EFTA00008020.pdf

"One of the great masters of massage." _ Rot, Leach, from the foreword 
Steve Capellini, LMT 
Michel Van Welden, PT, NT 
k4 
*reword by Robin Leach 
EFTA00008020

OTWG 
an SEM 
Massage For Dummies® 
The Rules for Gluing Massage 
Review these rules before you begin giving a 
massage: 
sot Do no harm: This is the number one rule for 
giving a massage. Refer to Chapter 10 and make 
sure you're aware of the moves that you 
shouldn't make, the places that you shouldn't 
press, and the conditions you shouldn't treat. 
ye Think 3-D: Refer to Chapter 4 and try to visualize 
the invisible physical structures beneath the 
skin that you're affecting with your hands during 
the massage 
so Use your whole body. Remember to use correct 
body mechanics in order to save your own body 
from overexertion while applying just the right 
amount of pressure for your partner. 
to• Focus on the other. This is no time to be thinking 
about politics, sports, the weather, or your 
upcoming turn to receive. As fully as you can, 
focus on your partner, what she's feeling, and 
how you can make her feel better. 
so Go out of your mind: After you figure out the 
moves, practice the technique, and focus on 
your partner with all your concentration, then 
you can stop thinking. Let go of your extraneous 
thoughts — and even your thoughts about doing 
a good job. 
so Get creative: Go ahead, go crazy: just let 
yourself feel whatever you're feeling and go 
with your intuition. As long as what you're doing 
is generated from caring and commitment to 
your partner, it is going to be the right thing. 
so Let love flow Certain people develop an ability 
to send a very distinct and palpable sensation of 
love into their fingers and palms. You can feel it 
when they touch you. Everyone else has the 
potential to develop that ability. Why not use 
massage as an opportunity to explore your own 
innate abilities to send a powerful message of 
caring to others through your touch and 
presence? 
Ose 
Massage-English, English-Massage 
Dictionary 
Term 
Definition 
Rolled 
Deep massage work on fascia that 
realigns the body with gravity 
Body 
A practitioner of massage or ...

Massage For Dummies' 
o 0 V 
N., 
'wv
A 
• 
'es V 
V 
" " e • V 
NJ 
Danger Zones 
These areas contain important pieces of your anatomy in exposed and vulnerable positions. Highly trained 
to stay
ed
therapists can actually work in these areas, but if you're not a massage professional yourself, it's boner
away from the following spots: 
vs Front of the neck/throat: You've heard of the expression, "Go for the jugular," right? Well, this is where you 
find it. Unless you're trying to choke someone, it's a good idea to stay away from this area that also 
contains the carotid artery and major nerves. 
iv Side of the neck: Not quite as sensitive as the front of the neck, you should still treat delicately. 
V 
The "ear notch": Just behind your jawbone and beneath your ear you find a little notch. It's not a good idea 
to jam a finger into this notch, unless you're trying to extort money or favors from the person receiving the 
massage, as it contains a sensitive facial nerve. 
v 
The eyeball: Unless you're trying to do a Three Stooges massage (popular amongst college males). don't 
poke your fingers directly into the person's eyes. 
v 
The exilic This is a fancy term for the armpit which, as you know, is a sensitive area, filled with nerves, 
arteries, and lymph glands. Not to mention, most people are very ticklish there. 
v 
The upper inner arm: Just down from the armpit, along the inside of the upper arm, is a sensitive, nerve 
filled area along the length of the arm bone. Pressing here too firmly gives you that yucky•nervy feeling. 
V 
The ulnar notch of the elbow: Otherwise known as the "funny bone," this spot contains the ulnar nerve 
which, if you touch it too hard, causes normally discrete people to curse in several languages. 
v 
The abdomen: Houdini was killed by an unexpected punch to this area, which is filled with many squishy 
important bits known as organs. Be especially gentle around the upper abdomen along the ribs, where you 
find the liver, gall bladder,...

Praise For Massage For Dummies 
"Touch is a powerful tool in any relationship, and learning to use that power with , 
wisdom, compassion and skill is what Massage For Dummies is all about. I recommend 
this book for everyone who would like to make the art of massage a part of their lives." 
—John Cray, author, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus 
-The only bad thing about this book is that Steve Capellini no longer works at a spa 
where I can get his revitalizing massage. Learning how to get the benefits at home 
through Massage For Dummies is the next best thing to being In Steve's hand." 
—Bernard Burt, author of Fodor's Healthy Escapes and Senior Editor Spa 
Management Journal 
"I have long recommended massage as an important ingredient of a holistic, self-
nurturing lifestyle. Finally, there is a book for the average person that gives you every-
thing you need to know about giving and receiving massages. I highly recommend 
this book." 
—Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series 
I've received massage from experts around the world and have become somewhat of 
an expert in the art of receiving. Steve Capellini Is definitely the 'best of the best.' and 
I've been one of the most loyal clients for over twelve years now. If readers of Motown
For Dummies come away with even a small fraction of the skills and knowledge he's 
shared with me over the years, they'll be well on their way to some of the most incredi-
bly healthy, relaxing, and spiritually nourishing experiences of their lives. EnJoyr 
—Phyllis Sandler 
"Massage therapy hits the big time! What a wonderful approach to the art and science 
of massage. Massage For Dummies blends factual information with a good sense of 
humor. Even though we've been in practice for over twenty years, we couldn't put It 
down. We highly recommend the book to laypeople as well as those In the field." 
—Dan & Tekla Ulrich, Suncoast School of Massage, Tampa, Florida 
"Massage For Dwnmies is an easy read:...

tapellini and Van Welden literally take their readers by the hand and gently lead them 
into the delightful practicalities of massage. Sensitive and fun, this book is like a good 
rub." 
—Gil Headley, Ph.D., Rolf Institute Adjunct Founder, Somanautics, Inc. 
"As a massage therapist and school owner for a total of sixteen years, I highly recom-
mend this book for the student, professional, and novice alike. It's easy to comprehend, 
entertaining, informative, and most of all, it's fun! Readers at any level will find them-
selves developing skills faster than they ever imagined: 
—Jody Stork, owner, Space Coast Massage & Allied Health Institute, Melbourne, FL 
"As a new millennium approaches, the essence of our being human will truly be defined 
as our ability to feel and experience the fullness of life in the face of an increasingly 
depersonalized world. Massage For Dummies not only legitimizes, but goes the furthest 
of any book, in demystifying massage, whether as a receiver or giver. A careful reading 
will guide you in how to integrate massage and its incredible benefits into the 'here and 
now' of your everyday life." 
—Deborah A. Smith, Spa Director and Founder of Smith Club & Spa Specialists 
"Massage For Dummies is not Just for the novice (or Dummy), but for the professional 
massage therapist as well. The information Is Ininguable and presented in a light and 
humorous style. Steve — whose Spa Certification Workshop, The Royal Treatment, has 
opened doors for massage therapists everywhere — is truly a massage and spa 
genius: 
—Gerald Levine, LMT 
"Massage is a great medicine, and with the help of Massage For Dummies, all of us can 
have healing hands — or at least know how to find them: 
—.Margaret Pierpont, coauthor, The Spa Life at Home 
"My congratulations to Steve Capellini and Michel Van Welden for writing Massage For 
Dummies. I enjoyed reading this book from cover to cover. Massage For Dummies is a 
• 
practical guide for anybody who would like to e...

"With lots of deep (k)needed information and long smooth strokes of humor, Steve 
entirely entertains, expertly educates, and masterfully manifests for any reader the 
essential facts, fictions, functions, and fun of manage, touch, and bodywork." 
—John Paul De Viers; 
PhD., M.S.S.W., T.RM.T, Owner/Director Alamo Plaza Spa, 
San Antonio, Texas; Co-Chair Education Committee, International Spa 
Association 
"It's about time that people understood the medical benefits of massage. [This) book 
presents practical ways that everyone can decrease stress and prolong their lives by 
something as simple and elegant as therapeutic massage." 
—Pamela M. Peeke, M.D., MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of 
Maryland, Division of Complementary Medicine 
"Discover the Ilfeenhanclng Information provided for you In this remarkable book. 
Steve Capellini and Michel Van Welden have done an outstanding job delivering the 
message of self-healing, and in doing so, have created a valuable resource for all 
to use" 
—Suzy Bordeaux-Johlfs, Kohala Spa Director, Hilton Walkoloa Village, Hawaii 
"Here Is a rare mbc one of massage therapy's most knowledgeable, experienced, and 
sensitive practitioners happens to be a fine and funny writer! Breath deeply and enjoy 
learning from a master.' 
—Patricia Weinman, Massage Connoisseur 
"I found Massage For Dummies to be a wonderful and funny guide to massage, whether 
you're a massage therapist or first-time recipient.... Steve brings his passion for the 
massage profession along with a journalist's perception to print. A must for everyone's 
library to put touch In your life everyday." 
—Lynda Soften-Wolfe, LMT, NCTMP, Massage Therapy Public Relations Specialist 
Praise for Getting the Most out of 
Massage by Steve Capettini 
"A beautiful book at the right time... ." 
—Bernard S. Siegel. M.D., author, Love, Medicine, & Miracles 
EFTA00008025

TM 
BESTSELLING 
BOOK SERIES 
References (or the 
Rest of Us!" 
Do you findLhat traditional reference books are overloaded with 
technical details and advice you'll never use? Do you postpone 
important life decisions because you just don't want to deal with 
them? Then our ...For Dummies" business and general reference 
book series is for you. 
...For Dummies business and general reference books are written for those frustrated and hard-
working souls who know they aren't dumb, but find that the myriad of personal and business issues 
and the accompanying horror stories make them feel helpless. ...For Dummies books use a 
lighthearted approach, a down-to-earth style, and even cartoons and humorous icons to dispel 
fears and build confidence. Lighthearted but not lightweight, these books are perfect survival guides 
to solve your everyday personal and business problems. 
"More than a publishing phenomenon, 
Dummies' is a sign of the times." 
— The New York Times 
"A world of detailed and authoritative 
information is packed into them..." 
— U.S. News and World Report 
1/99 
"...you won't go wrong buying them." 
— Walter Mossberg, Wall Street Journal, 
on IDG Books' .,.for Dummies books 
Already, millions of satisfied readers agree. They 
have made ...For Dummies the #1 introductory 
level computer book series and a best-selling 
business book series. They have written asking for 
more. So, if you're looking for the best and easiest 
way to learn about business and other general 
reference topics, look to ...For Dummies to give 
you a helping hand. 
IDG 
BOOKS 
WORLDWIDE 
EFTA00008026

MA66AGE 
FOR 
MINNIE& 
by Steve Capellini and Michel Van Welden 
Foreword by Robin Leach 
IDG 
BOOKS 
WORLDWIDE 
IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. 
An International Data Group Company 
Foster City, CA ♦ Chicago, IL ♦ Indianapolis, IN • New York, NY 
EFTA00008027

r 
Massage For Dummies. 
Published by 
IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. 
An International Data Group Company 
919 E. Hillsdale Blvd. 
Suite 400 
Foster City, CA 94404 
www 
dgbook s . coca (IDG Books ‘Vorldwide Web site) 
www.dummi es .cOm (Dummies Press Web site) 
Copyright 01999 IDG Books Worldwide. Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book, including interior design, cover 
design, and icons, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or 
otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. 
Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 9964908 
ISBN: 0.7645-51724 
Printed In the United States of America 
109 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 
IR/KT/QV/72/1N 
Distributed in the United States by IOC Books Worldwide, Inc. 
Distributed by COG Books Canada Inc. for Canada; by Transworld Publishers Limited In the United Kingdom; by IDG 
Norge Books for Norway; by IDG Sweden Books for Sweden; by IDG Books Australia Publishing Corporation Pty. Ltd. for 
Australia and New Zealand; by TransQuest Publishers Pie Ltd. for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand Indonesia, and Hong 
Kong by Gotop Information Inc. for Taiwan; by ICC Muse, Inc. for Japan; by Norma Comunlcaciones SA for Colombia; by 
intersoft for South Africa; by Eyrolles for France; by International Thomson Publishing for Germany, Austria and 
Switzerland; by Distribuidora Cusplde for Argentina; by LA International for Brazil; by Galileo Ubros for Chile; by 
Ediciones ZETA S.C.R. Ltda. for Peru; by WS Computer Publishing Corporation, Inc., for the Philippines; by 
Contemporanea de Ediciones for Venezuela; by Express Computer Distributors for the Caribbean and West Indies; by 
Micronesia Media Distributor, Inc. for Micronesia; by Grupo Editorial Norma S.A. for Guatemala; by Chips Computadoras 
SA de C.V. for Mexico; by Editorial Norma de Panama S.A. for Panama; by American Bookshops for Finland. Authorized 
Sales Agent Anthony Rudkin Associates for the Middle East and North Africa. ...

