Change

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I’m currently working plenty and delivering some of the best bodywork Austin has to offer. There are many changes underfoot and I admit being nervous about changes in business or living situation. As with all things I attempt to take it with grace and calm, an ongoing yoga practice makes a huge difference.

As I age, change and life continues to throw me curve balls I couldn’t imagine, I find myself in awe. In the middle of interactions with people, social situations, working with clients and students I’m usually trying to put my best foot forward. After years of practice in the healing arts and having relationships with people I’ve come across ongoing spiritual truths. The first among these is that all things change.

This fundamental fact, if you really grasp it, means that clinging to anything is pointless. Some have issue with this teaching. Saying you’re unattached often feels like you’re detached or being emotionally distant instead of involved in change or others tumult. I think it’s just the opposite. Holding someone in the midst of turmoil calms and soothes them while recognizing the fundamental fact that you’re both floating on a sometimes rough ocean. No one is harmed when emotions are calmed and burdens recognized and shared.

When things are good, it’s easy to sit, dwell, hang out and enjoy the sun’s rays. When it’s raining and you’re in your nice clothes with somewhere to go it’s far more difficult. You’re still on the same ocean and a storm is brewing. What is our goal in the midst of all this flux? Your goal is to become a cork. Just float. Life’s changes and your emotional responses to them will go on unceasingly. The hard part is sitting, dwelling in that state and allowing it to come and go just as joy will. Don’t avoid. Embrace.

Be a cork. Float.

“Behold, O monks, this is my advice to you. All component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own salvation.”~~The Buddha’s final teaching

Myofascial Pain Trigger Points

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Myofascial pain trigger points in infraspinatus are a problematic area to work on. They’re hard to reach but this video shows an easy way to access and treat these yourself. Infraspinatus is one of the muscles that make up the rotator cuff. This muscle in particular is an extremely common dysfunction I see in my bodywork practice. Due to its function in moving the upper arm around it means that it’s used when people lift their arms out in front of them. This happens in such common activities as driving, using a computer or many manual labor tasks like hanging sheet rock.

Keeping muscles in the rotator cuff relaxed seems to be good in preventing long term injury or a torn rotator cuff. When you think about tightening a guitar string to the point that it snaps, that is what can happen to a tight infraspinatus. Releasing chronic contractions and trigger points in the area go a long way to helping ease this tension and set things back in good working order.

Remember to go slow, breathe through your nose and relax onto a golf ball or tennis ball when you do this. Take your time and also keep in mind that the area can be extremely tender to the touch. Feel free to fold a rag or towel over your tool of choice to soften the pressure. The area is muscular, not bony and it takes time to get the superficial muscles to relax and allow a deeper tissue to be relaxed and released. Try it first for about 5 minutes, you can extend duration from there.

Cranialsacral Therapy pt.5

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A client for massage told me they had TMJ problems. Speaking with them I recommended they come in for cranialsacral therapy. She seemed to be a balanced person, hard working, intelligent but this one issue plagued her for years.

She’d seen dentists, orthodontists and various medical professionals but no one seemed to be able to help. I worked with her then put on gloves to do work on her lateral pterygoids. She found it so tender I tried several times to sink in but with little luck. It takes finesse, a deeply relaxed client and frankly, time. You need time to settle and sink in and thirty minutes makes for a poor session.

I asked about her TMJ dysfunction and she said, “Well it’s more headaches.” I asked more questions to clarify and she said that the TMJ stuff didn’t hurt but the headaches kept her from really excelling at life. The pain, frequency and duration meant that she just got lost in life. Friends can’t help her, nor doctors and with no one to help, the pain just agonizes some days. I asked where they hurt and she made a motion with her finger, right through her eyes temple to temple.

Her lateral pterygoids which I’d been unable to relax are faulting her sphenoid. The muscles connect to the sphenoid, which is the keystone bone in the center of the head. It exits on either side of the cranium at the temples. As any boxer knows, the knockout punch is to the temples or the jaw, both put significant pressure on the sphenoid via its articulations and in response your bodies protection is to pass out.

I know what I think is right but clients are at times a hard sell on cranial bones moving, sphenoid what? Explaining all of this comes out of left field. What medical school did you go to? Life and love, the same that Jesus went to. Cranialsacral therapy is as much energetic as it is sound structure and function. One without the other is incomplete.

I never saw the client again. It’s sad to feel I can help but when they’re unwilling to do more than one session in a world where they want a single pill to fix things, my hands are tied. Healing is cooperative. I provide what I can in bodywork and education but the clients have to meet me with self care.

For this reason regular sessions are best with something like cranialsacral therapy. For most conditions I recommend a minimum of three treatments just to see if you have any benefit. At the most it may rid you of your health issue, at the least you’ll feel relaxed and calm.

Hopefully I can head to Big Sur, CA and take a class with Milne in the future. It’d be an honor to work and study with him.

Myofascial Pain Trigger Points

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Myosfascial pain trigger points in pec. minor wreak havoc on clients just as subclavius does. Where subclavius locks the clavicle in place or pulls it medially, into the body, pec. minor pulls the shoulder blade down and forward. That slouched forward posture we all see so often usually has pec. minor involved. To complicate matters more women with breast tissue have increased pull on this area from gravity and often find pec. minor shortening over time.

