivates an irresistible attraction to his or her massage practice. Get excited!
   
3. Do you use your gut in helping you make decisions? Freud said all important decisions are based on insufficient information – the mind alone is an insufficient tool. It is your gut, the feeling in the pit of your stomach, that you also must listen to. And we have to have “guts.” To be successful and to maintain it over time, takes courage, takes guts, inner resolve. Do you support yourself through your lumbar vertebrae and through sufficient breath to give you the energy and determination you need to succeed?
   
4. Is your heart into what you are doing? Is your heart passionately connected to where you are working? to the clients that you have? Let your heart do the talking and listen to what you truly love and want to do. There is nothing more lovely than seeing someone and being someone whose heart is totally into their work and business. The person who loves their work is an irresistible force.
   
5. Do you feel confident in what you say about your work? When people ask you what you do, do you have words that you feel great and honest about? Word-of-mouth is most important in business-building and most importantly, your mouth, your words! I like to think that the best marketing is like a song sung because you really mean it. Take the time to let your mind and your heart participate in the co-creation of statements you make about your work that optimize people becoming and staying your clients.
6. For all the time we spending thinking, the mind is often underappreciated. Use your incredible mind, both its logical and imaginative sides, to slow down and make well-considered decisions about how you want to grow your business. And, as the previous five points have indicated, don’t let your mind try to run the show in isolation. Make all decisions asking yourself – is this grounded, am I excited about it, does my gut tell me it’s right, does my heart say yes, do the words ring true? 7) Be open to inspirations from beyond your usual self. The best ideas seem to come out of nowhere or from “on high”. Cultivate your openness to your “higher self”. Sometimes, facing a difficult decision, I will just sit with the problem, until by just being receptive, a solution just appears in my mind that is perfect. Some of the greatest successes and satisfactions arise from an amazing place of inspiration. Many great art and science discoveries tell us this.

Massage and bodywork have their power by never forgetting to honor the role the body plays in lives well lived. So your success as a massage professional must arise from this same grounded place. Take refuge in the wisdom in your body and watch your great work grow and grow!

7 Reasons: Deep Massage vs. Deep Tissue

 By David Lauterstein

1. Massage therapists performing Deep Massage generally work without lubricant (unless there is a painful feeling of stretching the skin). Using lubricant causes the therapist to slip over the tension and, to compensate, they have to use tremendous pressure not to slip. This often causes overwork syndromes for the therapist and sometimes excessive pain or bruising for the client. 
   
2. Deep Massage recognizes the scientific fact that muscles don’t relax! It is the nervous system that relaxes the muscles! So the Deep Massage therapist learns how to contact the nervous system through extremely high touch quality. Deep tissue works from outside in and is therefore more temporary in its effect. Deep Massage works from insideout, stimulating the client’s nervous system’s ability to relax. Therefore it results in more thoroughand longer-lasting relaxation as well as deeper postural benefit. 
   
3. Deep Massage treats the whole person. We recognize that some of our body’s tension is a reflection of stress in our everyday life. So in Deep Massage we look not only at the physical sources of tension but at the “energetic” sources of tension andstress in our anatomy and physiology. Deep Massage teaches a way to contact and benefit energy and structure simultaneously.
   
4. Deep Massage also involves the therapist being educated to make optimal pressure and contact.  Students of deep massage learn to recognize specific signs to indicate how deep to go, when it’s too much, how long to hold a certain trigger point, etc.  These involve training in paying closer attention to the client’s breath, eyes, facial expression, and other important indicators. 
   
5. Deep Massage classes include training on how to be more balanced in one’s body and mind in thetherapy setting. Because deep massage training helps the therapist avoid unnecessarily stressing their body and mind, the therapy not only works betterfor the client, it also greatly enhances the longevity of the therapist!
   
6. Deep Massage involves training in customizing the session uniquely for each individual client, rather than being an approach applied similarly to all clients. Students are trained to individually assess the client’s posture, movement, stress sources, expressed health goals and to come up with a unique plan for each individual session.
   
7. Deep Massage feels better!  Because it is more individualized, by a therapist educated with respect to body mechanics and self-care, who is trained to observe and refine the touch to be optimal, who addresses tension in nervous system as well as in the muscles, and who knows just how best to contact the actual places of tension - it just feels better!