I 
About the Authors 
Steve Cape 
You may be thinking to yourself, "What makes HIM so special that he 
should write this book on massage?" Perhaps what most specifically qualifies me Is 
the inordinate amount of time, amounting to many thousands of hours, I've spent 
cooped up alone in a room with Just one other person, touching them all over their 
bodies and getting paid for it. 
What could be more fun? Or more weird? I hope I've got the communication skills to 
get across to you the reasons why an otherwise sane human being would spend such 
a large percentage of his life In such a strange manner. 
And in addition, to give you an idea of some more specific qualifications, here's a 
rough chronology of my life in touch: 
1977: Received first massage ever, from high school girlfriend Grace, and knew that 
something Important had just transpired. 
1983: Attended 108 hour massage class in Los Angeles and became certified. Had to 
take V.D. test at local health clinic in order to receive license (a local prostitution 
ordinance). 
1984: Massaged members of the cast and crew of a movie being filmed about Ernest 
Hemingway in Pamplona, Spain, during the famous running of the bulls. Yes, I ran. 
1985: First regular massage Job, at a spa in Florida, giving 25•minute full body oil rub-
downs to cigar-smoking "good ole boys" for 54 an hour. 
1986: Rethought career choice. Started working at a friend's landscaping company. 
1987: Was called into work at a new spa in Miami, the Doral. Massaged Dr. Ruth 
Westheimer, who gave me the "secret" of aphrodisiacs. 
1988: Became supervisor of the massage and spa treatments department at the 
Dora!, in charge of 40 therapists. 
1989: Became a traveling spa trainer, hiring staff and overseeing openings of spas in 
Vermont. Jamaica. on cruise ships, and more. 
1992: Started teaching workshops to massage therapists and business owners. 
Massaged Red Cross volunteers and army personnel in aftermath of Hurricane 
Andrew. 
1997: Began publis...

Michel Van WeIdea, PT, NT, received his training at the Physical Therapy Institute of Paris, 
specializing in orthopedic and neurological rehabilitation, as well as sports medicine and 
the treatment of burn victims. 
For 26 years, he practiced both In hospitals and in his own private clinic. Working hand In 
hand (no pun intended) with plastic surgeons, he helped develop Plastic Physical Therapy, 
which increases the positive results of plastic surgery procedures. He also assembled a pro-
cedural manual and produced a video about lymphatic drainage and has taught his 
technique to therapists throughout France and around the world. 
Since arriving in the US., he has become an "expert on the skin," who, in May 1998, substan-
tiated the first derivative claim ever approved by the FDA for the treatment of cellulite using 
a patented massage device. All the other stuff you see on infomercials about cellulite is a lot 
of malarkey. 
Mr. Van Welden is currently a consultant and acting Director of Research for two American 
clinical research projects studying the effects of massage on cute little pigs. These are under-
way at UCLA and Vanderbilt University, believe It or not. 
Michel is also a wild and crazy outdoorsman. He has run to the top of Mount Kilamanjaro 
seven times. He also became the record holder for long distance running along the Great 
Wall of China, covering 1,500 miles, half of the wall's length. His greatest achievement in the 
sports field, though, was in helping dozens of other people discover their own potentials by 
leading fitness trips to the Great Wall, Kilamanjaro, the Andes peaks, and other destinations. 
Mr. Van Welden is married and Is the father of three children. He lives in Fort Lauderdale, 
Florida. 
He can be contacted by email at michel vpfiago r1 dnet. att. net. 
EFTA00008030

e` 
• .rit 
ABOUT LUG on WORLDWIDE 
Welcome to thesvorld of IDG-Books Vkaldwide. 
IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., is a subsidiary of International Data Group, the world's largest publisher of 
computer-related information and the leading global provider &information setts on information technology 
IDG was founded more than 30 years ago by Patrick J. McGovern and now employs more than 9,000 people 
worldwide. IDG publishes more than 290 computer publications in over 75 countries. More than 90 million 
people read one or more IDG publications each-month. 
bunched in 1990, IDG Books Worldwide is.today the al publisher of bestselling computer books In the 
United States We are proud to have received eight awards from the Computer Press Association in recognition 
of editorial excellence and three from Computer Current? First Annual Reader? Choice Awards. Our best-
selling...For Deonnties,  series has more than 50-million copies in print with translations in 31 languages. 1DG 
„Books Vilorklvdrk, through *joint venture with IDG's Hi-Tech Beijing, became the first D.Sc.publisher to 
";publish a computer book in the People's Reim* of China In record time, IDG.Books Mixidviiede has become'.' 
theefirst choice-for millions of readers around the world who want to learn how to better manage their 
businesses. 
Our mission is simple: Every one of our books is designed to bring extra value and skill-building instructions 
radle reader. Our books am written.by expertswho understand and care about our readers. The knowledge • 
tittilAC of our editorial staftcomesfrom.years of experience In.publishing. education, and journalism ce—
'experience we use to produce books to carry us into the new.milknnium. In short, we care about books, so . 
we attract the best. people. We devote special attention to details such as audience, interior design, use of 
icons, and illustrations. And because we use an.effkknt process of authoring, editing, and desktop publishing . 
,aurboolcs electronically. ...

Dedication 
I dedicate this book to the coolest little massage partner ever, Brandon Sunthorn Capelllni,
born August 3, 1998. 
Acknowledgments from Steve Capettini 
I thank Atchana, my darling partner and wife, who received less massages because I was so 
busy writing these past months. The rest of my family was equally supportive and enthusi-
astic too: Mom & Dad, Tina, Bala & Adi, Jim & Lalithe, Rob, Suzanne, Chris, Ari, & Nicole. 
And of course the Thal side of the family: Umpun, Lek, Pat, Rangsan, Tina, & Rolando. And 
the father-in-law I never knew, Sunthom Chuaindhara; he lives on in our hearts. 
I appreciate my co-author Michel Van Welden for his help and for being so dedicated to his 
worldwide massage research. 
I'm very grateful to Carol Susan Roth, who believed I was right for this project and made it 
all possible through her dedication and hard work, and to Lorl Huneke for introducing us. 
Thank you to stellar literary agents, Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomade, who've been 
steadily supporting my writing and helping me grow. 
All the folks at IDG have been a pleasure to work with because they are smart and they have 
vision and they like massage! I really appreciate being treated as part of the team, especially 
at BEA, and I'd especially like to thank Tang Booth for her support, encouragement, and 
hard work on this project. I also thank Kathleen Welton for remembering me from two years 
earlier; Tim Callan, a brave soul who endured major surgery while right in the midst of edit-
ing this book Christina Turner; Karen Young; 1(i-ignite Pappas; Mimi Sells; Jonathan 
Malysiak Steve Berkowitz; Charles Berkstresser; Roland Elgey; Sarah Woodman &Ma 
Noetzel for creating killer trade show events; David Scott for staying in touch from Australia', 
and John Kilcullen for proudly proclaiming 'ree massagesl Only in America!' at the Book 
Expo. You've got a great team, and you know how to throw a party! 
Also, there are so many friends and clients from the massa...

Acknowtedqments from 
Michel Van Walden 
For my Mom, for all that she did for me. including going through sciatica pain to show me 
the way of my future. Thanks. 
To all the patients who knocked on my door to receive a massage and ended up sweating in 
Africa or in Bolivia. 
To Steve Capellini for not thinking that all French are arrogant, carrying their baguettes and 
bottles of wine everywhere they go, and for offering me the pleasure of sharing the success 
of this book. 
To Sebastien and Jordane my sons, for all the support they bring to their too often gone 
away, Dad. 
To Jocelyne who taught me how to speak to pigs about massage, and convince them that 
the guy with the white coat and a strong French accent was not the butcher. And for the 
love she brings me every day. 
To Dr. James Watson, plastic surgeon at UCLA, and Dr. David Adcok plastic surgeon at 
Vanderbilt University, for all the hours spent together in the lab and in the Plastic Surgery 
Department trying to understand a non -surgical technique. 
To Tami Booth for giving me this extraordinary opportunity — to be published in the USA. 
And to Carol Susan Roth for making it possibld. 
EFTA00008033

Publisher's Acknowledgments 
We're proud of this book; please register your comments through our IDG Books Worldwide Online 
Registration Form located at http : / /my 2cen ts . dummi es . corn. 
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: 
Acquisitions, Editorial, and 
Media Development 
Senior Project Editor. Tim Gallen 
Acquisitions Editor. Tami Booth 
Copy Editors: Tamara Castleman, Donna Love, 
Elizabeth Kuball 
Technical Editor. Nancy Dail, Director, 
Downcast School of Massage 
Editorial Coordinator. Karen Young 
Editorial Manager. Seta K. Franz 
Editorial Assistant Alison Walthall 
Production 
Project Coordinator. Tom Missler 
Associate Project Coordinator: Maridee Ennis 
Layout and Graphics: Amy Adrian, 
Angela F. Hunckler, Kate Jenkins, 
David McKelvey, Barry Of fringe, 
Brent Savage, Jacque Schneider, 
Janet Seib, Michael A. Sullivan, 
Brian Torwelle, Mary Jo Weis 
Illustrator. Kathryn Born 
Photographer: Peter Barrett 
Proofreaders Paula Lowell, Nancy Price, 
Marianne Santy 
Indexer. Liz Cunningham 
General and Administrative 
IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.: John Kikullen, CEO; Steven Berkowitz, President and Publisher 
IDG Books Technology Publishing Group: Richard Swadley, Senior Vice President and Publisher; 
Walter Bruce Ili, Vice President and Associate Publisher; Steven Sayre, Associate Publisher; 
Joseph Wikert, Associate Publisher; Mary Bednarek, Branded Product Development Director 
Mary Corder, Editorial Director 
IDG Books Consumer Publishing Group: Roland Elgey, Senior Vice President and Publisher, 
Kathleen A. Welton, Vice President and Publisher; Kevin Thornton, Acquisitions Manager; 
Kristin A. Cocks, Editorial Director 
IDG Books Internet Publishing Group: Brenda McLaughlin, Senior Vice President and Publisher, 
Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Associate Publisher; Sofia Merchant, Online Marketing 
Manager 
IDG Books Production for Dummies Press Michael R. Britton, Vice President of Production; 
Debbie ...

