Happy Tappy Fingers
My second book Deep Tissue Massage was published at he beginning of this month and is in the shops now. The third book, Postural Assessment, was finalised in July and fingers crossed will be available late next year. In the meantime I secured a fourth contract and am happily typing away on Therapeutic Stretching, all about how to use stretches when treating clients suffering from common musculoskeletal conditions such as a sprained ankle, stiff neck or lumbar pain.For anyone interested in the writing process, or if you are simply just curious about how much a person can type in a day, follow my progress on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1609203090) where I am counting down the number of words written, number remaining, and number of days left until my November 30th deadline.
For those of you who have any kind of project over which you have been procrastinating, I can recommend Make Your Creative Dreams Real by Sark. My 'micromovements' involve writing 500 words per day. That's all. What micromovements could you be doing to help make one of your creative dreams come true?
Chasing Dreams
by Richard Lewis
There is a saying that goes;
'If you enjoy what you do, you will never work another day in your life' – Confucius
And so when I had made the decision to change career, in my mind there was only one real direction in which to take. Every day on the APNT Sports Injuries and Massage course was like an adrenalin fuelled injection, feeding my passion to learn and absorb more about the human body, my body. The same body which throughout 16 years of kung fu practice and dedication had seen me achieve personal goals, physical, mental, internal and externally, regional and worldwide that I hadn’t believed to be possible. I had questioned myself as to whether an intensive course was the right way to go. I suppose it depends on the individual. Personally, to immerse myself in something that I love was a pleasure. Also the course was taught to perfection. Not once did I feel rushed or overloaded with information. The practical time was enough to grasp what was being taught, questions were answered, things were discussed and learning was a byproduct of fun and interactive sessions with a small group of like-minded people. The compulsory clinic sessions where we were able to put it all into practice were invaluable as I later learned with my baptism of fire.
Diploma in hand and fresh with knowledge and enthusiasm, everyone who crossed my path was my client whether they knew it or not. Joggers on the canal were stopped and given postural assessments and advice and the hulks in the gym were yelping as their hypertonic muscles felt the effects of my elbow and various techniques. I would challenge everyone to look amongst friends, family and the people you interact with on a daily basis. I found there’s always someone who can benefit from our knowledge or practical abilities as therapists, even if it’s only ourselves. And what a pleasure it is to be able to help. To date I have come across 3 people with an extra pair of cervical ribs , 2 of which did not know they had them. Cervical ribs are present in about 1 in 500 people.
Because of my background and interest in sport, health and fitness I found myself drawn to the elite side of sport. Intrigued by what difference I could really make to their performance. My determination, time effort and pro-activity soon saw me working with gymnasts, dancers, actors, and rugby and football players. Impressed and appreciative of my help and support at Stonewall Football Club I was asked to join them at the Gay Games in Cologne, Germany as their ‘Physio’. Needless to say I jumped at the chance! This event is an equivalent to the Olympics and only comes around once every 4 years. My role would be amongst other things, to prepare the 18 members of the first team for each game which would involve pre and post match massage, injury prevention, treatment and management as well as being the official team medic. It was my responsibility to kit myself up with everything I would need for a week of hard football, taking into account the extremities of what could possibly happen. The tour was a phenomenal success. A lot of football was played and injuries sustained with Stonewall winning the tournament and me receiving a medal for my contribution to the team. It was very demanding in terms of the quantity of work done and the effort needed. And of course as the tournament proceeded and more games were played, more treatments were needed. The fact is that any sports massage therapist is a Godsend to athletes and in a sporting environment, and as others saw me treating pitch side and word got around I was inundated with treatment requests from all kinds of athletes. What a dream.
Looking back I wonder how I managed to take on such a responsibility and come out the other side unscathed. If there is any advice I could give to new therapists or anybody taking on a new
challenge, it would be to enjoy it. If you do it is easier to commit and immerse yourself in what you do. Needless to say along with my excitement came quite a large bag of nerves; in my opinion also a good thing. This kept me on my toes. Forward thinking and planning was absolutely essential and the more I began to plan, the more I realised that I needed to plan. Being in an unfamiliar country I wanted to make sure that I had everything I needed before I went. And once I had arrived, where would the team be playing? Where would I be treating? Would there be any doctors on site? Would they speak English? (because I don’t speak German). Where were the nearest hospitals? Would there be easy access to ice? Or if I had to bring some from the hotel would I have something to carry it in and keep it frozen? As a sports massage therapist, having things like these sorted gave a little more peace of mind and also meant that when it came down to doing my real work, I could concentrate on applying what I knew and had learnt. I had realised that this responsibility was more than doing a few tests, a rub and sending people away with advice. The advice I gave I had to be able to administer.
