Look! No Hands!

It being the crack of summer and my massage practice being filled to the seams, I decided to take 10 days off. Daring, I know, for anyone in private practice, but it was great.

For 10 days, no massages, no excess use of my hands and now, heading back to the office for another full slate, I am doing my back exercises in hopes I can keep it all working just right when I head back in.

Taking time for a vacation can be a big guilt trip for therapists. It can take years to build a decent practice, and sometimes it entails working through your weekends – a massage here and there on Sunday or Mondays off to keep the books full.

In my first five years of practice, I worked four days a week at a spa and spent my “off” days serving private clients. Trouble was, if the spa called me and I could fit it in, I would also work extra shifts. I was being a team player, of course, helping the manager avoid canceling massage appointments because of someone calling in sick on a weekend.

After 30 days with no days off, I took the daring step of saying no to some extra shifts. They managed to live without me, and I saw the error of my ways.

Then I took vacations fairly regularly, a week here and there, and used my time off to do massage related things such as attend conventions. I loved the classes, and I came back recharged.

As time passed, however, I felt less like immersing myself in c.e.u. classes on my time off. The true massage-less vacations began and I enjoy them.

A good friend in practice for more years than I explained the math to me: If you do too many massages in a week or a month, maybe that is fine. But let’s say you do too many massages in a quarter or half-year or a year?

My friend was seeing 35 clients a week. After a few months, he woke up one morning with no energy for anything. He dropped two of his side jobs and went with his own practice clients exclusively. It took him a year to recover.

Frying out is a danger to all massage therapists. Every person has their own personal limits, and before you reach them you may have no clue as to what those limits are.

As I teetered along the edge of burnout for a few years, I began to see no-work vacations as a blessing. Yes, leave a message that you are gone. It will be OK.

When clients come in, they notice you are fresh. And it is a great compliment when they admit two-timing you while you were off, and coming back because the massage elsewhere wasn’t that good.

Covering the Cradle

Some things about being a massage therapist are all about the details – the atmosphere, noise level, lighting, and yes the table linens.

         

Face cradle covers have always been problematic for massage therapists. The disposable covers are scratchy – and although no client has ever complained about them I have heard clients complain about other therapists who use them.

          

One fellow observed that he stopped using a therapist because of the scratchy covers. A comment I took note of.

           

Spas that have to worry about mounds of laundry at the end of the day – and costs – often use cotton hand towels. I have always found that kind of scratchy, too. I used pillowcases at first, and moved to soft paper/cotton towels for a time.

           

The fitted covers that come with sheet sets seem to be ill fitting for the larger, softer face cushions. After wrestling with the underwear-like elastic gathers on those cradle covers I finally threw in the towel.

          

Now I use a compromise on all fronts – soft, cotton flannel, flat cradle covers. These can slip around a bit but they do not have any seams to leave lines on the face and they are easier to fit over a face cushion. Less wrangling.

           

The cotton flats avoid the too-snug fit of elastic-edged covers and overcome the scratchy thing of disposables. At $5.99 apiece, the thought of stocking all flats has made me queasy, especially so because I suspect they will not be as durable as the undie-fit covers.

           

I found a site that would give me a wholesale discount and got 25 covers for about half. We will see if they measure up. So far, so good. The flats stack a lot neater and smaller. No more grappling in the linen closet for a good one.

Massage Me, Massage My Dog

 Dogs love me, and I love dogs. Cats love me, and I love them too. When this massage therapist does house calls, I suddenly find myself surrounded by four-legged fans.

           

I didn’t mean to, but I have managed to train all of my house clients’ domesticated beasties to expect a mini-massage when I get in the door.

           

It started with golden retrievers, irresistible big dogs with soulful eyes. Now the list includes Siamese, calicoes, mutts and Cairns. I really don’t mind, sort of, because they are such good animals and love to lean on me and get all glossy-eyed.

             

Animals instinctively love massage, which shows their superior tastes and energies as far as I am concerned. Nothing in the world beats a good belly rub, be it a dog or feline. People who don’t like tummy massage should learn from their pets.

            

It struck me by surprise, but I recently learned from a client that she knew I was the one massage therapist for her family when the dog liked me. Apparently dogs and cats are a screening method for more than just boyfriends and future in-laws.