Contents at a Glance 
Foreword  
xxv 
Introduction  
1 
Pan I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness 
Chapter 1: Not Just a Rub: How Massage Can Improve Your Life  
11 
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 
23 
Chapter 3: Your Skin: Frontier to the Rest of the World 
33 
Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 
45 
Pan 11: The An of Receiving Massage  
63 
Chapter 5: A Massage Road Map 
65 
Chapter 6: Look Who's Coming to Touch You 
79 
Chapter 7: The Rules for Receiving Massage 
89 
Chapter 8: Your First Massage Appointment — Step-by-Step  
101 
Pan III: The An of Giving Massage 
115 
Chapter 9: Massage Moods: Getting the Setting Right  
117 
Chapter 10: All The Right Moves 
129 
Chapter 11: Putting the Moves Together 
161 
Pan Ill: Massage at Work 
197 
Chapter 12: The New Coffee Break: Corporate Massage for a Digital Generation  
199 
Chapter 13: Cubicle Maneuvers: Self-Massage for the Keyboard Jockey 
213 
Chapter 14: Relief for the Feet with Reflexology  
229 
Pan t' Living the Good Life: Massage for Every Body 
241 
Chapter 15: The Spa Lifestyle: Massage, Youth, and Beauty  
.243 
Chapter 16: Higher, Faster, Stronger: Sports Massage 
257 
Chapter 17: Taking It With You: Massage On the Go 
265 
Chapter 18: Massage for the Whole Family 
271 
Chapter 19: The Lover's Touch: Massage and Intimacy 
283 
Chapter 20: Have Hands, Will Travel: Doing Massage for a Living 
291 
Pan VI: The Part of Tens  
301 
Chapter 21: Ten Top Places to Study Massage  
.303 
Chapter 22: Ten Outstanding Places to Receive a Topnotch Massage 
309 
Chapter 23: Ten Inventive Ways to Give Massage as a Gift  
315 
Chapter 24: Ten Massage Techniques That Your Dog or Cat Will Love  
317 
Chapter 25: Ten Quick and Easy Massage Techniques for Easing Stress 
321 
Appendix 
325 
Index 
339 
Book Registration Information 
Back of Book 
EFTA00008035

, 
EFTA00008036

Table of Contents 
Foreword  
 ero 
introduction  
1 
The Massage Adventure 
You're not alone 
You don't have to be a hippie  
This Book Is for You If  
So How Do I Get Started Already? 
How This Book Is Organized  
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Part II: The Art of Receiving Massage 
Part III: The Art of Giving Massage 
Part IV: Massage at Work 
Part V: Living the Good Life: Massage for Every Body 
Part VI: The Part of Tens 
Massaging the Icons 
Sharing the Adventure 
So What Happens Now? 
1 
2 
2 
3 
4 
4 
4 
5 
5 
5 
 
6 
 
6 
6 
7 
 
7 
Part 1: Discovering Massage (or Greater Health and Happiness  
9 
Chapter 1: Not Just a Rub: How Massage Can Improve Your Life 
 11 
Basic Benefits of Massage  
12 
Helps relieve muscular spasm and tension  
13 
Raises Immune efficiency  
14 
Improves circulation  
15 
Promotes the healing of tissues  
16 
Increases healthy functioning of the skin  
16 
Offers emotional reassurance 
17 
Engenders profound relaxation  
17 
Improves appearance  
18 
The Massage Menu  
18 
Relaxation massage 
19 
Sports massage 
19 
Rehabilitative massage  
19 
Esthetic massage 
20 
Energy-balancing massage  
21 
Massage for increased awareness  
21 
Spiritually oriented massage  
I 
 21 
Massage for emotional growth  
22 
Massage for sensual pleasure 
22 
Massage for non-humans 
22 
EFTA00008037

Massage For Dummies  
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch  
.23 
Dramatic Moments in Massage History  
23 
Shaman Bob — hands-on healer  
24 
The Tao of massage 
24 
A Greek man with a mission 
25 
The Middle Ages 
25 
The Swedish scenario 
26 
Decline of massage in the twentieth century  
27 
Hippies save massage from extinction  
 2▪ 8 
Massage Today 
 2• 9 
So many choices 
29 
Touch research 
30 
The Future of Massage  
32 
Chapter 3: Your Skin: Frontier to the Rest of the World  
.33 
Thinking with Your Skin  
34 
Feeling • thinking  
34 
Investigating Your Multi-dimensional Skin 
 3• 5 
Sensitivity exercise #1: The Zen cantaloupe ceremony 
36 
Sensitivity exercise #2: The texture of the world 
38 
Layering It On 
39 
Getting the Skinny on Your Personal Border Guard 
40 
Protection 
41 
Absorption  
41 
Excretion and secretion 
42 
Heat regulation  
42 
Respiration  
43 
Sensation  
43 
Touching the Skin through Massage 
43 
Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of 
What's Inside  
45 
Wow, That's Deep 
46 
Proof That You're Three Dimensional  
47 
Learning to Feel 
48 
Getting a feeling for palpation  
49 
Bony landmarks 
50 
The bony landmark game 
51 
Soft tissues  
53 
Name that muscle 
55 
Other Body Systems  
.58 
Circulatory system 
58 
Nervous system 
 
59 
Endocrine system 
60 
Digestive system 
60 
Respiratory system 
62 
Part II: The Art of Receiving Massage 
63 
Chapter 5: A Massage Road Map  
65 
Healthy Pleasure  
65 
Testing Your Touch-Ability  
67 
EFTA00008038

 
Table of Contents 
Ate 
So Little Time, So Many Massages 
69 
Massage for relaxation 
70 
Ftx massage 
72 
Remodeling your body for fun and profit 
73 
Touch Terminology 
73 
Chapter 6: Look Who's Coming to Touch You  
79 
Stalking the Elusive Referral  
79 
Getting a Helping Hand  
82 
Locating a Massage Therapist  
82 
Checking the ads  
83 
Letting your fingers do the walking  
83 
Opening the bureau door 
 8• 3 
Going back to school  
 8• 4 
Pampering Your Massage Therapist 
85 
Licensing Touch  
86 
Chapter 7: The Rules for Receiving Massage  
89 
Rule #1: Keep Breathing  
90 
Going with the diaphragm's flow 
91 
Exercising your breathing muscles 
92 
Rule #2: Stay Loose 
92 
Rule #3: Let Go 
93 
Rule #4: Stop Thinking, Start Being  
95 
Rule #5: No Pain, No Gain? No Way! 
95 
Rule #6: Listen to Your Emotions 
97 
Rule #7: Blissing Out Is Okay 
98 
Rule #8: It's Cool to Be Nude (Or Not) 
99 
Rule #9: You're the Boss 
99 
Rule #10: Be Grateful  
100 
Chapter 8: Your First Massage Appointment — Step-by-Step  
101 
Your First Appointment with a Pro 
101 
Preparation 
101 
Communication  
102 
Getting comfortable  
103 
The first touch  
105 
During the Massage 
106 
Coming back slowly  
108 
Afterglow  
108 
To Up or not to Up 
109 
Where to Go to Get Massaged  
110 
Your own home 
111 
The massage therapist's home 
111 
Spas  
112 
Cruise ships 
112 
Hotels  
113 
Health clubs  
113 
Clinics  
114 
Student massage clinics  
114 
EFTA00008039

xx 
Massage For Dummies  
Part 111: The Art of Giving Massage 
115 
Chapter 9: Massage Moods: Getting the Setting Right  
117 
Creating the Inner Chamber  
117 
Scents  
118 
Sights 
120 
Sounds  
121 
Location location location  
123 
Privacy, please  
124 
The "massage mood" 
125 
Trading Places  
127 
Chapter 10: All The Right Moves  
129 
Don't Do It, Mon! 
130 
Contraindications  
130 
Bad moves  
132 
Danger zones 
133 
Please don't do that  
134 
Building Your Massage Muscles  
136 
You Got 'da Moves  
137 
Slip-sliding away: The pleasures of gliding  
138 
"X" marks the spot: Pressing  
140 
Let's do the twist: Kneading 
142 
Wax on, wax off: Rubbing  
145 
Shake, rattle, and roll: Shaking  
146 
Get into the rhythm: Tapping 
149 
Keep it loose: Stretching 
151 
Massage moves in a nutshell  
153 
The Massage Dance  
154 
Massage Gizmos  
156 
Gravity-assisted gizmos 
157 
Pressure tools  
158 
Mechanical devices  
159 
The best gizmo of all  
160 
Chapter 11: Putting the Moves Together  
161 
Setting Up  
162 
Table for one?  
162 
Sheets, towels, and so on  
163 
Oil's Well That Ends Well 
164 
Bottle placement  
165 
Your own oil blends  
165 
The Rules for Giving Massage  
166 
The Massage  
168 
Cleanliness first  
168 
Take your positions  
169 
Invocation 
170 
The Force, Luke, remember the Force 
170 
The first touch  
170 
The back  
171 
Back of the legs and buttocks  
176 
Face and scalp  
180 
Neck and shoulders  
183 
EFTA00008040

 
Table of Contents 
Arms and hands 
185 
Torso  
188 
Front of the legs and feet  
189 
The grand finale 
194 
Pan IC/ Massage at Work  
197 
Chapter 12: The New Coffee Break: Corporate 
Massage for a Digital Generation  
199 
Corporate Massage  
- 
200 
Massage Chairs 
202 
The Chair Routine  
205 
Shoulders and upper back  
205 
Arms 
206 
Lower back 
207 
Neck 
208 
Head  
210 
Finish  
210 
Chapter 13: Cubicle Maneuvers: Self-Massage for the 
Keyboard Jockey  
213 
Self-Massage: The Basics  
214 
Self-Massage Mini-Routine  
214 
Irrigate your head 
214 
Stretch your arms and upper back  
215 
Massage your temples, face, and Jaw  
216 
Rub that neck 
218 
Squeeze your arms and hands 
218 
Massage your lower back 
219 
Squeeze your legs  
220 
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) 
222 
Do you have CTS? 
223 
What you can do about CTS 
224 
Exercise and self-massage for CTS 
225 
Chapter 14: Relief for the Feet with Reflexology  
229 
High Heels and Other Enemies of the Feet  
230 
Reflexology 
230 
Zone Therapy  
231 
Foot Massage Routine  
232 
Positioning  
233 
Points to remember  
233 
Basic moves  
234 
Step-by-step 
236 
Part t Living the Good Life: Massage for Every Body  
241 
Chapter 15: The Spa Lifestyle: Massage, Youth, and Beauty  
.243 
Spas: More than Just a Pretty Jacuzzi  
243 
Choosing a Spa  
244 
Visiting the spa down the street 
245 
Choosing a spa that's right for you 
245 
kkl 
EFTA00008041

xvii 
Massage For Dummies  
Spa Treatments 
246 
Scrubs  
247 
Facials  
249 
Wraps 
250 
Hydrotherapy 
251 
Mud, seaweed, and other messy things  
253 
Massage-O-Matic Specialty Stores  
253 
Manufacturers' outlets 
253 
Ergonomic specialists  
254 
Massage-o-matics  
255 
Chapter 16: Higher, Faster, Stronger: Sports Massage  
.257 
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get a Massage  
.257 
Good times to use sports massage  
.258 
Where to find sports massage 
.258 
The Techniques  
.259 
Sporty moves 
.259 
Stretches 
260 
Routines 
262 
A Pain in the Elbow, a Pain in the Butt  
262 
Tennis elbow 
262 
Runner's cramps 
 