David Lauterstein: Massage Therapy Hall of Fame 2011

By David Lauterstein, as published the World Massage Festival, which David has been nominated as a 2011 Hall of Fame inductee.

I am David Lauterstein, Co-founder of The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School in Austin.  I have been a massage therapy teacher since 1982 and therapist since 1977.  

Here's my story!

I was raised in Chicago by a mother who was a pianist, a father who was a dentist, and my Godmother who was a tall, wonderful African-American woman, Millie Barry.

My earliest interest was music and the first 25 years of my life that was my passion.  I played guitar, banjo, dobro, and mandolin throughout high school.

I loved playing with bluesmen particularly and was good friends with MIchael Bloomfield.  I also had the honor to play with Otis Spann and others and to meet Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Son House, Fred McDowell, Sleepy John Ester, Big Joe Williams and many other wonderful folk musicians.

In 1967 I studied Indian classical music at the Society for the Study of Eastern Arts in Berkeley, California.  Then I did an about face and decided to get my degree in Western classical music, studying mostly at the University of Illinois where I got my degree in music composition and spent a year doing post-graduate studies with Wolf Rosenberg in Munich.

Beginning in 1972, my interests in yoga, martial arts, and psychotherapy started becoming more important to me and I began transitioning to what I later discovered as my life work - massage therapy.

Coming back from Munich, I got into Gestalt psychotherapy, body-centered explorations, and Rolfing.  My Rolfing experiences, at the hands primarily of Allen Davidson, were especially profound.  I started a study group with Allen and a number of other Rolfers, psychotherapists, and martial artists.  During the time of that study group I found myself experimenting more and more with bodywork and in 1977 I graduated from the Chicago School of Massage Therapy and began a professional practice in massage therapy in Chicago.

I practiced for a number of years and learned by trading and receiving from anyone in town or passing through.  Thus, I was exposed early on to Aston Patterning, Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Polarity, Hoshino Therapy, Zero Balancing, body-centered psychotherapy, shiatsu, and other fascinating approaches.  

In 1982 I met Rolfer, Daniel Blake, who wanted to teach a training in "Structural Bodywork".  This was his offshoot of Rolfing in which he tried to teach how Ida Rolf actually practiced (she rarely did the 10-session recipe unless she was teaching).  In 1982-83 I did 500 hours of advanced training with Daniel and was certified by the Structural Bodywork Institute.  At that time, I was also fascinated with Craniosacral Therapy and studied with Daniel Bensky and the Australian osteopath, Charles Lincoln and his wife Deborah.   I also studied character structure with body-centered psychotherapist, Robert Phillips and began a long association with psychotherapist, Paul D. Brown.

In 1982 I began teaching at the Chicago School of Massage Therapy.  I was, along with Jim Hackett, the primary instructor in anatomy and deep tissue massage.

I discovered how much I loved teaching.  Shortly thereafter I began teaching throughout the U.S.  Some of my first workshops were in Texas and I fell in love with Austin.  At this time I wrote the book, Putting the Soul Back in the Body:  A Manual of Imaginative Anatomy for Massage Therapists.

I moved to Austin in 1984 with the intention of just teaching advanced trainings.  However, I found that good basic training was lacking.  So I joined forces with the first massage school in Texas, the Texas School of Massage Studies, becoming their Dean of Faculty.  As such, the first thing I did was hire an advanced student of mine, John Conway.  At this time, I was also the editor of the national magazine, the Massage Therapy Journal.  

After three and half years at the Texas School of Massage Studies, John and i decided we wanted to work at a school that was "run in a manner as healing as the subjects we teach".  We both deeply wanted to be teaching at a school in which the compassionate and exacting principles governing high level massage were practiced also in the way that staff and students were treated.  So we started The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School in January, 1989.

Although Texas at that time required only 250 hours, we began with a radical three semester curriculum encompassing 700 hours from our very start!  We covered Swedish, Deep, Sports Massage, and Shiatsu.  We also included advanced studies in psychologically-oriented bodywork, Craniosacral therapy, Zero Balancing, and advanced Structural Bodywork.  

