Have you ever had a professional massage?

[amdhunter]

I have one scheduled for wife and daughter every month (Hour long).

I will go get one for myself after a hard day working in the yard or if I have been on travel for a while and starting to feel tense. Min of 1 hr, sometimes 2. I have determined for myself that the 30min is just not long enough.

:sneaky:

 

[drebo]

Thai full body oil massage?

 

[caspur]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geLtFCxDs40

World's greatest head massage (performed by amdhunter)

 

[RagingBITCH]

I frequently get sports massages and ART on my lower legs. (ITB, Achilles, calves) Some of that hurts like a bitch, but it's a necessary evil to keep running like I do.

 

[Perknose]

I'm lucky to be close friends with no less than four professionals -- one male, three females. I've been the beneficiary of innumerable professional massages.

And, since I once took an intensive six month course in massage and have had several courses in shiatsu and foot reflexology and am also a certified level 3 Reiki massage practioner, I am able to reciprocate.

But, let me say this: Giving a professional level massage is hard work. Most everyone I've known who does it professionally has gotten burnt out and had to take time off at one point or another.

 

[wheresmybacon]

I've had 2 pro ones. I'd like to get them more often, but the lady I go to works when I work, M-F 8-5, so I have to take leave to get 'em. Highly recommended if you've got the $$$.

 

[Perknose]

I had a short and sweet 10 minute massage yesterday courtesy of one massage booths in the vendor's area at a meeting. At certain points the massage actually hurts, but hurts so good.

If I were rich I'd get one every day.

Those portable sit-up chairs that pros can schlep around to fairs and offices and what-not and easily set-up and in which people don't have to disrobe and are only in for 15 minutes with the concurrent far cheaper cost have been a big boon to itinerant pros.

The best gigs for pros are as adjuncts to more progressive/new-age doctors and chiropractors, which help them reach a clientele that might otherwise shy away and which can sometimes be covered by insurance.

Also good at anything new-age -- retreats, spas, yoga centers, etc.

Another fall back gig for pros is at gyms and ymca's. Generally doesn't pay as well, but it's work.

Straight-up, stand-alone, non-Asian lady with possible happy ending massage parlors have struggled to stay in business long term, and especially so whenever the economy goes south.

Hidden truth about massage therapy as a career: Generally, men prefer women and women prefer . . . women.

Legitimate massage has long had to fight the sleazy sexual connotations so many people still associate with it.

 

[Svnla]

Yes.

I love to have a pro that know how to relax my shoulder and neck areas.

 

[moshquerade]

Mosh. Did you get a happy ending? And can you explain it in very.great.detail..?
Thanks in advance.

you just posted that to get a rise out of me.
not working... i expect a post like this from you.

 

[moshquerade]

$5 for 20 minutes every Wednesday where I work.

nice. :thumbsup:

 

[moshquerade]

My wife and I had one the day before heading back from our honeymoon. We got them where the arrow points and it was amazing.



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pointy elbow :sneaky:

 

[coolVariable]

I had a short and sweet 10 minute massage yesterday courtesy of a massage booth in the vendor's area at a meeting. At certain points the massage actually hurts, but hurts so good.

If I were rich I'd get one every day.

Yes and messages suck ... unless they suck literally ;-)

 

[moshquerade]

But, let me say this: Giving a professional level massage is hard work. Most everyone I've known who does it professionally has gotten burnt out and had to take time off at one point or another.

Very understandable. It's repetitive and therefore monotonous for them. Also, I wonder about the wear on their joints and muscles from all the intense amount of work they have to do to give a good massage.

 

[moshquerade]

Those portable sit-up chairs that pros can schlep around to fairs and offices and what-not and easily set-up and in which people don't have to disrobe and are only in for 15 minutes with the concurrent far cheaper cost have been a big boon to itinerant pros.

The best gigs for pros are as adjuncts to more progressive/new-age doctors and chiropractors, which help them reach a clientele that might otherwise shy away and which can sometimes be covered by insurance.

Also good at anything new-age -- retreats, spas, yoga centers, etc.

Another fall back gig for pros is at gyms and ymca's. Generally doesn't pay as well, but it's work.

Straight-up, stand-alone, non-Asian lady with possible happy ending massage parlors have struggled to stay in business long term, and especially so whenever the economy goes south.

Hidden truth about massage therapy as a career: Generally, men prefer women and women prefer . . . women.

Legitimate massage has long had to fight the sleazy sexual connotations so many people still associate with it.

You know your stuff. :thumbsup:

 

[Josh123]

pointy elbow :sneaky:

lol that's mine I think.

 

[KeithTalent]

But, let me say this: Giving a professional level massage is hard work. Most everyone I've known who does it professionally has gotten burnt out and had to take time off at one point or another.

I'm pretty good at giving massages according to girlfriends (I try to take mental notes when I get them so I can apply it when I give them), but I can barely go for more than 25 minutes before being tired. I can't imagine giving multiple massages of longer than hour in one day. Crazy.

KT

 

[Pollock]

$5 for 20 minutes every Wednesday where I work.

Are you serious? I would go all the time at that price.

 

[MotF Bane]

Hidden truth about massage therapy as a career: Generally, men prefer women and women prefer . . . women.

I feel like this may be a dumb question, but are you saying both male and female clients prefer female masseuses, or that both male and female masseuses prefer female clients?

