BODYWORK BEYOND MASSAGE - SOARING SPIRITS GROUNDED BODIES
Helping People Find More Healthful and Comfortable Ways
To Move Through Their Daily Routines
with Ease, Alignment, and Balance
BODYWORK BEYOND MASSAGE
Leave Pain Behind........Relax Deeply Into Your Soul
Therapeutic Bodywork, Movement, Stress Reduction:
Three Different Approaches to Help Increase Well-Being and Find Inner Balance
My personal experiences with finding both frustration and joy in movement, in recovering (or not) from injuries, and of coming to understand and experience what it means to be comfortable in my own body, have guided my work into its current formats.
(See my blog posts "The importance of getting the right treatment", 3/04/23,
and " Why Chose One Massage Therapist Instead Of Another?", 3/23/23)
As we live our lives, our bodies are impacted by what we experience.
Sometimes we can process those impacts, disperse them and let go of them. Sometimes those impacts remain, unprocessed, in our bodies, and we begin to compensate for/around them. Often we end up with compensation on top of compensation, leading to pain/discomfort, and the inability to move/rest comfortably.
The work that I do is designed to help process, integrate, and, as needed, let go of these compensations; and to help people find more healthful and comfortable ways to move through their daily routines.
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SOOTHING body and soul RELEASING deeply held tensions CREATING new patterns of ease
I have been a licensed massage therapist since 1985, a certified Zero Balancer since 1998 (I have been a mentor for the Zero Balancing Health Association), and am a certified yoga teacher (200 hour Embodyoga certification, Patty Townsend, 2007- Patty's work is based in Iyengar and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen's Body-Mind Centering). I am a Movement Educator/Coach, specializing in rehabilitative movement from a non-traditional perspective. I hold a BFA in Dance from The Boston Conservatory of Music, and have been teaching dance/movement in the Pioneer Valley area since 2004. I have 60+ years training in movement, and 50+ in "body-mind" techniques. I have been studying with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen since 2020, and take courses in bodywork, movement, and "body-mind" techniques on a regular basis.
In my practice, I have divided the work that I do into 3 categories of therapeutic sessions:
Bodywork, Movement, and Stress Reduction
Bodywork Beyond Massage's Therapeutic Bodywork, Movement, and Stress Reduction sessions help to relieve pain, discomfort, and restrictions, headaches, etc.; to increase physical ease, range of motion, and strength, as well as feelings of equanimity, "inner strength", and calmness; and to develop new, more healthful and comfortable ways to move through daily routines, with ease, alignment, and balance.
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My Journey to Bodywork Beyond Massage
I believe that we can all increase the ease and joy that we experience as we move in and inhabit our bodies. In many instances, our journey to physical healing may involve focusing on different things - therapeutic bodywork, movement, a connection to one's inner realm, habitual postural/thought patterns, diet, etc..
A number of years ago, I changed the name of my practice to Bodywork Beyond Massage. I did this because I was doing increasingly less therapeutic massage and increasingly more Zero Balancing and Dynamic Rebalancing, and bringing more Therapeutic Movement and Stress Reduction concepts into my practice.
In Zero Balancing, we often talk about "Creating the Opportunity for Change to Occur".
In my work, one of my goals is to help my client/student become more aware of their body- to become more aware of relationships and Internal Landscape: postural relationships, the balance of how muscles are used, habitual postural patterns, the quality of energy used in stillness and movement, etc..
This awareness, sometimes conscious and sometimes not, creates more opportunity for change to occur.
This awareness can bring us into a relationship with our bodies that, for many of us, may be new and different: more cooperative, filled with more ease and pliability, less strained and thus more relaxed and restful.
I began studying dance when I was a child, and by the time I was a teen I was fascinated by how energy moves- or does not- through our bodies, and how posture and ease of movement are influenced by/connected to the flow of energy.
As a dance major at the Boston Conservatory of Music and in years following, I would experience energy flows/patterns of movement that would pull my body along certain paths and when I asked my teachers about what I was experiencing/noticing, they would get flustered and answer "It does not matter".
