Week 10

Ah, stretching...Who doesn't crave that feeling of shoulders opening up, neck becoming longer, arms reaching over head and a deep breath expanding the abdomen? And yet, many of our clients rarely allow themselves a luxury of a deep breath, let alone a stretching session.
Tonight we learn the basics of stretching, talk about many styles of stretching and learn to incorporate some simple techniques into a massage session. Technically, passive stretching is not part of a classic Swedish massage, but we include this component to enrich the experience for our clients and to expand our repertoire.
I demonstrate some simple ways to take a client's body through a series of passive movements, while maintaining that blissful massage trance many people enjoy during a session. My favorite stretches have been borrowed from a variety of sources: a personal session with a physical therapist, martial arts training, Thai Yoga massage certification, Active Isolated Stretching training and students' suggestions over the years. I emphasize the fact that we can easily spend an hour just stretching our clients, but the goal of tonight's class is to introduce this type of bodywork in its most basic form. Some students take notes of positions and techniques, others concentrate on memorizing what I am doing. The fact is, once they get on the tables, these stretching techniques will make sense on an intuitive level, and I remind them not to get overwhelmed.
While the students are exchanging, we walk around and show them the stretches again and again. Our goal is for them to remember a few favorite ones, those they will practice with their loved ones and the ones they are likely to add to their "tool box". I can tell this is something that sparked an interest, because by 10 pm, I am still trying to get them off the tables and out the door. As they leave, they look taller, their faces are relaxed and their energy level is not at all consistent with the time of the day. I wonder how many of them will remember to stretch tomorrow.