263 
Chapter 17: Taking It With You: Massage On the Go  
265 
One World, Many Massages  
265 
Massage on the Road 
267 
Massage in Coach Class  
 
268 
The coach-class self-massage 
268 
A couple extra tips  
269 
Chapter 18: Massage for the Whole Family  
.271 
All in the Family 
271 
Baby Massage 
273 
Why baby loves massage  
274 
Baby massage moves 
274 
Baby massage routine 
275 
Baby massage training 
276 
Not for Women Only  
277 
Massaging mommy-to-be 
 277 
PMS (Please Massage Soon) 
279 
Meno-possiblities  
279 
Senior Massage 
 280 
Reach out and touch someone older 
280 
A chance to give back 
.281 
Professional senior massage 
281 
Touch at the end of life  
282 
Chapter19: The Lover's Touch: Massage and Intimacy  
.283 
Sensual Touch 
284 
The right intention  
284 
Spontaneity 
284 
Sensitivity 
285 
Soft hands 
285 
EFTA00008042

Table of Contents 
Setting the Sensual Mood 
286 
Flavored massage oils  
286 
Little devices  
286 
Videos  
287 
Sensual Moves  
287 
Creating fuller contact  
287 
Limb draping 
288 
Hair gliding  
288 
Belly touching 
288 
The most sensual organ of them all  
289 
Fantasizing is okay  
290 
Chapter 20: Have Hands, Will Travel: Doing Massage for a Living .291 
Is This the Career for You? 
291 
The ten traits of a born massage therapist  
292 
An honest look at yourself  
293 
The Massage Adventure  
293 
Getting trained  
294 
Obtaining licensing and certification 
296 
Discovering your new lifestyle  
297 
Where the Profession Is Headed  
299 
Where you can go as a massage therapist  
299 
The gift beyond price 
300 
Part 0: The Pan of Tens  
301 
Chapter 21: Ten Top Places to Study Massage  
303 
Chapter 22: Ten Outstanding Places to Receive a 
Topnotch Massage  
309 
Chapter 23: Ten Inventive Ways to Give Massage as a Gift  
315 
Chapter 24: Ten Massage Techniques That Your Dog or 
Cat Will Love  
317 
Chapter 25: Ten Quick and Easy Massage Techniques for 
Easing Stress  
321 
Appendix  
325 
Index 
339 
Book Registration Information 
Back of Book 
EFTA00008043

Astrig 
Massage For Dummies  
EFTA00008044

Foreword 
and refresh your soul. I'm of course talking about massage. 
Logging 20,000 miles a year may have made me somewhat of an 
expert on the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but it also taught 
me to value some of life's simple pleasures, like massage. 
Whenever I arrive at a new destination, be it the Oriental Hotel in 
Bangkok, Thailand, or the Canyon Ranch Spa at the Venetian in Las 
Vegas, the first thing I do after I check in is escape to a good mas-
sage. It's the only cure for whatever ails you. Being a devotee of the 
art of a good massage, my mania isn't confined to Just when I'm 
traveling. I have a massage table in my home in Jumby Bay, 
Antigua, and SueHua, my Chinese masseuse, is a daily treat.... 
Perhaps the best thing about massage is that absolutely everyone 
can enjoy it, recreating one of the greatest pleasures of the jet-set 
crowd right at home. And now, finally, there's a way for all of us to 
learn the secrets from one of the great masters of massage, Steve 
CapeRini. This book reveals dozens of healthy tips to help you 
achieve inner harmony, peace of mind, and an entirely new level of 
well-being, whether you're receiving your massage at a great 
luxury hotel on the island of Maui, or on your very own living room 
floor. 
Massage is truly one of the greatest gifts that is a delight to receive 
and a joy to give. Have fun as you read along and practice because 
you may even make a few new friends. 
Robin Leach 
EFTA00008045

Atni 
Massage For Dummies  
EFTA00008046

Introduction 
Fnorthose of us who've already discovered it, massage Is just about the 
niftiest thing on the planet. Better than chocolate. Better than pizza. It's 
a great way to feel better, look better, treat people better, and treat yourself 
better, too. It's one hundred percent good for you, with no artificial additives 
or ingredients, and it's easy to do. In fact, one of the best things about mas-
sage is that you don't need a lot of fancy expensive equipment in order to get 
one or give one. All you really need to get started is a human body. Got one? 
Great! Then you're ready to go. 
First, let me introduce myself and explain what qualifies me to teach you about 
this subject in the first place. I've been massaging people for a living since I 
was 23 years old. That's more than 16 years and well over 10,000 massages. 
I've trained other massage therapists around the world at resorts, in work-
shops, and in massage schools, and I've written a few books on the subject. 
But there's something more to it than that. If all I were offering you was tech-
nical experience, analytical knowledge, and rah-rah enthusiasm, I wouldn't 
blame you for approaching this book with indifference or even boredom. 
Yet another book about the beauties and wonders of massage strokes and 
maneuvers? Wax on, wax off. Yawn. 
The Massage Adventure 
What I hope to offer you is more than technique, more than know-how, even 
more than increased pleasure and greater health in your everyday life. What I 
will be trying to get across in all of the pages to follow is a new way to be. I've 
transformed my own life into an ongoing, unfolding massage adventure and 
would be most sincerely honored to act as your guide along a similar journey 
of inner and outer exploration. There's a big, wild world out there, and 
there's an even bigger, wilder world inside your own body and mind. Massage 
is an excellent vehicle through which to explore both. 
Touching other people with the intention of making...

2 
Massage For Dummies 
feel this way, then they'd all be massage therapists like me, and there would 
be nobody left to do other important Jobs like delivering office furniture, 
piloting commercial airplanes, and making incorrect predictions about the 
stock market. 
But regardless of their "real" jobs, whether they know it or not, everybody in 
this world is a living, breathing massage sponge. Take you, for example. Right 
now, before you get to the next paragraph, take a moment to become aware 
of your body. Where are you? What is touching you? A chair on your bottom? 
A bed on your whole backside? A carpeted floor pressing against your feet? 
Somewhere, something is touching you, unless you are reading this introduc-
tion to Massage For Dummies in free fall during a skydiving expedition (In 
which case your clothing and the harness over your shoulders are still touch-
ing you, not to mention the friction of the air rushing by). In fact, this entire 
world is reaching out and massaging you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 
Gravity is the grip, and everything else is the hand. 
Those people with a more spiritual bent may even be tempted to say that 
"God" or the "Supreme Being" or the "Ultimate Massage Therapist" is touch-
ing us all the time, as reflected in mystical songs throughout the ages, such 
as the ancient Gregorian chant, Omnis Mundus In Manus Hobe°, which, 
roughly translated, means "He's got the whole world in His hands. He's got 
the whole wide world...." 
You're not atone 
The world is filled with millions of people who have already started their own 
massage adventures. In fact, in the U.S. alone, approximately 28 million 
people have received a professional massage, and that number is growing 
quickly. Millions more have exchanged massages on a non-professional basis 
with friends and family. Insurance companies are starting to reimburse for it, 
doctors are Including it in their practices, and practically every hair salon in 
every city is turn...

 
Introduction 3 
complete with pads, that's fine with me. It may cut down on the effectiveness 
of certain massage techniques, but I'm not here to tell you what your style 
should be. I'm here to help you feel comfortable about including massage in 
your life in whatever ways you see fit. 
In this book, you're going to find lots of ways to make massage a part of your 
day-to-day activities so that it becomes as natural as brushing your teeth, dri-
ving your car, or peeling the stickers off sales items you buy as Christmas 
presents. And in order to help you accomplish this, I've enlisted the help of a 
pretty impressive character, my co-author, Michel Van Welden. First of all, 
you should know that Michel is a man. In France, where he's from, many men 
are called Michel. He's a physical therapist and naturopathic therapist who's 
traveled the world teaching other therapists and physicians about massage. 
An expert on physiology and the skin, he has been personally responsible for 
getting the FDA in this country to sit up and pay serious attention to the 
effects of certain kinds of massage. The way he accomplished this was 
through several highly complex laboratory experiments studying (I'm not 
making this up) the effects of massage on pigs. I defer to Michel's clinical 
expertise on many crucial issues, and my hope is that his scientific knowl-
edge sets your mind at ease regarding the effectiveness and safety of 
massage. Throughout your average, everyday paragraphs in this book, 
though, it will be me, Steve, acting as your guide. Together, Michel and I have 
created a book that goes beyond any other of its kind to offer you everything 
you need to know to change your life from a dull, drab, non-massage exis-
tence into an exciting massage adventure. 
This Book Is for You It... 
As I stated earlier, this book is for anyone with a body, which should qualify 
almost every single reader. Disembodied spirits and poltergeists may find it 
difficult to get the corre...

4 
Massage For Dummies 
 You want to pursue this adventure more seriously and are perhaps 
thinking about becoming a massage pro yourself. 
 You think knowing how to give a good massage may be a neat way to get 
more dates. 
So How Do I Get Started Already) 
By now you're probably saying, "Alright, Steve. You've convinced me. My 
muscles are sore and I'm ready to get going. How do I get started with this 
whole massage thing anyway?" 
The best way to use this book Is to choose the subject that interests you 
most and then jump right in at that point. Many of you may be eager to start 
giving a massage right away, in which case, you can zoom ahead to Part Ill. I 
highly encourage you to read all the material in the sections leading up to the 
how-to stuff, however, instead of simply flipping through the photographs 
and list of instructions. The attitudes and intentions with which you 
approach massage are, after all, what make the biggest difference in terms of 
what you get out of it. 
For those of you who like to approach your reading in a systematic fashion, 
you will find that each part of the book builds upon the one before it in what 
is, I hope, a logical manner, so that by the end, you can come away knowing 
just about as much as you'd ever want to know about massage, unless of 
course you start pursuing it as a passion and profession in your life as I have, 
In which case, the learning never ends. 
How This Book Is Organized 
Here are the subjects that you find spread out before your eager eyes and fin-
gers as you use this book: 
Part I: Discovering Massage (or 
Greater Health and Happiness 
In this part, you find the background information you need to understand how 
the massage techniques actually work, and where they came from in the first 
place. You can discover all kinds of interesting things about your skin and 
what's beneath it, for example, and what it is about massage that helps your 
whole body feel better. if you're up to the task, you can t...

 
Introduction 5 
in a specially designed quiz. You can also encounter important vocabulary 
words and, perhaps most Importantly, finally find out what all those massage 
gizmos at The Sharper Image are all about. 
Pan II: The Art of Receiving Massage 
What, there's an art to receiving too, you ask? You mean I can't Just lie there 
like a blob and let someone else do all the work? That's correct. Massage, in 
this respect, is like the tango, and you know what they say about the tango. In 
this part, you develop the fine art of "tuning in," which allows you to fully 
enjoy the benefits and pleasures that await you with massage. I describe how 
you can Invite healthy pleasure into your life, choose the right style of mas-
sage for you and your body, choose a good massage therapist, and start 
receiving massages just like the pros do, with all the trimmings like proper 
breathing, meditative awareness, and other advanced techniques for basi-
cally blissing out. 
Part III: The Art of Giving Massage 
This part is the "meat" of the book, so to speak, with all the pretty pictures 
that you may be tempted to flip to immediately and never draw your atten-
tion away from again. Resist this temptation, oh hedonistic reader! In fact, go 
ahead right now (if you haven't already) and flip forward to the photos and 
then come back after a couple of minutes. Go ahead. I can wait. 
There, satisfied? Now promise that you'll look through the other important 
sections of Part Ill as well. Make no mistake about it: To give a good massage 
requires some effort and energy, and you'll do well to prepare mentally 
beforehand so you don't burn yourself out. You may also discover vital infor-
mation about when and how not to massage people, including yourself. 
Part IV: Massage at Work 
If you're suffering from some of the typical aches and pains of office workers 
and computer users everywhere, rush directly to Part IV. In this part, I give 
you simple massage moves that you can apply to you...