To reach pec. minor you have to sink through pec. major. The muscles break into three bands that generally connect along the 3rd, 4th and 5th rib. There’s no harm if you miss it, even pec. major work is good. If you have trouble locating pec. minor slide your arm behind your back on the side you’re working and push your chest forward on that side, this should help you isolate the muscle fibers to work on. The area can be very tender, go slow.

Use your fingers, maybe two at a time to reinforce each other as you press. If it begins to hurt your fingers, switch fingers and take your time. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You build strength in your fingers and hands over time but don’t jeopardize your hands to work on your pec. minor.

The trigger points can refer pain to the shoulder joint on the same side and down the arm into the fingers. Don’t be afraid if you feel this while pressing into pec. minor. Go slow, breathe, feel the tenderness and let it soften. In time the trigger points will vanish. When pec. minor lengthens you can breathe more easily, roll the shoulder blades back and your angel wings start to open. Your upper back and chest feel free again.

Myofascial Pain Trigger Points

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Myofascial pain trigger points come up regularly not only in clients but in my own body. The simple video below shows you how to work on a muscle called subclavius. I find many women with large breasts have problems with the area as well as people with severely rolled forward shoulders that cause a slouched posture.

You can hold pressure on the spot that causes referred pain down the arm. Hold until the referred pain subsides or your hands grow tired. Rome wasn’t built in a day, take your time. Play with the muscle, angle and move the clavicle around to find the sweet spot. Self care for trigger points is highly effective.

Cranialsacral Therapy pt.4

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My learning yoga, practicing Thai massage and working with cranial sacral therapy all ran together. I’d delve deeply into breathing exercises and noticed that I could make my hands warm. I didn’t know why but clients seemed to like it when I worked on them so I would purposefully breathe deeply and do so.

Once performing chair massage a woman was startled because she said my hands were so warm. My then boss, also a massage therapist looked at me, one eyebrow cocked, knowing I was doing something but unable to figure out what the weird kid was up to. I kept my secret, explaining things even I don’t understand gets tiresome.

At a party with friends several years into my practice I was more secure. I was doing very deep breathing exercises most of the day. I just lived a normal life but I focused on my breathing. At a party one night I went Really deep. No one could tell I was doing anything, I just altered something so imperceptible that no one would notice. A friend came over and said, “Rob, what are you thinking about?” I smiled with no answer and then he persisted, “Come on, I know you’re thinking about something.” I laughed loudly and said, “I’m thinking about all of it.”

My response wasn’t a mock. I was just free floating. The mental state that came with this deep breathing was an acceptance of whatever floats through your mind. Don’t attach, just let the movie play out. My friends fortunately have grown used to occasionally odd behaviour from me due to my practice and eccentricities.

I sat on the floor. As I sat conversation flowed and someone mentioned I was a massage therapist to some of those friends of friends who were unaware. A beautiful young lady, a friends girlfriend, jumped up from her seat and in front of everyone, without a pause, lay on the ground at my feet asking me to massage her.

It’s all a practice right?

All my friends were watching. What to do? I don’t really want to work, work is over, this is my down time. Someone’s girlfriend is asking me to touch them with observers everywhere. I love female attention but I breathed deeply, sitting to see what options and actions would be best. As she lay on her stomach I calmly said, “Turn over.”

She looked at me confused but I assured her and after she turned over I moved down to her feet. Knowing my friends were watching I just tuned into her. I placed one hand on the outside of her foot and the other on the other side making no physical contact. I’d probably been taking 3 breaths a minute for the past half hour. I was other.

I honed in, listened, again, without physical contact. I settled and breathed and when all felt like it’d synced, I breathed, channeled whatever was in me and flicked my fingertips in the slightest most imperceptible way. She immediately interrupted, “I can feel that running up my legs!” I still hadn’t layed a hand on her.

Placing my hands on her feet I listened to her cranial rhythm for a few minutes then stopped. At this point I’d sat up and returned to the party like nothing happened. The rest of the evening she kept asking me what I’d done. Where had I learned it? I just shrugged. I still do.

To my friends and close associates she just became the girl I radiated on. There are many mysteries to the body, one need only to sit and listen deeply to be able to hear what they’re saying.

Massage Therapy Austin Tx

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Pondering massage therapy Austin, Tx I’m blown away. I’m up way too late and I’m teaching an Intro. to Thai massage class tomorrow. Seven years in and when clients ask me who I see for bodywork I hang my head and tell them it’s why I started teaching, I need someone to work on me. None of the therapists I’ve met over the years have the skills I need to access what’s inside my body and work on me as I would work on me. It’s not ego, just fact. If you’re reading this, and you’re the bodyworker I’m looking for, please contact me.

The state of Tx has CEU requirements for it’s massage therapists that are half what they were in my home state of Louisiana. I need bodywork on par with what physical therapists provide. In Louisiana that gap wasn’t that large, I’d fallen into a group of Highly skilled Thai massage therapists and my teacher and her students could work on me if I needed. Here in Austin, Round Rock…I hear an echo.

In discussing business with an associate I tried to describe the marketplace I’m in and the utter frustration of it all comes pouring in. What is the use of selling a Lamborghini when everyone announces that their Toyota takes them where they want to go? Anyone can go to massage warehouse surplus but who wants to see what bodywork can really do?

What is Thai massage? To me that’s like asking who is Jesus. It’s the thing that let all the light in and showed me life was worth living. It can do the same for you.