Lomilomi Massage in Austin Texas

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Jason Bratcher is a colleague and friend that I wanted to interview and talk shop with. He’s had a practice for many years and works in a polar opposite form of table based work called Lomilomi. It’s originally from Hawaii and the pacific islands. It typically involves lots of oil on a table and tons of glide.

Jason can be contacted via his website.

I really enjoyed this series of talks. After he did his wonderful demonstration of the long fluid strokes involved in his work he had a conversation about business where we went over some the details of social media marketing. I’m a huge fan of video production and this is where Jason’s work really shines. I’d no idea before our get together that it was so visual.

Therapists like Jason and I are committed to helping the massage community diversify and offer niche services like Thai massage and Lomilomi. I’m very happy to have him as a colleague and hopefully we’ll shoot more content over time. It’s a good excuse to get together and chat.

 

Why Reboot™

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I had a phone conversation with a colleague and he insisted that I’m driving away part of my target market by insisting that what I do isn’t massage. Legally massage is the manipulation of soft tissue. Legally massage therapists are the ones who can perform this work but to someone who’s already bought and sold the culturally hegemonic kool aid Reboot™ is less massage anything they’ve ever seen. Where’s the table?

My colleague wanted me to focus on the benefits, the features. When you sell it to massage therapists what are they looking for? What problems are they trying to solve?

Massage therapists get the following benefits by using what I teach:

Save your hands
Help clients in chronic pain rapidly
Deep compressions effortlessly
Do propped yoga while you work
Offer a truly unique service clients cannot get elsewhere
More effective next level 21st century work
Make more income offering an amazing service no facility comes close to
Have more fun in session!!
Engage full mobility for your clients and yourself
No hunching over a table
Increased range of motion and capacity to engage more intimately with clients
Help clients with severe menstrual cramps and debilitating low back pain by using advanced abdominal massage
Create a niche service that allows you to film and create tons of social media content
Spend less on cream and oils
Save on laundry since you only need a flat sheet on top of your mat
Make use of your full body including legs and feet to deliver pressure
Accelerate your business growth by having a service you can demonstrate easily
Create a space where you’re breathing fully and exploring your own range of motion while helping people
Work for yourself more easily
A clothed service helps with clients who may not want to undress
Male therapists may be able to open up new markets to clients who don’t want to undress
Meditate while you work
Did I mention that it’s more fun? 🙂

Ask A Massage Therapist

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I recently did a facebook live called Ask a Massage Therapist and decided that this in its own simple way was the answer to many of the issues massage therapists have in their industry. I’ve decided to see if we can build a movement of therapists who use facebook live to educate. I’d like you to join in.

1: Do a facebook live on Monday called: Ask a Massage Therapist.

Make it 10 minutes or so and just ask your fans and followers to ask any questions they have about our work and respond. You can make posts in advance to let people know that you’re going live to build some buzz.

I hope it builds into a large movement.

2: After the fact you can share your video and results in the Massage Entrepreneurs group on facebook.

Iyengar is Still My Teacher

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For someone who’s never formally taken Iyengar yoga classes BKS still runs through my mind regularly. Mostly what I get from his teaching is awareness, feeling and continued ongoing work. The art of bodywork and of yoga is never finished. It’s an evolving art and continues til the last breath.

When I gave a talk about Reboot™ and what I’m creating at the Lauterstein Conway Massage School recently students who are 2 months away from finishing their massage schooling were puzzled by the talk I gave. As I mentioned fusing yoga and massage together in a new package they expressed surprise when I told them that yoga is massage. Why would they think otherwise?

In the west massage and yoga are seen as separate disciplines. Having done both for 15 or so years I see them as two sides of the same coin. One requires a license. The other has none. Massage therapists have confusion about what I’m teaching and I suppose that’s just par for the course. The yoga community doesn’t understand the bodywork and the massage community doesn’t understand the yoga.

I’ll continue working on myself using blocks, straps, a suspension system, breathing and allow everyone else to wonder what’s going on. I can smile internally and know that Iyengar approves of my continued exploration and that anything I can do to relieve suffering, my own and that of my students and clients, is just fine. Every time I breathe and press into my own tissues I wonder what the research and science actually says and how long it will take for the massage industry to catch up.

Massage is passive. Yoga is active. I use both. Reboot™

Tim McCoy and Robert Gardner Talk Thai Massage

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Tim McCoy and I have been colleagues and friends in and around Austin for over 7 years at this point. Tim was looking for something and apparently part of it coalesced into the Thai massage I was teaching years ago in central Texas. Tim loves table based work but as a Brazilian JiuJitsu practitioner he kept commenting on the fact that I put clients in soft joint locks and worked tissue in a therapeutic way that looked awfully similar to the martial art he’d come to know and love.

As Tim and I continued to grow and teach he often was a teaching assistant for classes while working at Massage Harmony an Austin original spa that was one of the first facilities to add Thai massage to its menu of services. He’s got his own educational challenges now as a teacher and it’s great to see how far we’ve both come over the years while mentoring massage therapists in our area.