6 
Massage For Dummies 
Part 0 Living the Good Life: 
Massage (or Every Body 
In the fifth part, you can take your pick from a smorgasbord of offerings, read-
ing through the chapters that intrigue you in whichever order you choose. 
Whether you're an athlete, a pregnant woman, a world traveler, or whatever, 
you're sure to pick up a ton of useful Info here that you can use to integrate 
massage into your life. 
Part VI: The Part of Tens 
The last part contains lists of ten quick ways you can improve your life with 
massage, including suggestions for great places to take massage classes, out-
standing locations to receive incredible massages, quick massage tips to ease 
stress, ways to offer massage as a gift, and, for you pet lovers, massage tech-
niques designed especially for pooches and kitties. 
Massaging the Icons 
Throughout this book, I place lots of little round things In the margins, calling 
your attention to various details in the text. These pictures are called icons, 
and I have included some particularly pertinent ones for people learning the 
ropes of the massage world. To wit, you have your: 
The Massage Tale icon lets you know there's a real-life massage story from an 
actual person in the adjacent paragraph. These stories may leave you happy, 
misty-eyed, or thoughtful, depending on the subject matter, but they all go to 
prove how powerful an influence massage can be in your life. 
This one signifies that some sagacious and perhaps famous individual is con-
tributing various words of wisdom on the massage subject at hand, words 
which usually highlight my own brilliant remarks. 
The Tip icon clues you in right away to the presence of some especially 
important Information. Perhaps I'll reveal a secret technique for massaging 
your way Into Harvard Business School, for example. Perhaps not. You have 
to check the tip to be sure. At the very least, you may find some quick and 
easy pointers to make your reading experience as pleasurable as possible...

 
Introduction 
7 
NW 
The practice of massage is not without its potential dangers. For example, 
once, after receiving three massages in one day as part of my job interview-
ing therapists for positions at a new spa, I turned into a human noodle and 
kept banging my knees into furniture. Seriously, though, there are certain 
things you have to watch out for when practicing massage, and there are vari-
ous reasons why you should not offer massage in certain circumstances 
(what we professionals call contraindications). You can catch them right away 
when you see this icon. 
Not wanting to make you feel like you're a wallflower just observing the 
massage-dance of life from the sidelines, I'm going to do my best to explain in 
plain English everything you need to know on the subject. When, out of 
necessity, I use some massage terminology that seems foreign or unnecessar-
ily complex to you, I warn you first with one of these little icons. 
Sharing the Adventure 
Massage, ultimately, is a way to share with others and to express yourself in a 
direct, hands-on way, and I hope this book plays a big part in helping you dis-
cover this. If you'd like to share some thoughts about what you learn on your 
own massage adventure, you can contact me in care of IDG Books Worldwide, 
or you can visit me on the Web at www. . roya 1 treatment . corn and send e-mail 
to steve@roy al treatment. com. I'll be most pleased to hear how your jour-
ney is going. 
So What Happens Now? 
I can feel you getting a little antsy. You wanna get your hands on somebody 
already, don't you? Well, as I said earlier, you can always skip ahead. In fact, 
now that you're a little jazzed up about all these great benefits you can get 
from massage, this may be a good time to flash forward to Part III. Give your-
self a little treat by mastering one or two moves, either for yourself or a 
partner, spend an hour happily practicing your new skill, and then come back 
and read the first few chapters, in whic...

5
 
Massage For Dummies 
EFTA00008054

Part I 
Discovering 
Massage for 
Greater Health and 
Happiness 
The 5th Wave 
Bn RichTennan 
wad 
imporialit is. 
cligiwish'ineseege amp.' frroninree, 
priors' valian domloklil, a video file Smn 
the Internet, 
EFTA00008055

A
s you explore this first part of this book, you may 
begin to get a sense that's there's something really 
big out there that you've been overlooking, almost as if an 
elephant were living in your backyard, right over there 
behind the clothesline, but you'd somehow failed to see it. 
Yes, It's true: The parallel universe of massage has existed 
right beneath your nose all along, and millions of people 
around the world have enjoyed its benefits and pleasures 
for untold centuries. So, you might ask, if massage is so 
dam popular and everyone loves It so much, why haven't 
I been informed? 
In this part ... 
Don't feel bad. You're in the majority. Most people have no 
due about the rich tradition that massage has to offer, and 
that's because they were never taught by their parents, or 
their peers, or a respected teacher in grade school. Learning 
massage is kind of like learning geometry, or your ABCs. If 
no one teaches you, how are you supposed to find out? 
There are certain controversies that still swarm around 
the whole issue of massage, most of them based on ideas 
held-over from the Victorian age. In this first part of the 
book, I'm going to completely quash all such concerns into 
little tiny bits, leaving you with a jaw-agape appreciation 
for the tremendous benefits massage can have for you, 
your family, and friends. 
Whether you're already somewhat familiar with massage 
and are raring to go, or you're a trembling neophyte, 
slightly intimidated by the very concept of touching 
another person, or being touched, Part I will quickly usher 
you into a new world filled with the millions of us who 
already know and enjoy the many benefits of massage. 
Welcome to the club. 
EFTA00008056

Chapter 1 
Not Just a Rub: How Massage 
Can Improve Your Life 
0 OOOOOOOOO 
0 • 
• 
• 
0 OOOOO 
G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 
In This Chapter 
D What makes massage work 
p. Types of massage and how they help you 
What
does massage really do for you anyway? Sure, it feels incredible to 
receive one, and it looks nice to watch beautiful people massaging 
each other on how-to videos, but what's going on beneath the surface? Is it 
worth it to actually fork over your hard-earned cash to have someone rub 
your skin for an hour? Should you spend your precious time and energy 
learning how to give a good massage yourself? Is massage really effective, or 
is It Just an unnecessary, flashy indulgence, like fish eggs on toast? 
Well, being a massage junkie myself, I find it difficult to imagine why anybody 
would not want to get a massage, anytime, anyplace, for any reason at all or 
no reason at all. For me, massage has just always seemed like such an obvi-
ously good thing to do, starting way back in 11th grade when Grace came 
over to visit at my parent's house one afternoon, and nobody else was home. 
Being a typical seventeen-year-old, I was hoping that we were soon going to 
engage in some good old-fashioned hanky-panky, and when Grace told me to 
loosen my belt and lie down on the carpet, I began singing Handel's Messiah 
silently to myself. 
Grace touched me then, on the small of my back, and I'll never forget the sen-
sation. "This is a massage technique that somebody taught me," she said. 
"How does it feel?" 
"Ah, it feels, um, kind of, uh, unbelievable!" I said, and unbelievable was 
exactly the right word. Grace was doing something clearly non-sexual, and I 
could not believe that anything non-sexual could feel so good. I could not 
EFTA00008057

12 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
believe that there was a way to be so intimate with somebody and yet not get 
in trouble with her father, if he were to find out about it. In short, I could not 
believe that something that was neither illegal, immoral, nor fattening could 
be so sumptuously pleasurable. 
I asked Grace to keep doing what she was doing, and as she did so, I began 
devising, right there with my face buried in my parent's green shag carpeting, 
a future lifestyle that would include the absolutely highest number of mas-
sages possible. 
This early experience pointed out a fundamental truth about massage ther-
apy, but one that is often missed by those people who judge it before they 
even give it a try. That truth: There is a difference between sex and massage 
therapy. There, I said it, right here in Chapter 1, and I'm glad. Some people 
out there will forever be mixing the two up, which does a disservice to every-
body else, especially those people who have shied away from massage over 
the years because of a perceived less-than-pristine image. 
I discovered, in that youthful, eye-opening experience, that massage does 
indeed feel unbelievable, and that discovery was a great place to begin. Now, 
more than 20 years later, after studying massage and teaching massage and 
experiencing the myriad facets of massage both in the U.S. and in other coun-
tries, I've been introduced to other, deeper reasons for including it in my life, 
reasons with profound implications for improved health, well-being, and even 
longevity. These are the reasons I'd like to share with you in this chapter and 
throughout the book. 
Basic 13enetits of Massage 
If I were to go Into some of the stories about how massage has helped people 
change their lives, heal themselves, become rich and famous, and soon, you 
probably wouldn't believe me right away, because, after all, we're still in 
Chapter 1. So I'm going to start out slowly and offer you so...

Figure 1-1: 
The limp 
rope is your 
muscle. The 
knotted rope 
is your 
muscle on 
stress. 
Chapter 1: Not Just a Rub: How Massage Can Improve Your Life 
V Improves circulation 
ms Promotes the healing of tissues 
ra. Increases healthy functioning of the skin 
ko Engenders profound relaxation 
1.0 Offers emotional reassurance 
so' Improves appearance 
I d like to take these points one at a time and let you get comfortable with them. 
Helps relieve muscular spasm and tension 
As you can see in Figure 1-1, there is a definite physical difference between 
muscles that are relaxed and happy and muscles that are tensed up due to 
stress, overuse, injury, and more. 
But there's more to it than that, believe it or not. Regardless of how 
wickedly clever my rope analogy is, the human body is much more com-
plex. In fact, it's so complex that nobody has completely figured it out yet, 
even though countless researchers have spent a lifetime trying to do so. A 
whole bunch of really interesting things about the body have been discov-
ered, however, along with how it responds to various types of stimuli, 
including massage. 
For example, one of the most direct effects of massage is to help loosen the 
tension we experience as knots, kinks, and spasms in our muscles. This is 
achieved in a number of ways: 
1 
73
EFTA00008059

14 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
 The application of pressure creates awareness that there is indeed ten-
sion in a particular area, and the person receiving the massage can then 
begin to consciously release that tension. 
 Through the application of friction to the area, a thermodynamic effect 
takes place, warming and softening the tight, haid tissue. 
 By stimulating trigger points, the local nerves are soothed, allowing a 
release of contractions. 
Raises immune efficiency 
Did you know that there is a vast system of vessels running through your 
body, roughly parallel to your circulatory system, and that this system is 
filled with a fluid that is responsible for carrying away and eliminating many 
of the organisms, bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic bad guys that 
might otherwise attack you? Yes, it's true. This is the lymph system, otherwise 
known as the Canadian Mounties of your body. 
Your lymph system has nodes at various strategically located areas through-
out your body, and these nodes have the job of capturing the invaders and 
processing them before eventual expulsion through your excretory system. 
Now, you may be wondering, how the heck does this lymph fluid get pumped 
through your body anyway? Funny you should ask. I've devised a test to dis-
cern your knowledge on that very subject. 
Holy anatomy quiz, Batman! 
That's right, but it's just a one-question quiz, so don't let your anxiety levels 
rise too high over it. Here we go: 
Question: How does the body pump the critically important lymph fluid 
through its lymph vessels, keeping your inner ocean clean and healthy? 
a. The heart pumps the lymph, just like it pumps the blood. 
b. The centrifugal force from riding various carnival rides is the best way 
to get the lymph fluid moving. 
c. Fear caused by sudden, unexpected physical proximity to vampires or 
werewolves causes the lymph vessels to contract, circulating the fluid. 
d. Movement, muscular con...