 

[IcePickFreak]

Can't say I've ever had a professional massage. I usually have someone stand on my back once in every so often, that's about it. They had a masseuse come in at the last place I worked, but I wasn't about to give her $15 for 15 minutes, and I never had time for lunch much less for a massage. Crazy that they were making $60/hr essentially, I went to school for the wrong thing apparently.

 

[Chaotic42]

No, but I wouldn't mind learning to give them for the next time I have a girlfriend.

 

[Perknose]

I feel like this may be a dumb question, but are you saying both male and female clients prefer female masseuses, or that both male and female masseuses prefer female clients?

Lol, the former. Collectively, men preferred to be massaged by a woman, and so do women.

Btw, my male friend who is a massage therapist reports that he has been hit on by a huge number of female clients over the years, often quite demandingly and persistently. He also claims a surprising number of them were reasonably hot, some very hot! Of course, responding to any come-ons is an absolute non-starter no-no.

In my massage course, great care and detailed attention was payed to making sure you never overstepped any boundaries, real or imagined.

For instance, a lot of people consider up front, or react after the fact, that their stomach is too intimate an area to massage -- never would have known that otherwise.

Different people and body types like all different levels of "deepness" or pressure in their massages -- often you can tell what they'll prefer just by looking at them but also can tell even more precisely once you feel them -- but the best massage covers the gamut from repeated fingertip light brush strokes to the deepest kneading on knotted muscles or just before and after them.

Think of it like dynamic range in music where the highest highs are made all the more dramatic by the lowest lows, and vice versa.

Also, studying shiatsu really enhances your massage technique and "feel" -- knowing where the pressure points are and developing that feel of applying pressure right at the tipping point where you actually feel the person's flesh giving way of its own accord rather than you just pressing down.

I'm a touchy-feeling person by nature. I love hugging my male and female friends alike. At my church, I'm famous for my "just right" hugs, so much so that many more times than once, people have brought their Mom promising her one of my hugs.

I'm respectful of people's boundaries, and I don't hug people I don't know or people I've just met unless the strongly overt signals are there, so, especially with older folk I'm just meeting, I offer my hand in greeting instead, only to have been repeatedly met with cries of, "Oh, I promised my Mom one of your hugs!"

Anyway, I've been told most of my adult life that I have "healing hands," usually by females, heh, heh, heh. :sneaky:

So I would give massages just by feel. Then, when I took that formal class, it kind of messed me all up with too much "in my head" technique that got me a bit away from what I did just intuitively, based on what I knew felt good on my own body. It's all good now.

Finally, about that "third level Reiki master" cert. In short, Reiki is "energy" healing that holds that you do not have to actually touch the person physically. As such, there is a HUGE bullshit factor involved amongst many who "practice" reiki. It takes nearly nothing to be a level one.

In fact, this is one of my main annoyances with the "new age", the enthusiastic but deluded blind leading the blind.

But . . . is there something to Reiki? Amidst all the BS, there may be. All I know is that once a guy MAJORLY adjusted my out-of-whack spine without coming within two full feet of actually touching me, and I could, without any doubt, FEEL the heat from his hands, big time. So . . . I dunno . . . something was happening there. <shrug>

About your bodies, remember this: Everything is interconnected, not only physically but along the mind/body continuum. That's why "holisitc" is not just a trendy catch-word, even if it can be overused.

 

[jlee]

Yep, I had either 60min or 90min. I felt like a noodle afterwards.

 

[SSSnail]

I've had all kinds of massages, they're mostly good. It depends on what you ask for, if the pressure is too much tell them to back off a bit. The happy endings are ALWAYS good though.. :awe:

 

[Perknose]

Final Pro-Tip: Want to slide towards further intimacy with that comely member of the opposite sex? Learn a little foot reflexology FTW!

Nothing seems to give greater results for the relatively minimal effort expended than a knowing foot massage! All those nerve endings just waiting for your caring touch!

And, you can get a decent start on the fundamentals from just one class or even from a chart downloaded off the interwebs! As with most everything, it's the touch that takes time.

It's like chess . . . 5-10 minutes to learn the rules, one or two run-throughs to reinforce them, then a lifetime to get really good at it!

Hey, getting her shoes off is always a step in the right direction, no? :awe:

 

[Perknose]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/health/research/21regimens.html?src=me&ref=general

Massage Benefits Are More Than Skin Deep

Does a good massage do more than just relax your muscles? To find out, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles recruited 53 healthy adults and randomly assigned 29 of them to a 45-minute session of deep-tissue Swedish massage and the other 24 to a session of light massage.

All of the subjects were fitted with intravenous catheters so blood samples could be taken immediately before the massage and up to an hour afterward.

To their surprise, the researchers, sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, found that a single session of massage caused biological changes.

Volunteers who received Swedish massage experienced significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol in blood and saliva, and in arginine vasopressin, a hormone that can lead to increases in cortisol. They also had increases in the number of lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system.

Volunteers who had the light massage experienced greater increases in oxytocin, a hormone associated with contentment, than the Swedish massage group, and bigger decreases in adrenal corticotropin hormone, which stimulates the adrenal glands to release cortisol.

The study was published online in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

The lead author, Dr. Mark Hyman Rapaport, chairman of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai, said the findings were “very, very intriguing and very, very exciting — and I’m a skeptic.”