Paralleling these early years, I began in 1986 studying Zero Balancing with its founder, Dr. Fritz Smith, MD.  I found in classes and discussions with Fritz that the Deep Massage teaching I had been doing dovetailed remarkably with Zero Balancing's philosophy and practice.  In the 23 years since I have been teaching primarily Deep Massage:  The Lauterstein Method and Zero Balancing.  What distinguishes these approaches is a very conscious engagement of both the body's structure as well its energy.  So many bodyworkers either practice medically or in a new age manner - yet I've always been interested in how to practice in a unified manner -  with scientific rigor as well as heightened imagination and spirit.  

I have taught throughout the U.S. since 1982 and in England also annually since 1996.  I have written the Seven Dimensions of Touch, What is Zero Balancing?, the Poetics of Touch and other essays published internationally.  

In 2008 I recorded my first CD for massage and bodywork, Roots and Branches.  This is the first CD recorded live in the studio simultaneous to actual massages 

being performed in the studio - so we would have a music that actually arose from massage itself.   I also have recorded two DVD's of Deep Massage: The Lauterstein Method which accompany the workshops I teach.

The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School has just celebrated its 20th Anniversary!  I am proud of our training of 1000's of wonderful therapists.  We continue to strive each day for the highest standards in the field!  I have been a therapist for 32 years yet I am still struck with wonder by the endless depth of what we learn and what we can accomplish with bodywork and high level education.

Anatomy Review: Lymphatic System

When I first heard of Manual Lymph Drainage, the product Liquid Plumber came to mind!  And being a manual plumber was not appealing to me - I’m a holistic healer, not a mere lymph drainer! 

But the healer in me will find a way.  And where does the word “lymph” come from?  From the Latin “lympha” which refers to native divinities of springs and streams and water goddesses.  And “lympha” is derived from the Greek “nymphe,"- the goddess of a spring! 

So, with one etymological search, we’ve departed from Liquid Plumber and arrived at the “Goddess of the Spring.”

Indeed, it is the spring-fed purity of the fluids in the body that enable us to sustain and amplify our health through diet, hydration, exercise, and manual lymph therapies.

This life-sustaining fluid contains and conveys 25% of all our white blood cells!  The white blood cells and the healing waters they flow in – the plasma in the lymphatic system – are further filtered through the lymph nodes.  So just like a water filter in your home, the lymphatic system is operating at every moment, heightening the qualityof all your bodily fluids.  I say all the bodily fluids because ultimately the lymph flows into the cardiovascular system through ducts just above your heart.  Like the rivers into the sea and sky and back again, the liquids in your body flow in completely inter-connected, rhythmically flowing waterways.

Every human is 80% water. So if you want to understand human beings, you learn most of what you need to know by learning more about the nature of water. 

(If you’re curious to know more about that, check out the astonishing book, Sensitive Chaos, by the German scientist Gustav Schwenk.)

Like your veins, the lymphatic vessels have one-way valves assuring that lymphatic flow is toward the heart. Therefore, assuming massage is indicated for your client, all your work toward the heart will assist lymphatic circulation to some extent. Generally lymphatic work uses much less pressure than Swedish massage, slower rhythms, and with a number of gentle repetitions of each stroke.

Also note that deep, relaxed breathing has a positive and stimulating effect on the lymphatic system.

Every stroke you do as a therapist supports the purifying effects of this beautiful system. Every moment and in every place inside of you, this goddess of the spring that you are is giving you new life!

For more information, Lauterstein-Conway offers a wonderful introduction to manual lymph drainage bythe Physical Therapist, Elizabeth Hoffmaster.  For more training, consider courses offered through the Upledger Institute and other reputable MLD groups and individual teachers. 

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How to get 57 Massages in 6 Months

The other day we began a new class.

One of the teachers welcomed the students saying,  "This course is going to be the best time in your life.  Because you will get, in the next months, the most massage you will ever get in your whole life."

And I thought, "Yeah, he's absolutely right!"

Massage school is distinguished by, at least in our curriculum, about half of the classes being hands-on exchanges at higher and higher levels as students proceed.