Chapter 1: Not Just a Rub: How Massage Can Improve Your Life 
Our neglected muscles 
Even though you have over 600 muscles that 
take up.approximately 60 percent of your body 
weight, they sometimes get neglected, espe-
cially when it comes to your average physician. 
For example, many times after serious trauma, 
such as a car accident, physicians perform 
appropriate procedures to save the life of the 
injured.person and to repair any gross damage. 
Then physical therapists take over to help 
restore as much use and feeling to the affected 
areas as possible. What happens, though, when 
that person returns to his physician or physical 
therapist six months later complaining of 
chronic pain? If no further operations are war-
ranted, and continued physical therapy doesn't 
seem to help, there are only two choices as far 
as most physicians are concerned: 
 Prescribe drugs 
 Counsel stoicism 
That's right, the only two choices are to either 
mask the pain or learn to live with it In the mas-
sage model, though, something restorative can 
be done with that 60 percent of your body 
known as soft tissue to bring about relief. 
There are other factors at play, too, in massage's effectiveness as an immune 
booster. As reported in LIFE magazine (August 97), studies in orphanages 
have shown that infants and children deprived of touch experience stunted 
growth, both emotionally and physically. Further study showed that touch 
promotes the release of human growth hormone (HGH), which is essential to 
our development. If a child is not touched sufficiently, his or her develop-
ment will be stunted, and susceptibility to disease will be Increased, with 
potentially catastrophic results. Many of the untouched children in orphan-
ages have died for lack of simple contact. 
Improcles circulation 
This is the reason that the cigar-smoking octogenarians who frequented old-
fashioned health spas used to give for receiving massage: "It's good for the 
circulation!" they'd say. An...

76 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
and pools up, causing the appearance of varicose veins, which are a con-
traindication for massage, but I'm skipping ahead to Chapter 10 already. 
Sorry about that. 
You have the idea: Some massage movements physically push the blood 
around in its vessels and can therefore, when done properly, push it in the 
right direction, improving circulation. 
Massage also draws more blood to the surface of the body and into areas of 
relatively poorer circulation, thus bringing with it much-needed oxygen and 
other nutrients for the tissues. 
Promotes the healing of tissues 
This benefit is primarily a result of the previous two. By helping to bring 
nutrient-rich blood into areas that are recovering from any type of problem, 
and by helping to cleanse these same areas of toxins (by stimulating the 
lymph system), massage promotes quicker healing. 
Also, certain types of massage stretch and soften tissues in traumatized 
areas, helping them regain natural elasticity and strength faster. 
But beware: You definitely don't want to rush straight in and massage your 
cousin John's swollen knee after his recent surgery unless you've been 
trained in bona-fide massage classes and know what you're doing. 
Increases healthy functioning of the skin 
The skin is where massage has its most pronounced effects. In fact, I've 
devoted the whole of Chapter 3 to it. So let me just say here that massage 
includes several actions that leave the skin silky, vibrant, and fully function-
ing in both directions. By that I mean it promotes the shedding of dead cells 
while also encouraging the absorption of moisture, nutrients, vitamins, and 
other vital elements, especially when the massage is given with the aid of 
creams, oils, and lotions created for just that purpose. 
In this sense, massage helps the skin "breathe." Just as our lungs breathe 
both in and out, inhaling and exhaling, healthy skin must breathe in both 
directions...

Chapter 1: Not Just a Rub: How Massage Can Improve Your Life 
Offers emotional reassurance 
In a famous experiment conducted by some truly sadistic researchers, some 
unfortunate little monkeys were brought up In cages with surrogate mothers. 
Each monkey had two mothers In the cage with him. One was a rag doll and 
the other was a hard wire shell. The uncomfortable wire mother had a nipple 
with real milk coming out, but the rag doll mother had no nipples and no 
milk. The researchers shocked the monkeys, then they sat back with smug-
researcher-expressions on their faces to see what would happen. In every 
case, when they were desperate for comfort and safety, the monkeys scam-
pered straight over to rag-doll-mommy, regardless of the fact that she had 
never provided any other kind of food or sustenance beyond the fact of being 
soft and cuddly. 
This brings us to an Important realization as far as humans are concerned, 
too: Almost every person alive, when shocked, would rather squeeze a rag 
doll than a hard wire shell with a nipple attached. This bit of information, I've 
found, makes a fascinating ice-breaker at cocktail parties. 
Extrapolating from this data, the researchers were able to conclude, with a 
good degree of confidence, that tactile sensations are the most Important fac-
tors involved with emotional comforting. 
Massage, by offering a sustained, intentional, caring form of tactile stimula-
tion, is one of the best ways to impart emotional reassurance, and emotional 
reassurance just may be the number one need of humans in the twenty-first 
century. We modern urban dwellers are all a bunch of shocked monkeys 
searching for Mom, basically. And massage is the ultimate rag doll. 
Engenders profound relaxation 
Dr. Robert Benson of Harvard wrote in The Relaxation Response that by 
repeating certain breathing arid concentration exercises, people could greatly 
reduce their levels of stress. Massage, by its very nature, induces a similar 
response. It's ...

75 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Improves appearance 
The combination of all the preceding benefits leaves Just about anybody who 
receives them looking better than they did before they started, and in that 
way, massage can improve the appearance of even the most stubbornly unat-
tractive person. You know the type: the man with the big crease down the 
middle of his forehead, or the woman with her mouth pulled taut like she just 
chewed an entire lemon. Most of what we deem unattractive is simply poor 
attitude, and the people with the strangest looking faces and bodies can still 
be very attractive, especially if they are ... 
 Tension-free 
 Healthy 
 Rushed with the rosy glow of good circulation 
 Quickly recovering from any painful .conditions 
 Covered with silky "breathing" skin 
 Confident and emotionally assured 
 Profoundly relaxed 
Who can resist a person like this? 
The Massage Menu 
There are literally hundreds of types of massage practiced around the world, 
many of them with wonderfully evocative names like tui-na and lomi /omi. 
This is not the section in which I'm going to explain each of those massage 
modalities to you, however (a fairly extensive explanation of several major 
styles is the focus of one section In Chapter 5). Instead, what I'm doing here 
is explaining the generic types of massage, broken down into categories 
based on the observable effects they can have in your own life. 
Think of this section like the menu in a restaurant. Each category (breakfast, 
lunch, dinner) consists of distinctly different dishes, and yet the foods used 
to prepare the dishes can be the same. So the same eggs used to make your 
omelet at breakfast can be used in your egg salad at lunch or your dessert 
after dinner. It's the same with the following categories of massage. Any par-
ticular massage technique can be used to create various effects. 
EFTA00008064

Chapter 1: Not Just a Rub: How Massage Can Improve Your Life 
When you head into Chez Massage, you can order a-la-carte or request a pre-
arranged sampling of offerings, like on a prix-fixe menu. The following do not 
present a completely exhaustive list, but they cover all the main entrees and 
several side dishes as well: 
Relaxation massage 
This category may be the most familiar to those of you who have not delved 
into the world of massage before. It's the type of massage you see on TV. For 
example, in one of the older James Bond movies, Sean Connery poses as a 
massage therapist in a European spa and rubs some information out of one 
his enemies (a beautiful Russian enemy, of course). The impromptumaneu-
vers he made up at that point consisted of simple, straightforward rubbing 
and sliding. A trained massage therapist delivers quite a bit more effective-
ness than Sean did, but in essence, the purpose of the relaxation massage is, 
duh, to relax. This is particularly helpful in these Instances: 
 For stress relief, when the daily grind is just too much and the simple act 
of lying down and having someone pay solicitous attention to you for an 
hour is enough to make a big difference. 
 For pampering, which is fine, as long as you don't feel guilty about it. 
Sports massage 
Just ask the world-class athletes who travel with their own personal massage 
therapists. They'll tell you what a difference a massage can make. Many 
Olympians and high-level players in all sports are true believers, but they are 
not the only ones who use massage as part of their training. Even amateur 
athletes and weekend warriors incorporate it whenever they can, specifically, 
pre-event, post-event, and for ongoing training. 
Rehabilitative massage 
This type of massage helps the body repair Itself. Many people have found 
that it was the key factor in helping them heal quickly and get back to normal 
activity levels as soon as possible after injuries and after surgery. 
EFTA00008...

20 Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Doctors are people, too 
You may notice that on several occasions in this 
book, I allude to physicians as people who are 
notquite up to speed with reality when it comes 
to the very provable value of massage therapy. 
In fact, I've already said something to that effect 
in this chapter. 
So I just want to make something clear before 
you getthe wrong idea: I think doctors are great 
I respect and admire doctors and consider 
several to be friends. Sure, there are some jerk 
doctors just like there are jerk massage 
therapists, but all-in•all, physicians are some of 
the most responsible, educated, humane, 
helpful humans on the planet, doing all kinds of 
good work. 
When you hear me say anything less than com-
plimentary about physicians or allopathic 
medicine, it's not the people themselves I'm 
referringto so much as the system we've cre-
ated in which they work. Unfortunately, our 
present situation does not allow for doctors to 
spend the time with each individual patient that 
they'd probably like to. At the same time, many 
of them are realizing the value of massage and 
have even begun including it in their practices. 
In fact, a September 1998 survey of medical 
schools published in the Journal of the 
American Medical ASsociation (JAMA) 
revealed that 64 percent of medical schools 
offer courses in complementary medicine, 
including massage, which is the most popular 
alternative modalitytaught 
Miriam Wetzel, Ph.D., director of curriculum 
development at Harvard Medical School, says 
that therapeutic massage is pan of the school's 
training. "I would like tosee the medical com-
munity recognize that there is a difference 
between therapeutic massage and something 
that's just relaxing," she says. 
In France, where my co-author Michel Van 
Walden received his training, physicians look at 
massage in a wholly different light. "What we 
do is respected as part•of the medical model all 
acro...

Chapter 1: Not Just a Rub: How Massage Can Improve Your Life 
appearance of certain skin irregularities such as cellulite, with varying degrees 
of efficacy. People include massage in their beauty regimen for its ability to 
promote a youthful appearance and as an auxiliary treatment to enhance the 
effects of other beautifying procedures, such as plastic surgery and facials. 
Energy-balancing massage 
If massage were a map of the world, energy-balancing would be China. Yes, 
that's how big it is. Because energy is invisible, it's easy to dismiss it as unim-
portant, as far as our bodies go. But for a moment, imagine your body 
without energy. That's right: limp as a cooked noodle, flat as a pancake, blah 
as all get-out. Many of the massage styles I go over in Chapter 5 are based on 
an understanding of the body's energy systems, focusing on how to balance 
and enhance our inner invisible energy. These techniques can basically be 
categorized as either ancient systems, such as acupressure, or modern sys-
tems, such as cranio-sacral work. 
Massage for increased awareness 
Most of us inhabit our bodies without giving it much thought. We walk 
around in them and sit around in them and lie around in them, all on auto-
matic pilot, relying upon the old patterns and habits we picked up in 
childhood. Sometimes, we're negatively influenced by injuries and other trau-
mas that turn these unconscious habits into potentially debilitating 
conditions. We feel "stuck" in certain postures and can't get out. A massage 
can help you become aware of how you're holding onto certain patterns of 
tension and thus let you break them, and it can help you gain self-confidence 
through releasing old, negative body Images. 
Spiritually oriented massage 
Depending on your frame of mind, any massage can be a spiritual experience, 
regardless of whether you receive it in an ancient Asian temple or the treat-
ment room of your local health club. All you need are two people focused on 
awarene...

Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
 By ministers, nuns, and other clergy members who use this "laying on of 
hands" as a means to express compassion and in some cases to invoke 
healing. 
 By practitioners of Eastern traditions such as Taoism and Buddhism. 
Buddhist monks in Thailand, for example, often learn the art of massage 
and practice it in their temples. 
Massage (or emotional growth 
Allowing yourself to be touched with caring, therapeutic intentions takes a 
high degree of maturity. Several types of massage have been developed to 
access inner psychological issues and bring them to light. This is especially 
true In specific cases of past emotional trauma involving abuse and negative 
body-image caused by being overweight or handicapped. 
Massage (or sensual pleasure 
This type of massage can be performed by any two consenting adults who 
have a relationship of respect and trust between them. It's especially useful 
for long-term couples seeking new and exciting activities to spice up their 
lives and for short-term couples looking for ways to slow themselves down 
and enjoy the moment rather than rush through to you-know-what. 
Massage (or non-humans 
Believe it or not, there are special courses offered to teach people how to 
massage animals. As anyone who's ever scratched behind the ear of an 
appreciative pet can tell you, they love it. Certain animals in particular have 
been the lucky recipients of massage: 
 Horses, especially race and show horses that are each worth more than 
the gross national product of the average third-world country 
 Dogs and cats and other "people with fur" that we live with on an 
intimate basis 
EFTA00008068

Chapter 2 
A Brief History of Touch 
O OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 
• 
• • 0 •0•0 
0 • 
• 0 0 0 000 
0 0 0 • 0 0 0 0 0 0 • 0 • 0 0 
In This Chapter 
r> The development of massage therapy around the world 
D Massage in today's world 
p Where massage is going 
O 0 0 0•0 
000000000000000 
0000000000000000000000000000 
his chapter is supposed to extol the virtues of certain Greek physicians 
ho developed massage a couple thousand years ago, and then it's sup-
posed to move on to the beginning of the twentieth century and talk about a 
certain Swedish man who was the father of modern western massage. And 
then the chapter should chronicle the ... Z7.777777ZZ. 
Was that the sound of your head smacking the table? Are you already getting 
so bored that you're about to fling this book against the nearest wall in des-
peration? "Why can't he tell me something fascinating and different?" you're 
about to scream. 
Okay, I can hear the psychic echoes of your potential screams, so this chap-
ter is going to be a teeny bit different than the history chapters In most 
massage books, the ones that treat the chronology of massage like the dry 
academic stuff you find in history texts. What could be more unlike the 
vibrant flesh-and-bones reality of a subject as physical as massage? 
Dramatic Moments in Massage History 
For your benefit and edification, I'm going to recreate dramatic scenes from 
various important massage moments throughout history. Much of what fol-
lows has been garnished with a large dose of creative license, but rest 
assured that the information Is based upon historical fact. Only the boring 
parts have been deleted to protect the innocent reader. 
EFTA00008069

24 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Shaman Bob — hands-on heater 
Thousands of years ago, beneath the primeval rainforest canopies of the vast 
Amazon Jungle in what is now part of Brazil, an old shaman squatted down by 
a river, twisting the leaves and stems of a hardy vine between his worn fin-
gers. The shaman's name was unintelligible to modern ears, so we'll call him 
Bob. His fingers were working the powerful ayuhasca vine, which gave his 
people visions that helped them to heal. Bob boiled the leaves and stems of 
the vine in water with other plants, making a thick syrupy tea that he brought 
with him back into the village. 
It was night. The rainforest canopy above was filled with the screeching 
sounds of life. Arranging the members of the tribe in a circle around a fire he 
had built, Bob gave them each sips of the tea, and they began to twirl and 
dance and sing traditional songs. Some of them, the ones who needed healing 
the most, fell into a trance, and Bob approached them. 
As the others watched, Bob appeared to literally reach into each person's 
body with his fingers. Then his fingers would flutter up toward the dark sky 
above the fire. He would touch them, brush them off, shake their limbs, stay-
ing in almost constant contact, and everyone could see (with the help of the 
ayuhasca) what Bob always saw — blurry spots where each person's body 
was weak, demons of darkness clinging to a shoulder. 
Although Bob used powerful herbs and jungle plants, his primary tool was 
touch. The difference between a casual touch from another tribe member and 
an intentional, focused touch from Bob was sometimes the difference 
between life and death. His touch healed, and everyone knew It. 
The Tao of massage 
The enigmatic Chinese word, Tao, confuses many people. For one thing, why 
is the word spelled T-a-o when it's pronounced Dow? And for another thing, 
what's it supposed to mean anyway? Does it have anything to do with the 
New...

 
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 25 
Great Greeks go nude 
• 
Imagine the Greek sun burning in a clear, blue 
sky. Below, in the outdoor gymnazein, dozens of 
naked athletes are exercising, each of them so 
tanned and muscled and healthy that they look 
like, well, Greek gods. Why naked, you ask/ The 
word gymnasium itself comes from the Greek 
gymnazein, which means "to exercise naked," 
from gymnos, naked. Those fun-loving Greeks, I 
tell ya. 
At any rate, the sun's beating down, all these 
naked Greeks are running around outdoing 
each other in feats of fitness, and old Asclepius 
is over there in the trainer's corner, ready and 
waiting each time another Adonis comes run-
ning up with a torn Achilles tendon or sore lower 
back. The natural thing, of course, is to offer 
massage, along with other herbs and remedies. 
Supposedly, Asclepius became so proficient at 
this healing that he could even raise the dead. 
As a reward, Zeus struck him down with a thun-
derbolt and killed him. 
This tale brings us to one of the very earliest 
philosophical lessons tied to the practice of 
massage: If you like to massage naked Greek 
athletes, try to keep it a secret. 
system of massage for the treatment of disease. Because it was one of the 
first books ever written on any subject, the Con Fou really goes to show you 
just how ancient and important this whole subject of massage is after all. 
A Greek man with a mission 
Asclepius (as-ideetpee-uhs), son of Apollo, the Greek god of healing, may 
have been an actual Greek man who lived around 1200 B.C., but just as likely 
he was a mythological figment of the Greek imagination. At any rate, he was 
credited with being the first to combine exercise with massage. He also 
founded the world's first gymnasium. 
The Middle Ages 
Nobody massaged anybody else (or was even allowed to touch much) during 
the Middle Ages, which almost wiped out western civilization. Luckily, a few 
hardy souls decided, despite vigorous opposition, to...

26 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
The Hypocritical oath 
You may wonder why doctors have to take a 
hypocritical oath after they finish medical 
school and before they begin practicing. After 
all, you trust your physician with your life; why 
would you want him or her to be a hypocrite? 
The answer is simple. They're not taking a hyp-
ocritical oath, but rather a Hippocratic Oath, 
which means that it was first uttered by none. 
other than thatgreat Greek physician himself, 
Hippocrates (460-380 B.C.). In the very first line 
of this oath, Hippocrates swears by Apollo and 
Asclepius to uphold the virtues of his healing art, 
to not seduce women (or men► in the house-
holds he visits as a physician, and to abstain 
from mischief of all kinds. 
Hippocrates also spoke about massage move-
ments, saying that "hard rubbing binds, much 
rubbing.causes parts to waste, and moderate 
rubbing makes them grow." He recommended 
massage for many conditions. 
So, the man who penned the words that physi-
cians around the world utter to this day was a 
believer in massage. Go figure. 
based upon it, are actually plagiarized versions of an original story about the 
lives of these wretched medieval massage practitioners. Sadly, the original 
manuscript has been lost, and the true origins of Les Massagerables will for-
ever remain a mystery. 
The Swedish scenario 
In most places you go In the western world today, when you ask for a mas-
sage, you'll receive one form or another of Swedish massage. And so, you may 
ask, why is it called Swedish massage? Here are some of the typical answers 
people have given to that question: 
 People In Sweden were the only ones liberal enough to allow massage to 
be named after them. 
 The Swedish director Ingmar Bergman liked to receive massage after a 
hard day on the movie set, and so they named the technique after him. 
 Nobody knows why it's called Swedish massage, but everyone agrees it 
sounds better than Lit...

 
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 27 
original system embraced massage is Interesting because physical therapists in 
the modem world have to a large degree ostracized massage from their reper-
toire, and there is sometimes discord between them and massage therapists. 
Decline of massage in the 
twentieth century 
Due to the infighting amongst massage practitioners, and the sudden, power-
ful influence of technology in the medical world, massage faded from favor 
during the early and mid-1900s. Also, the earlier popularity Of massage 
induced some people to try to make a profit from it illicitly. Around the turn 
of the century, several schools in Great Britain, for example, were turning out 
poorly trained practitioners, some of whom ended up acting as prostitutes, 
which was a big downfall for massage. Since the days of Hippocrates, and 
even further back into the ancient history of China and India, massage had 
been accepted as a healthy pastime by a sizeable number of people. Now, 
things were different. 
Massaging Cain and Abel 
Perhaps the discord in the massage world can 
be traced back to the pair of American brothers 
who were responsible for bringing massage to 
the United States from Sweden — Charles and 
George Taylor. The Taylor brothers shared sim-
ilar interests, obviously; they both became 
doctors, both went to Europe to learn these new 
techniques, and they both wanted to spend their 
lives helping other people. But, as so often 
seems to happen when people go on a quest to 
help others,They just couldn't seem to get along 
themselves. 
Coming back to New York in the 1850s, they 
opened a clinic together, but within a year they 
dissolved it and went their own ways. 
"It's MYtechnique for helping other people feel 
better," said Charles, adjusting.his bowler hat 
atop his head. 
"No way, it's mine: replied George, adjusting 
his identical bowler cap. 
"Mine? 
"Mine." 
And thus started a problem that has persisted to 
this day, with various mass...

28 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Freud and massage 
Sigmund Freud, the inventor of modern psycho-
analysis, used massage with his patients. Early 
on, when Freud wanted to calm and reassure 
his clients that he was on their side, he used 
massage.maneuvers primarily on their hands. 
Unfortunately, Freud left massage behind as he 
further developed his psychoanalytic tech-
niques, perhaps out of a fear that he wouldn't be 
able to know what was really working, talking 
or touching. But he was greatly in favor of it from 
the start. In the modern world, many psycholo-
gists are rediscovering the power of massage 
and incorporating it into their practice with 
body-centered psychotherapy and somatic 
therapies. 
Throughout the mid-1900s, many massage therapists in the U.S. worked in a 
YMCA or a Turkish bath house and weren't expected to do much more than 
pummel their victims (er, clients) with some extraordinarily vigorous maneu-
vers, usually meant to purge the recipient of excess alcohol and fatty acids 
ingested the night before. in fact, some spa towns, such as Hot Springs, 
Arkansas, had massage facilities that were open on Sunday mornings espe-
cially for this purpose. The upstanding men of the community came in early 
to have the effects of Saturday night's revelry pounded and sweated out of 
them by hardy massage practitioners. 
Hippies save massage from extinction 
Overall, things weren't going so well for massage in the United States. And 
the same was true, for the most part, in Europe. Only people with hangovers 
wanted massage. Of course, on a worldwide level, massage in many areas still 
retained the same untainted prestige it had enjoyed for centuries. But even in 
the most remote areas there was a clamoring for things new — vibrating mas-
sagers instead of actual massages, for instance — and as technological 
revolution swept the planet, it left people high and dry as far as contact goes. 
The human species was litera...

