SPA massages are your GREAT massages

I recently had the opportunity to take a short vacation at the shore and to stay at the home of a friend who is also a licensed massage therapist. He was actually out of town working that week but when he is home he works on clients in a simple, beautiful massage room. It turns out that this friend received two calls from folks that were on vacation there and interested in receiving a massage, and though he was not available to work on them, he suggested that I might be. So I called the two clients and scheduled appointments for them . When I had finished each client’s massage, my exit interview made it clear that both had a great experience and really appreciated the kind of therapeutic work I did. In the course of the conversation with one of the clients, he commented that whenever he travels he tries to have a massage, but avoids the local spas. Instead he will look up massage therapists in private practice because he believes “he will receive a better massage”. I mused: he’s not the only one that thinks this way. There are even some massage therapists who imply the same thing, i.e. that when you receive a massage at a spa, it’s going to be “massage lite”: more concerned with the incidentals than with the core or “guts” of the real physical or mechanical issues going on with the client.

I gracefully (at least I thought so!) mentioned to him that I do most of my work in a spa setting, but I didn’t feel the need to argue his point about getting a better massage from a therapist in private practice precisely because I had already proved my point. He did in fact receive a great massage from me, and I know that whenever I work with a client in Somaspa at Balance Gym my intention is to work with the same intention, technical ability, and diligence as I did with him. For some reason, when I think about this client’s hesitation about “spa massage” I think of Gertrude’s complaint in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “more matter and less art”. From the client’s perspective, he is concerned that the essentials of a great massage can be overshadowed by incidentals--aromas, décor, product, setting, hot towels, whatever. From my perspective the challenge as a massage therapist is to compromise neither with the essentials of a great massage nor with the incidentals (can we call them props?) that can make a treatment in a spa a profoundly beautiful and graceful experience. Spa massage can be great massage, whether it is Swedish, deep tissue, sports, or any other modality, when the therapist is attentive to BOTH: more matter and more art! At Somaspa, for example, it is not a matter of sacrificing technical proficiency for “prettiness” or vice versa. For me, grace and expertise go hand in hand.

Some historians suggest that the word “spa” may derive from an acronym for the Latin “sanus per aquam”, “health through water” as experienced in the ancient Roman world of soldiers and centurions. The Romans built baths and spas throughout the empire, and no one knew better than its soldiers--beaten, bruised, wounded, exhausted-- the healing to be experienced in the hot springs, with the aromatic plant-derived medical ointments of the time, their application, massage. This was no effete or pretentious experience. It was about healing up after a torturous experience. I like this metaphor because it reminds me daily that my clients, indeed all of us, live in a world that often leave us feeling beaten, bruised, wounded, exhausted. What better setting to experience the healing of a technically proficient massage than one which lavishes attention on details that smell beautiful, feel wonderful, look gorgeous and sound peaceful. That would be a spa, wouldn’t it?