Tag Archives: chair massage

Have you tried giving a massage using silk instead of oil?

We massage therapists love our helpers, be they oils, warm stones or essential oils. Lately I’ve come to totally enjoy something I at first thought would be a bust.

Massage on silk is a method of gliding the hands across skin or clothes without the use of oil. Silks provide glide, like oil, but without the drag or irritation.

My first acquaintance was with an educational video on chair massage by Boris Prilutsky a Massage Hall of Fame member and long-time instructor and therapist.

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Prilutsky notes that silks have been used in ancient Chinese massage not only for glide but also for positive energetic properties. Interested now?

My own experience was highlighted when I began looking at how to make workplace chair massage easier on the therapist and recipient. A silk square tossed over the back gave me not only additional leverage but also the ability to effluerage as if using oil.

Since then I have introduced a few therapists to silks as a means of chair massage, much to their delight. Instead of using only rolling compressions or static pressure, the silks provide the glide that clients crave and that we love to provide.

Here’s a quick primer on using silk: Buy a yard at the fabric store. It can be cut and hemmed into at least two back-sized squares. I went to the alterations shop to have my silks done.

There is also a commercial product on several of the massage supply websites that is already for use.

But I like finding my own nice massage color: healing green, warm blue, healthy pink, patterns, whatever strikes my energy and disposition. If you have a favorite silk shirt that has snagged or is somehow on its way out, you can cut out the back and use it as a massage silk.

Silks don’t have to be washed much especially when used over clothes. Cleanse in warm, not hot, water and hang dry. I like to keep a couple of silks handy, especially when I know I may be faced with an area that needs its facile touch. Enjoy!

Starting Choices, Massage Therapists

As they graduate from education programs, massage therapists have many choices for employment. Yet finding that perfect job can be elusive.

The venues have expanded in the past few years but the economics remain the same: work a lot for less pay, work a lot less for more pay.

For recent graduates looking to pay their bills – and their student loans – the pressure is quite high. How do newbies balance reliable income with recognition of their skills? start

As an experienced massage therapist, I don’t have all the answers. But let me suggest some strategies that can help graduates maneuver through the first years of their massage careers.

Use your Advantages – Most massage therapists are women, and often female therapists who are attractive can build a book of clients more quickly. So put that picture on your resume, business card, website, whatever, and prepare to get busy.

Better yet, Use Your Disadvantages – Male, muscular and big? Men who do massage face discrimination from clients both male and female. The reasons, trust me, are very unfair. But why not make it an advantage? A male can be a strong, resilient chair massage therapist. Chair massages are done fully dressed, often in public places such as conventions. That eliminates a lot of objections clients have to male therapists. Those practices bloom.

Gender politics can be an advantage in other situations. I also know a female therapist who looks and acts non-feminine. Is that a problem? Heck, no, she told me. “No trophy wife ever has to worry about me making a play for her husband.”

Have more than one source of income – My friend’s career strategy was simple – her income was secondary to the family breadwinner. Her husband handled the bills and worked the long hours of a tax accountant. That left her time to groom and select her clientele without a lot of money pressure. She also had time to volunteer and market herself. She worked at high-end spas and targeted her favored client type – professional athletes. It took years to build a clientele, but she got there. She has a great elevator speech, and the more she practiced it, the more it became her practice.

Do more than massage alone – Another of my friends runs her own day spa and has a cosmetology license. along with a massage license. She can wax; do facials and other cosmetic treatments to fill her book. A slow massage day can be a busy wax day, etc. She didn’t like cutting and coloring hair, but she loves doing facials, massage and waxing.

Some therapists can increase incomes by doing administrative and billing work at their chiropractor’s offices. Another friend also works as a personal assistant, running errands for people who are too busy or too old to do errands.

Work in Multiple Massage Venues – A doctor, a chiropractor, a spa, a chain, a physical therapy clinic, a hotel, a mall chair-massage store. You may surprise yourself to discover your best fit. And if one venue becomes slow, another may be busy.

Be Productive No Matter Where You Work – I call this the “Joseph” strategy. Like Joseph in the Bible, maybe your brothers don’t like you and you get sold into slavery but you work hard and do so well you end up running your master’s house and businesses.

Where you start does not have to be where you end up. Use your venue as a learning laboratory. Does your chain want you to sign up members? Practice so you can figure out how to do that. Sell products? You can learn how to do that, too. What about upgrades? Some of the more corporate places have quotas for therapists. Instead of stressing about meeting those quotas, can you figure out how to fill them? boybaseball

I met sales quotas at a spa by asking someone who could sell how to do it. I sucked at it, but kept practicing and asking questions until I go it. You can also read up on sales techniques, and you can observe those who are successful at it. The key is practice. Being a productive massage employee is all about trying multiple times. Kind of like baseball, hitting three out of 10 times makes you a superstar.

Touching the Masses

Chair massage is a great way to deliver massage services – and it offers independence for many therapists who don’t want to be limited to table services.

This new era of chair massage is a big step forward. When it started more than 25 years ago, chair was seen by some traditional massage therapists as a Cinderella stepchild.

Chair was viewed solely as a marketing introduction for table service. Interesting, some massage therapists felt the need to label chair massage as fluff, non-therapeutic, even gulp, recreational – and let me say this fuddy-duddy crowd gave the chair pioneers some grief.

All is forgiven now as chair massage has garnered respect as both therapeutic and a regular form of massage. Chair is found in airports, conventions, employee health fairs, malls and at my local car wash.

For the massage therapist, chair offers some freedoms. Most chair massage at workplaces has the advantage of being held during working hours. A chair therapist can get home in time to pick up the kids from school. They can take nights and weekends off!

Some of the barriers to male therapists melt on the chair squad. Male therapists often have to endure bruised egos in spas when men and women clients refuse them. But male therapists are very accepted in chair massage. They even have an advantage with a bit more upper-body strength, which helps in chair techniques.

Chair also lets therapists do more invigorating techniques such as tapotement. By the way, how many kinds of tapotement are there?

I’ve seen at least five, and there are probably more. I can do two of them without looking like an industrial accident.

Check out some of the leaders in this field: David Palmer, founder of TouchPro, offers many online and in person courses in chair massage, as does Boris Prilutsky. Another chair pioneer, Ralph Stephens, offers a medical chair massage class.

Sure, you can watch these folks and their video how-to chair massage, but you will not know how to do chair massage from a video any more than it will teach you to play the violin.

Take some classes.