What I found remarkable was the fact that everything I had learnt actually worked! I had athletes telling me almost line for line what I had learnt that they would present with when having particular injuries. The testimonies were countless and I encourage anyone who has studied sports massage from a good school/company to have faith in it. I learnt so much and working with so many different bodies is invaluable.
On reflection if there are 3 things that I would do differently the next time I massage at the games and they would be:
1. Travel out earlier, one or two days before, giving me time to suss things out.
2.Take more than you believe to be necessary.
3.Give more time to myself. It’s easy to overdo it and ‘burn out’.
And 3 things points of advice would be:
1.Plan and prepare as much in advance as possible
2.Take some bedtime reading to refresh your memory of techniques, tips and tricks you may need to use - a ‘bible’ you can refer to.
3. Trust what you have learnt in sports massage and be confident with it. It works!
Richard Lewis
APNT Sports Massage Practitioner
Talking of massaging athletes.........
Two of our sports massage graduates are currently treating the dancers of Random Dance Company, a renowned dance troupe. Aska Mucha and Jay proven are providing treatments following the dancers' training sessions as they prepare for their premier at Sadlers Wells Theatre in London, before embarking on a world tour.
Hopefully we’ll have more opportunities like this to offer our students, and all our
readers, in the future, like the Samoan Rugby Union who have approached us asking for therapists for their London stop in between matches in Ireland and Japan!
Kung Fu Queen Strikes Again!
On Friday 1st October I went out to dinner at one of my favourite restaurants. It was a reward. I was rewarding myself for the fact that on Thursday 30th September I passed another kung fu grading, my second since I started training in February. It had been a stressful few weeks, with my regular training partners being unable to attend class so I was having to practice withstudents from other levels, both 'above' and 'below' me. I couldn't practice with my son, despite his willingness to help out. Lets face it, he's only 11 and there are probably rules about practicing potentially harmful martial arts moves on a minor, even if you are their mother and make wicked tuna sandwiches. Some of the moves I was struggling with were multiple combinations of techniques designed to disarm threatening opponents. I kept going through the longest move in my mind: Ok, bong sau to the wrist, grab the attacker's arm and simultaneously pak sau to the chest, then immediately elbow the chest followed by fook sau to the neck, knee to the chest with your partner at 90 degrees, grab the arm and sweep your opponent to the floor by kicking their leg from beneath them at 45 degree angle calf-on-calf. Phew. What along way from delivering sports massage or physiotherapy this was. I practised to both sides of my opponent's body. Sometimes our legs got tangled up. Sometimes I fell over instead of my opponent. Sometimes I thought, 'why is it I can't do this?' and refused to listen to the devil who was whispering on my left ear that it was because of my age, that when one got older it was more difficult to acquire skills that necessitated speed and co-ordination. Because I definitely don't believe that. So I changed my internal monologue: How is it that this suddenly feels effortless, wow, how did that happen!? As if by magic, on the evening of the grading, I found myself able to perform all of the movements, one after the other in what seemed like a smooth combination. Ok, to use the word 'smooth' is a little optimistic. But there was a jerky kind of fluidity to my techniques if that makes sense. And I guess the main thing was that, remarkably, my opponent hit the floor each of the 6 times I was required to demonstrate this particular technique, one of 10 different combination movements.
Perhaps for most people, moving up the ranks in the world of martial arts is commonplace. But most people probably didn't take up kung fu at the age of 45. Sometimes it feels great to
reinforce a belief that you hold, in this case, that age is no barrier to excelling in wing chun. So now I'm Rank 1. Its time for The Uniform. More balance. More speed. More accuracy. Everything more technically correct. Watch this space.
