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.