Getting this amount and quality of bodywork propels the student into higher and higher levels of health and ease.  It makes feeling peaceful an everyday experience.

Often I say to students, "How many times in your life have people told you you must relax!:"  Actually, of course, relaxing does make learning so much easier and enjoyable.

As therapists we MUST become experts in relaxation!  How many jobs require that you relax?

That is just another incredible aspect of massage education.

Not to mention 57 massages in 6 months!

Anatomy Review: Back of the Future, Future of the Back

By David Lauterstein, LMT, Cert. ZB

Most people don’t know much about their bodies.  As a result, we live with suffering individually and as a society suffer from the symptoms of “psycho-physical illiteracy”.

Most of the physical suffering happens in the back.  Lower, middle, and upper back problems account for most worker absentee-ism in the U.S. - as well as most client complaints when people come for massage therapy or chiropractic. 

Knowledge First

To begin creating a new, healthier future for your back and those of your clients, let us start building your self-knowledge of the most prominent back muscles.  These are the “erector spinae”.  The erector spinae muscles are actually like three long muscular vines climbing up the trellis of your ribs and spine.  The outermost is called the “iliocostalis” which indicates it runs up from the pelvis (“ilium”) to the ribs (“costae”) about 2 or so inches out from your center.  Iliocostalis feels like a nylon string of a guitar running all the way up to the second neck vertebra.  The thickest strand of the erector spinae is the “longissimus” meaning “the longest”.  It runs all the way from your sacrum up to the back of your skull right behind your ear (“mastoid process of the temporal bone”).  Finally the innermost strand of the erectors is “spinalis” which runs right from the bottom of your ribcage just alongside the centrally located “spinous” processes of your spine (the bumps you see in the center) finally ending up at the back of your skull.  Spinalis, like iliocostalis, is rather thin except in the back of the neck where it unites with a deeper muscle layer actually becoming the thickest muscle of the neck. 

The erector spinae, from the standpoint of Oriental medicine, are pathways for the “bladder meridian”.  The bladder meridian begins at the inside orbit of the eye, comes back over the top of the head, follows the erectors down the back and then travels down the center of the back of the pelvis, legs, and to the little toe.  This is part of the “water” element, according to this structural/energetic model.  Interestingly, an emotion that may be associated with the bladder meridian is fear.  It is not uncommon to find a correlation between fearfulness and chronic or acute back pain. It is also said “the bladder channel connects with the brain and helps integrate intelligence with the functions of the nervous system.”

Sitting at a computer, driving or just walking hunched over, we are compromising these muscles.  They get “stuck” in a lengthened position holding onto the torso for dear life.  Under this continuous stress, they become weakened, and when we challenge them even just a little bit more - lifting, twisting suddenly, sleeping awkwardly or taking on more stress than usual - they can go into spasm.  People who hold their emotions back or have learned to stand at “attention” may certainly also experience chronic tension in these muscles.

Solutions - So your Back has Future?

Do exercises to lengthen the front torso and to strengthen the back.  Rolling on an exercise ball can be very helpful.  Pilates and other core-strengthening activities are great - like Hatha Yoga. 

Practice fuller breathing - the back muscles all attach to the ribs and, if the ribs are moved more freely by breath, the back muscles’ tension can be greatly relieved.

Cultivate your awareness of what your sources of stress are and what emotions you may holding onto.  Then decide on better ways to cope with your stress.

As a massage therapist, addressing the erector spinae is one of the most important things you can do.

Helpful Massage Techniques

1. Medium deep effeurage down the sacrum with your palm or both thumbs - to “re-root” the overstretched fascia.
2. “Melting” (sensitively working trigger points) into the side of the erectors between the iliac crest and the 12th rib.
3. Cross-fiber friction especially toward the mid-line - across each strand of the erectors - to bring better circulation and breadth back into these overworked muscles.

Also, both Asian bodywork and chair massage (as we teach it, chair massage brilliantly adapts shiatsu for the back to the seated position) are also quite thorough in their treatment of the erector spinae and the bladder meridian.

The future of the back, if we practice better knowledge and self-care, is to facilitate a buoyant way of living, courageous, free and self-supporting!