             

Once I have passed the pet-TSA, I get invited to pet-pat, pet-sit and pet-feed. My book is a little too full to take on many of these offers, but I do appreciate them as a sort of badge of acceptance.

             

I have made the occasional exception. A married couple brought in their new foundling, a micro-chihuahua who barely weighs one pound. They hadn’t been able to get to the movies for a few weeks, as the little guy is being dropper-fed and is way too little to leave near their big dogs.

 
They went to the flicks and I got the little carry-bag with the pee pads, special vitamins and puppy-food mix. I put his nibs on my shoulder and the little guy immediately snuggled into my shirt and stayed there. My little implant. 

Last week I asked a client if I could take his cutie-pie terrier home. He looked at me in surprise. 

“Take me instead,” he said. I replied: “Do you roll over and put your hands and feet in the air?”

“I can learn,” he said.

             

Another lesson gleaned from our companions.

Adding New Skills

One of my massage therapist friends had a good bit of extra time on her hands when she first started her practice, so she picked up a Spanish book and taught herself to speak it.

My therapist friend has not used her knowledge of Spanish much in her day spa, but it has come in handy many times when out and about in Southern California, where the number of people more comfortable speaking Spanish than English is fairly significant. Learning another language was a good brain stretch for her.

Spanish is also good to know in a therapeutic setting, especially in medical massage, with many staff therapy aide jobs preferring bilingual.

Thus I had been thinking a bit about trying to learn at least survival Spanish, the kind that can help you find a fire exit or a bathroom. At the hotels where my day spas were located, most of the staff was more comfortable speaking Spanish.

I often sat at the large round table in the cafeteria where the house-workers had lunch, trying to follow as much as I could of the conversation, which went on at about 450 miles per hour. I picked up a few verbs and phrases with a little coaching, and felt a little more confidence in my language abilities.

My motivation was something else as well. During the height of the recession, I decided to limit the amount of time I spent banging my head against the wall trying to book clients. I needed something to stretch my brain, too.

If you have ever watched TV there are about 500 commercials on about 500 channels for a language immersion course on computer. I didn’t do that. I picked instead some cd’s that I could play to and from work in the car. Old-fashioned, yup, that’s me.

Months into my cd experience, I decided to try my Spanish out at the local Mexican restaurant. My mother-in-law orders in perfect New-Mexico Spanish all the time. I thought I would try my luck. The staff at Bahia’s is famously bilingual, slipping from English to Spanish and back to English with ease.

I carefully ordered what I thought would get me a combo with a little cerveza.

Our server looked at me in complete surprise.

Aha! She can tell I am speaking excellent Spanish, I thought.

After a pause, she leaned over the table and looked me right in the eye.

“WHAT?”

My mother-in-law explained, in Spanish, that I was trying to speak Spanish. We all had a good laugh. Me, my folks, the people in the next booth, the entire wait staff and the lady seating customers.

Despite much urging, I declined to repeat my order and pointed at the menu.

Taking the Last Step off the Diving Board

At a recent continuing education class, I spoke with a recent massage graduate struggling with starting her massage career.

A few months have passed since graduation, and she has had trouble with deciding on a venue for massage. Should she work on her own? Work for a doctor? A spa? Join an established massage practice?

Not sure what would be the right path, she has been holding back.

I offered my advice. “Go to the end of that diving board and jump off. You have to get some experience to know what you want and what fits you well.”

Easy for me to say, but someone has to say it.

Starting a career in massage is not easy. A newbie therapist might find out, after spending a lot of money for training, that he/she does not like massaging people. It happens.

Know, however, that life will go on. If you don’t like something, you can always do something else.

I view massage training like a nurse’s education. Sure, there are plenty of opportunities to work on a hospital floor. But nurses may end up anywhere in a hospital, sub-acute facility, even an insurance company.

One of my good friends found out she didn’t like hands-on, but she is darn good at administration. Turns out that is a gift from God, too, and she runs a large day spa quite well. It is a bonus that she understands what therapists are going through. Empathy has a place outside the therapy room, too.

At the other end of the spectrum, another therapist told me one day how disappointed she was in her training. “I thought I would be setting my own hours and making $60 an hour,” she said.

She was happy to give up on massage and blame her school for misleading her. I went to the same school and never heard any of that talk.

