Touch Background: Since the age of 11, I have been involved in touching people to relieve stress, and pain, in my family at first, & following that with friends. In the early 70's I became involved in the practice of yoga through Ananda Marga, and learned that yoga asanas internally massaged the endocrine and sebaceous glands of our bodies. Following this systems series of postures, a 15 minute self massage was done for relaxation and to smooth out the bodies electromagnetic field.
In 1987, I graduated from the Ozark Life Center (now called The Vita
Life Training Institute) in Arkansas, and began a private practice.
Since that time, I have worked in several well-known resort spas in Hot
Springs, Ar, performing short 20 - 40 minute sessions following an
extensive hydrotherapy regime. During this time it became important to
blend some conscious breathing & spontaneous movement in each session to
achieve the sustained state of relaxation people came to receive. Currently, I
perform most massages on site at your home or office. I am able to blend
yoga stretching & breathing into your table session, and even teach you
a short yoga fitness routine during your appointment time. Contact me
for details. For yoga class times see Classes link.
Reverse Breathing: I'd been introduced to pranayama, or breathing exercises, during my yoga training, and a few years later participated in several Holotropic Breathworks, a system of therapeutic breathing fathered by Stan Grof, M.D. I felt the profound effects of consciously breathing on my own state of mind, and physical health, and wanted to add this healing element into my own sessions. The perfect method came myperform way in the breathing system discovered by Ian Jackson, author of BreathPlay. Ian emphasized the necessity of emptying our lungs, before attempting to fill them. This also helps us to let go emotionally, and free our mind and cells from holding onto past tension. In one Knight news release, it was estimated that the average American breathes with only a third of their 1,200 cc lung capacity, thereby starving their body of vital oxygen, the prime cause in most all chronic illnesses.
Spontaneous Movement: During my residence in Hot Springs as a massage therapist I began to explore the phenomenon of spontaneous, fluid, human movement. This came to me quite unexpectedly while enjoying the outdoor mineral baths in the Arlington Lawn part of the Hot Springs National Park. After soaking in the baths one day, and moving around organically underwater, I wondered: "what would it be like to move on solid ground while attempting to maintain some of this fluid motion?" This began my career as a movement artist, for whenever I engaged in these movement explorations, it seemed I would have an audience, many times composed of school groups of 30 or more. The 15 - 20 min. practice sessions took on the flavor of a performance at times, and I began to see how our bodies could communicate to us nonverbally through its various gestures, positions, and "figures of speech" which these two triggered. (e.g. "off the top of my head" and "loose as a goose.") I found that I would feel quite light, and free after these movement sessions, and quite inspired creatively. During these times, quite a few "movement- oriented poems" were spawned and performed at Hot Springs' weekly poetry readings.
Sound & Music: The element of sound was vital to me ever since I started doing massage, and it became more essential in the high paced, and sometimes-noisy spa environment in Hot Springs. It is well known that certain frequencies of sound induce alpha brain waves to occur, and that they are quite helpful to relaxation, health, and creativity which are all on the same level. I found that in many of my strokes I would actually be massaging the musical notes into the human form of that person, and I felt their tissues rearranging to a more harmonious state. Often, I'd provide a copy of the music to the client asking them to listen to it before sleep to enhance the flow of life energy, which was stimulated during their session.
The Connecting Massage: From all of the above, the "connecting massage" evolved, which incorporates long, stretching massage strokes, with my hands at two different parts of the body simultaneously. Out of the thousands of people I've done, none have received a massage like this anywhere else. The intention of these stretching strokes, where two different parts of the body are touched is to emphasize our "connectedness" as one human body-mind instrument; a vehicle for the immortal Spirit. By feeling our own connectedness, we are able to feel linked to our fellow human beings, and all other life on this planet. Researcher, Dr. Gary Schwartz, a psychologist from Yale University, has studied connectedness extensively, and suggests that health is intimately related to our feeling of connectedness. "When our system goes out of balance, the restoring of health requires some attention to reestablish connectedness."
A connecting massage blends the following; 1) reverse, "letting go" breathing, 2) spontaneous (timeless) movement of the neck, arms, and legs, 3) visualizing our "picture of health" or a happy thought, 4) body scanning / sensing of ones relaxed state and comparing it to the tense state, 5) releasing breaths at particularly "stressed- in" spots, 6) the 3-way neck stretch for balancing our heads on our shoulders, and 7) healing hand positions to feel our "relaxed breathing rhythms."
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