Creating Your World
We are often asked how to 'make it' in the massage world when there are already so many therapists out there. Well, all I can say is “brilliant”, the more the better. When I was a teenager women used to use hairspray to style their hair, and men used Brylcream. Then in the 80s came hair gel, a blue goo that looked and smelled like it could clean a lavatory pretty well, and which was sometimes filled with plastic black spiders at Halloween parties. Nowadays we have styling wax and even hair putty. The point being, there is never only one product to do a job. Similarly, there is never only one way to provide a service. Our advice would be to be who you are, to attract the customers you want rather than trying to fit yourself into the massage 'mould'. And we should know. When we launched ourselves as The London Massage Company three years ago most training companies portrayed training in a rather soft and gentle light, websites in pastel colours and photographs taken through muslin. It was popular to dress all in white and play tinkling music. There's nothing wrong in that. Lots of people like that. But neither Zoe nor I felt that sort of image represented who were. We wear pink, red, turquoise or green t-shirts and play big band jazz. Sometimes we buy too much chocolate and not enough fruit. And you know what, we feel funky and fun. We love our bold coloured workshop titles and chunky little figurines (we call them Nulas), neither of which detracts form our professionalism as teachers and therapists. So for any of you in the process of changing, creating, or growing into the massage world, our advice would be just be yourself. Create the type of service that represents you and who you are and what it is you want to provide. Create the kind of customers you want to serve, rather than trying to match yourself to the customers you believe other companies are serving. And you know what? Suddenly you will find yourself inundated with customers who have been looking for a therapist that they felt was more like they were, a therapist to whom they could relate a little better, a therapist...just like you!Don’t forget it’s CAMExpo in two weeks time at Londons Earls Court. As each year, for the last 6 years, Jane will be there on both the Saturday and Sunday delivering taster workshops so even if you’re not joining her on the day drop by and say “Hi!”. We love to know how things are going with you.
Things We Think You’d Like
CPDs
// Massaging the Samoan Rugby Team - this elite team are looking for sports massage therapists who can volunteer their time in exchange for match tickets. They need therapists on Sunday 14th to Friday 19th November, 8pm onwards and Sunday 21st November from 9am onwards. If you’d like to gain the experience of working with a professional rugby team please contact us for more details on the usual ask@thelondonmassagecompany.com
// Do you work pitch-side with, or at, sports clubs and sporting events or are you looking to
volunteer at London 2012? Then you’ll probably need Sports First Aid
(www.thelondonmassagecompany.com/workshop18.aspx) November 22nd with St John Ambulance
// Osteoarthritis in Sport Conference - 21st & 22nd October. http://sport.arthritisresearchuk.org/programme.html
// Holistic Workshop Sunday 17th October 2.30-6pm - www.saswingchun.com - Jane will be there! This workshop incorporates Spirituality, Meditation, Chi Kung, & Tai Chi
• Anatomy and oriental medicine
• Healing the body
• Breathing, blood & energy control
• Nervous and skeletal system
• Shaolin Chi Kung and “Iron shirt” exercises
• Tai Chi postures and endurance exercises
• Handouts and notes provided
• Spirituality and the Eastern philosophies
• Plus much more
Work Opportunities
// Amma Therapy delivers massage, holistic services and fitness to clients at their home in and around London. As a growing company they are looking for talented and dedicated individuals who are qualified and have a keen interest and background knowledge of complementary therapies; as well as a varied skill set in either Deep Tissue, Sports, Pregnancy, or Holistic Massage. Amma Therapy is a happy and friendly team with good rates of pay per client.
Email your C.V. to sarah@ammatherapy.co.uk or call 07947 533 877
www.ammatherapy.co.uk
// Energy Boost Zone - www.EnergyBoostZone.com - are recruiting highly trained masseurs to work at major conferences and exhibitions in London. For more information or to apply please send an email to joel@energyboostzone.com detailing your experience and qualifications.
// Allie Sloan runs her own design agency specialising in supporting small businesses, and
people in the complementary industries, as well as running a successful massage practice. She uses her combined experience to help fellow therapists build and develop their own brand and marcomms - www.everlookmarketing.co.uk
// L'Occitane (www.loccitane.co.uk) is a worldwide natural beauty brand always looking for the best talents for our UK boutiques. Today, they are also opening a Spa in Central London. For current vacancies visit www.loccitanecareers.co.uk
or contact Audrey Blancart, Tel: +44 207 907 0366
See you next time! Jane & Zoe
To subscribe to the Newsletter or see what we're up to inside the class room visit : www.thelondonmassagecompany.com or email us: ask@thelondonmassagecompany.com