But the time to start your career is when you don’t know where you are going. Experience does not have to be a negative. It can lead you where you need to go. Sometimes you just have to step into the air and have faith.

Just Lucky, I Guess

                       

 Sometimes during a massage a client will ask me how I got into the business of doing massages. I don’t really like to take that question seriously. I have a serious answer, but I don’t like to share it. I’d rather say that it just happened that I noticed one day that I had a knack for massage, or if the client is getting a deep tissue massage I’ll say that the Inquisition wasn’t hiring so massage seemed like the next best thing.

         

Flippancy isn’t really an answer, though, and I would like to say what happened, except it might just be a bit too much like real life, a bit bumpy and all the seams showing.

             

How did I get into massage? It was the only thing that helped me.

             

I was working at a large metropolitan newspaper, no not that one, and I was having more and more frequent migraines, shoulder pain and neck problems. After years of cradling the phone in my neck, running around on deadlines and parachuting into tense situations, I did not feel very good.

            

Mostly I was stiff, but I had trouble with weakness in my hands, pain running from my neck down to my hands, and a definite sense that the longer I stayed swirling in the news vortex the less good I would feel.

            

I tried different types of therapy, mostly physical therapy, and I would feel a little better for a while and then back to daily pain. Lucky for me, the symptoms were never bad enough to suggest surgery. At the time I didn’t know it, but that was dodging a big-caliber bullet.

             

One time at physical therapy I was assigned to a therapist who was doing trigger point therapy. I had no idea what she was doing, but after a few minutes of pushing on my neck, I felt a lot better. It seemed like it was the only thing that worked very well. At me next appointment I asked her to do the treatment again. She told me that once treated, trigger points were gone and did not need to be done again.

             

As I did my exercises in the common room, exercises which I knew would make everything hurt again, I felt motivated to investigate what worked for me.

             

Being a journalist helped a lot. I really knew how to look things up in a library. I spent a few hours at the medical library and emerged with an idea for a new career. Not only did I understand a lot more about trigger points, I also understood why they were not being treated properly. Trigger point therapy requires warm-up massage strokes, experienced treatment followed by soothing massage and repetition over several sessions to break the pattern. It was all very hands-on and required focus and dedication. The kind of service massages therapists provided.

 
After a while, I gave up on p.t. and went for massages. My insurance and health savings account did not cover massages, but since they worked, I was happy to pay for them. Feeling good was important to me. 

Which leads me back to my other flip answer. When asked how I got into massage, sometimes I’ll rub my neck and say: “Just lucky, I guess.”

           

Aw Shucks, Twern’t Nuthin’…

Sometimes clients love their massage so much they bring me gifts. I love a nice card or a bottle of olive oil. A box of cupcakes? Oh please, don’t feed me!

I have to admit it is wonderful for the ego. One long day – a Saturday - my clients brought me lunch. How did they know? Are we psychically linked?

Gifts are wonderful expressions of thanks, but are there a place to draw the line? Do we massage therapists’ need one?

When I worked at a newspaper we had strict rules because we didn’t want any implied or perceived favoritism through gifts. We in the news section picked up the lunch check; we turned down the offered goodies. But it was not all black and white. One day the business editor decided it was OK to accept goodies if it could be consumed in an afternoon. The next day the business section got a case of wine. Meanwhile, the travel editors and the sports guys did all kinds of things for free.

But in the therapeutic realm, is there a reason to turn down gifts? I don’t know. A sandwich and a box of cupcakes seem fine. What about a Hawaiian vacation? A free refi? Sponsorship at the country club? If it is a substantial gift is it still OK?

One of my good friends, a personal trainer, got a nice-looking pair of diamond earrings from a client at the holidays. She was fine with it, actually pretty giddy. It seemed to me fine to accept, as long as the client was not doing it for romantic reasons, which he wasn’t.

I guess I will think that one through if it ever comes up for me.

How do therapists feel about gifts? Are they bonuses for a job well done? Will they cause a problem in the therapeutic relationship? Are they any different from other tips?

Oh my the question virus has bitten me today. I suspect gifts are OK as long as they don’t stand in for something else – an invitation to a personal relationship or some obligation outside the massage room. That makes the free helicopter sightseeing ride a no-no because a lonely male client offers it. But the free use of the vacation home for a weekend seems all right. Therapists, what do you think?