Reboot™ and the State of Massage Education

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I give talks periodically at the Lauterstein Conway Massage School here in Austin, TX. As a continuing education provider and entrepreneur it’s always interesting to walk into a class full of students and see where they’re at mentally. 15 years in my industry and I’m now 40 years old with a solid grasp of what’s going on in the massage world.

Some talks make me inordinately angry, others hopeful. Talking to students full of enthusiasm is one of the things that keeps me going. Wondering if I’m connecting when discussing branding for massage therapists who are taught to dole out a commodity is something I’ll continue to do. There are usually a handful of students who come up after a talk with questions knowing innately that there’s more going on that we just don’t have time to discuss in a 30 minute talk.

The state of our industry is that Massage Envy helped create inexpensive low priced massage for the masses. For that I sincerely thank them. My suggestion to students is to now go artisanal and sell services no facility can match. If students wonder what Reboot™ is it’s because no one does it no one teaches it and the bulk of the public doesn’t look at what I do as massage.

What I do is help those in chronic pain put their lives back together when soft tissue and muscle is the cause.

Why Get a Massage When You Can Reboot™

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Potential clients are sometimes confused about what it is that I offer. As a massage therapist in the trenches of the massage industry even my colleagues are confused by what I’m doing and offering. There’s an opiate epidemic in our country that few massage therapists are discussing. Reboot™, in my 15 year clinical experience, is better at helping people in chronic pain.

What does it help? Carpal tunnel syndrome. chronic arm and shoulder pain, chronic back pain, sciatica, mysterious pain of unknown etiology, severe menstrual cramps, adbominal pain, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic headaches and a host of other maladies.

Sessions are 3 hours long. You’re clothed on a mat not naked on a table. I will apply little if any lotion or cream. Confused? So are the bulk of the massage therapists around me. Come get a session and see for yourself.

How to Find Good Massage on a Budget

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I don’t think anyone wants a cheap massage so much as they want an inexpensive high quality session. As a massage therapist who has worked in various facilities in my fifteen years I’m going to give you insider information on how to get the most for your massage dollar.

 

 

  • If you have insurance you need to check with your insurance company and see if they cover massage as part of a wellness plan with a chiropractors office. If your insurance does this is absolutely the cheapest way to get regular work.

  • Find a local massage school and go to their student clinic.

     

     

    Most schools like Lauterstein Conway Massage School here in Austin have a student clinic where current students are practicing towards getting their license. Currently they charge $40 for an hour and that’s some of the least expensive in town. When you go you’re free to ask for a student who may be near the end of their clinical hours. That means that they have the skills just no license as of yet.

    Pick the therapist whose work you really like and give them a business card with your name and contact info on it. Tell them to contact you as soon as they get their license because you’d like to hire them for regular sessions.

    Most therapists who are starting out would die for a few regular clients to pad their practice and it’s a great way to pitch to the therapist that you’d like regular work at such and such a rate however regularly you prefer. This is the sweet spot because a seasoned professional is usually busy enough that they’re less inclined to give discounts.


    If you check your local schools you can find classes that are usually for massage therapists. In many cases you can take these classes and receive some work while you learn.     If you’re open to taking classes with your partner it’s inexpensive to find a used table on craigslist and practice on each other. In fact, if you find a therapist who’s willing you can get someone to visit and teach you to work on each other.


     

  • I personally run an event in Austin called Thai massage jam® where I teach people how to work on each other for nearly free. You can get information on those events as they come up. Join us on Meetup and on Facebook.



  • Beyond that I’m amazed at how few people use youtube as a resource. Youtube videos go all over the map in their audio and video quality but there are many therapists like myself who put out quality videos showing you how to work on a table or off a table.

As in all professions, you do get “what you pay for”. If you want an expert with years of experience or with a specific advanced training, you will no doubt be paying $75 or more per hour – and many advanced practitioners are certainly worth it.

I hope you find the massage you’re looking for. Ask around. Talk to people and keep searching. Your therapist will be happy you did.

Why Study Thai Massage with Robert Gardner?

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Occasionally I get phone calls or emails from potential students who want to know why they should study with me. This is always a loaded question because they presume that they already know what I’m teaching if they’ve studied some Thai massage with other teachers. They already know what I do right?

Usually I find this to not be the case. I’m mixing and blending Thai massage, yoga, yoga therapy, advanced abdominal work, pain science, trigger point therapy and myofascial release into sessions that are 3 hours long. This isn’t massage. It isn’t Thai massage. It’s a Reboot™.

I’m happy to talk with students and place them in class where they can pick up what I do but I’m just as much a yoga teacher as I am a massage therapist. I’m not going to use a table, cream, glide or nudity in my sessions. What that means in the larger culture is that though what I do is bound by massage law it’s not really considered massage by the population who’s been sold massage as an hour long cream and glide session on a table.

If you want to study with me you want to break all of the rules and help people while doing so. You’re an iconoclast and you’re ready to subvert the dominant paradigm.