But it DID matter, because it affected my ability to do certain movements.
By the time I was in my senior year of college, my knees and my back were injured. I began receiving regular massage therapy sessions and was drawn to massage as a therapeutic practice.
After graduation I began practicing massage therapy (calling one type of session I offered "Rebalancement"), and continued studying dance and various bodywork techniques, becoming a certified Zero Balancer in 1998. Zero Balancing principles/techniques have had a major influence on my life and my approach to/experience of bodywork.
One of the places I began to find some good answers to those questions I had had in college and in years following was in my Embodyoga yoga teacher training with Patty Townsend (certification 2007), rooted in Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen's Body-Mind Centering work.
The therapeutic bodywork I practice has always been linked to movement and energy flow. As Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen says, "...Touch is the other side of movement. Movement is the other side of touch. They are the shadow of each other."
Over the years my massage therapy practice had become primarily a Zero Balancing practice, and as more years passed, I began incorporating fascial release work into my therapeutic bodywork sessions.
I began offering movement education sessions to clients (see page: "Movement" on this website).
I felt that continuing to bill myself as " a massage therapist" was misrepresenting the path my work had taken. I began calling my work "Dynamic Balanced Movement", and my therapeutic bodywork "Dynamic Rebalancing"- "Dynamic" for live, changing, adapting; and "Rebalancing" because it is about re-finding our inherent balance.
When my physical office closed for hands-on, in-person, sessions March 2020 due to COVID, I began on-line studies. I studied Advanced Myofascial Techniques (Til Luchau) and Zoga Movement Therapy (Wojciech Cackowski); soon after I added a floor barre dance class with Diane Arvanites (Zena Rommett); and shortly after that, I began studying Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.
All of these classes/approaches have added more depth, specificity, and richness to all of the work that I do- therapeutic bodywork, movement, and stress reduction sessions, as well as the dance classes I teach.
When I closed my office due to COVID, I also added Distance and Zoom sessions to my practice (see page "Telehealth Sessions: About" on this website). I continue to offer these sessions.
In all of the work that I do, I focus on how patterns of energy and weight transfer and use travel through our body structure, in motion and in rest. This means I look at patterns of energy transfer and energy use, and also patterns of weight transfer and weight use, and how these patterns have created pathways in the body. These pathways can help or hinder us as we seek to increase our well -being and find our inner balance. The work that I do strives to strengthen patterns that help us, and to release patterns that hinder us.
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Even if you are coming to see me because of a problem with one area of your body, I will work with/focus on your entire body, because where pain/restriction is felt may not be where it is originating; because everything is connected; and because once we have "re-organized" areas/released restrictions and redirected flows, that work needs to be integrated into the rest of the body.
Each session focuses on what would be most beneficial for that specific person on that specific day; and that day's treatment will fit in with the longer-range treatment plan for that individual.
Although sessions can focus primarily on either the physical or the "Inner Peace" aspect of treatment, each session, by the nature of the work, addresses our full Body/Mind/Spirit, and leaves clients feeling deeply rested and rejuvenated.
Sessions are based on a holistic and functional movement approach, and are designed to be integrated into the client's entire body.
Combining a practical understanding of how our bodies are designed to move with an understanding of how our habitual postural and thought patterns can interfere with optimum use of that design, sessions have been described as "a synthesis of muscular, skeletal, fascial, and rehabilitative work."
Dynamic Balanced Movement, Dynamic Rebalancing, and my approach to Therapeutic Bodywork, Movement, and Stress Reduction are all influenced by my experiences and training as a dancer, musician, and homeopath.
You can reach me at (413) 665 - 4977 or Bodyworkbeyondmassage@yahoo.com
You can find me on Facebook at both Bodywork Beyond Massage and Dynamic Balanced Movement; and you can access my blog by going to the menu list on any page of this website, clicking on "More", and then "Blog".
Increase Your Well-Being......Find Your Inner Balance
Be Healthy. Be Kind. To Yourself, and to Others. Believe in Our Resilience. Revel in Happiness.
Karen Michaels
LMT, CZB, CET