 
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 29 
Keep in touch, Lorraine 
The hippie movement brought people back into 
touch with themselves, as exemplified by the 
story of Lorraine, who, in 1968, couldn't decide 
exactly what to do with her life and so went off 
in search of something new in California, like so 
many of her generation. 
"I need to get in touch with myself," intoned 
Lorraine to anyone who asked her what she 
was doing. Perhaps she didn't realize how pre-
cise her choice of words truly was. 
Heading her faded yellow VW Bug west, with 
"Go-Ask Alice" playing over and over again.on 
the eight-track tape deck mounted under the 
dash, Lorraine kept driving and driving until she 
came to the remote spot on the winding high-
way south of Big Sur in California that so many 
people had told her about 
The place was called the Esalen-Institute, andit 
was a mecca for consciousness-raising work-
shops, research into alternative health, superb 
massages and massage instruction, and just 
plain brining out. People from all over the world 
came to Esalen to get back in touch, literally, 
with themselves and with life. Lorraine moved 
in, stayed for five years, and by the time she left 
she had found her calling in life and becamea 
massage therapist 
Massage Today 
Through the years, massage has had a serious, multiple-personality disorder, 
kind of like Sybil. Every time you look at it, you're never sure exactly what 
you're going to see. A Greek physician massaging athletes? A Swedish physio-
therapist creating movements to help ease common suffering? A shaman 
purging evil spirits? A spiritual seeker sending healing vibrations through her 
fingers during an Esalen style massage at a spectacular seaside retreat? 
So many choices 
Massage is enjoying such a large renaissance right now, in fact, that at times 
the market may appear glutted with too many massage therapists. An alterna-
tive newspaper In Asheville, North Carolina, for instance, printed a cartoon 
summa...

30 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
have a lot more choices, which I clarify in Chapter 9. You also have a lot more 
massage therapists to choose from — somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 
new massage therapists in the U.S. each year, for example. And France, which 
is not a huge country, has over 35,000 practicing kines, short for kinesiothera-
peut, their term for massage/physical therapist. These practitioners are 
popular, partly because insurance has covered their services since 1974; 
people in France are used to receiving massage as part of their healthcare. 
Although you do have more choices than ever, l think the assumption that 
we're getting anywhere near a critical mass of massage practitioners in the 
world is mistaken. There are just too many people around these days to mas-
sage — over six billion of them as of August 1999 — and the population 
continues to expand rapidly. 
What you can expect in terms of massage in the year 2000 and beyond is an 
ever-increasing number of choices, kind of like you find in those designer 
coffee shops. Whereas before the choice used to be simple — regular or 
decal? — now you're faced with an overwhelming array of mochas and 
frappes and lattes and on and on. This phenomenon has been termed the 
Starbuckizing of massage. 
Touch research 
To keep up with all the rapid changes and to document the effectiveness of 
massage in the midst of all these changes, somebody had to start some seri-
ous research into the matter, and that's Just what they do at the Touch 
Research Institute. 
If you happen to live in South Florida, and you were to stroll down to the 
local medical center, you probably wouldn't be too surprised to find some 
scientific studies being conducted in one of the buildings there. But you may 
be surprised to find that, instead of an operating room or a clinic, these stud-
ies are being conducted in softly lit chambers with flute music playing in the 
background. And the subj...

 
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 31 • 
A massage pilgrimage to Esalen 
The pioneering work done at Esalen helped 
keep massage alive and well after its decline in 
the early and mid-1900s. Esalen, located in Big 
Sur, a couple hours south of San Francisco, was 
founded by Michael Murphy in 1962,.and some 
of the best massage teachers and researchers 
in the world have taught and worked there. The 
result of their efforts has been a shifting of the 
entire paradigm upon which massage is built 
No longer simply a remedial form of "gymnas-
tics" to restore movement and ease pain, 
massage has become a wayto increase aware-
ness and sometimes even:eccess the spirit. 
If you're passionate about learning what mas-
sage can be on this spirit-enhancing level, you 
may want t0 make a trip tothis massage-mecca 
yourself. Wherever you are in the world, if you 
are a massage lover, making your own massage 
pilgrimage to Esalen will benefit your spiritl 
Esalen's location itself is spectacular, perched 
upon steep cliffs overhanging the Pacific 
Ocean, where hot springs flow from the moun-
tainside directly into a series of pools adjacent 
to the massage area. (fisalen's Web site is at 
www.esalen.org.) 
Nudity alert Beware, Esalen is clothing 
optional, and nudity is common. Think otit as a . 
great way to get used to viewing the grand mas-
terpiece of the human body. 
In 1998, two new Touch Research Institutes opened, one in the Philippines 
and one in France, which points toward a globalization of studies on mas-
sage. How can they get away with testing massage like that, you ask? How can 
people just lie around feeling good and then call it research? First of all, they 
don't call it massage, but rather Tactile Kinesthetic Stimulation, which, trans-
lated, means "massage that someone can receive a medical research grant 
for." And the studies include extensive psychological tests, blood analysis, 
double-blind tests (tests in which neither the participants nor the 
rese...

32 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
The Future of Massage 
Many people are familiar with John Nalsbitt's book Megatrends, which dis-
cusses the problems people face as society heads into an increasingly 
technological world. Naisbitt says that as people get more high-tech, they 
have to become equally high-touch as well. Massage, of course, is one obvious 
answer to this dilemma. 
Following are examples of some high-touch trends that show every sign of 
continuing into the future as massage integrates more and more into soci-
ety's high-tech lifestyle: 
 Diplomacy: Massage therapists already travel around the world as 
ambassadors of compassion. This trend will continue as hands-on tech-
niques evolve and cross-cultural communication develops further. 
 Performance: More and more performers, athletes, and high-profile indi-
viduals will discover the value and relevance of massage. Every 
professional sports team, for example, will have massage therapists on 
staff (many do already), creating a trickle-down effect as fans and the 
general public become increasingly aware of massage through the 
team's example. 
 Affordability: As the world gradually shifts from a manufacturing-based 
economy to an information- and services-based economy, the demand 
for massage will continue to grow. Employers and insurance companies 
will be increasingly willing to pay for massage services, which will benefit 
the bottom line by reducing absenteeism, stress-related injury, and so on. 
 Increased sophistication: Massage techniques (some of which have 
been around for centuries) will become more and more sophisticated as 
practitioners from various schools cross-train and add new skills to 
their repertoires. 
EFTA00008078

Chapter 3 
Your Skin: Frontier to the 
Rest of the World 
• 
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 
In This Chapter 
p Thinking with your skin 
p Looking at your multidimensional skin 
or. Recognizing that your skin is on guard 
p Understanding how massage affects the skin 
O 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • 0 
"We touch heaven when we lay our hands on a human body" 
—Novel's (pen name of Frederich von Hardenberg) 
a
S
itkin is the essence of what makes humans human. How do I know, you 
sk? I saw it in a Star Trek movie, so it must be true. In the movie, a wily 
alien treated Data, the android, to a taste of being human by grafting a swatch 
of flesh to his mechanical arm. He already had a brain and a fully functioning 
body, but the one thing he lacked was sensation. He was Just a machine until 
he had this little patch of skin attached to him, and with it, he became 
human. 
The essence of being human is the ability to feel. "But," you might respond, "I 
feel things in my mind and with my nerves, too, not just my skin. And 
besides, can I really trust Star Trek as a source of anatomical knowledge?" 
Well, guess what? In this case, the writers of Star Trek happened to be right 
on the money. Your skin, your nerves, and your mind are really just different 
layers of the same thing. 
EFTA00008079

34 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Thinking With pour Skin 
In his book, Job's Body, Deane Juhan, a researcher into the effectiveness of 
massage and other touch therapies, says, "Depending upon how you look at 
it, the skin is the outer surface of the brain, or the brain is the deepest layer 
of the skin." 
This assertion, though it may seem absurd initially, can be proven quite 
easily if you look closely at the development of the embryo. As you know, you 
start out as a little clump of cells deep in your mother's womb. In the very 
first days after conception, these cells begin to divide into three distinct 
layers that will later become your body. The endoderm layer of cells eventu-
ally forms your internal organs, the mesoderm forms the muscles and 
connective tissues, and the ectoderm forms the nervous system and the skin. 
As the ectoderm cells develop, they gradually turn into your brain, spinal 
cord, nerves, and skin, which are really all one unit. "Nowhere along the line 
can I draw a sharp distinction between a periphery which purely responds as 
opposed to a central nervous system which purely thinks"(Juhan p. 36). In 
other words, your skin "thinks" as well as feels, and your brain "feels" as well 
as thinks. It's all one thing. And it starts at a very early age. In fact, at six 
weeks and less than an inch long, the little embryo can already "feel" light 
stroking on its upper lip, which causes a withdrawal reaction. 
Feeling = thinking 
Imagine the following sequence: 
1. Imagine a pinprick at a certain point on the skin (Point A). 
2. Imagine the sensation that travels up from the sensory receptor near the 
skin's surface, to the nerve, and then on toward the spine, which it 
enters at Point B. From there it continues up to the brain. 
3. Imagine your brain processing this impulse somewhere around Point C, 
sending a further impulse to your mouth, which then says "ouch." 
So the question is, at what point does the sen...

 
Chapter 3: Your Skin: Frontier to the Rest of the World 35 
This question is tricky. Most people assume that the answer is C, inside the 
brain, because that's where they think they have the thought, "That hurts." But 
in actuality the answer is B, when entering the spine, for the following reason: 
You pull yourself away from the pinprick as a result of a reflex arc at point B, 
which is an impulse that enters the spine and then shoots right back out 
again in the form of a reaction. You actually experience the pulling away 
before your brain catches up to what's happening and you say the word 
"ouch." Ever notice that? For the same reason, your knee jerks when tapped 
with a little rubber hammer, without your having time to think about it. So, in 
this sense, your skin and nerves do the "thinking" for you. 
Note: Do not try this pinprick experiment at home on friends or family. I guar-
antee that they won't appreciate it. 
Investigating pour Multi-
dinwnsionat Skin 
,coPINI04, 
In his book, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, Ashley Montagu 
offers many pearls of wisdom, such as: "To shut off any one of the senses is 
to reduce the dimensions of our reality, and to the extent that that occurs we 
lose touch with It; we become imprisoned in a world of impersonal words, 
sans touch, sans taste, sans flavor. The one-dimensionality of the word 
becomes a substitute for the richness of the multi-dimensionality of the 
senses, and our world grows crass, flat, and arid in consequence." 
Sadly, he's right. People end up ignoring most of what they feel, and as they 
get less and less in touch with themselves, they become more and more 
hectic, filling their days with frantic activity rather than just enjoying the 
sensation-filled miracle of being alive. Instead of hectic, I think people 
should become more haptic. A haptic person is especially in tune with her 
sense of touch, or, as Ashley Montagu would say, has a "mentally extended 
sense of touch which come...

36 Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
 Your skin is your largest organ system: 
• 2,500 square centimeters in newborns and approximately 19,000 
square centimeters (19 square feet) in an adult male. 
• An adult male's skin weighs approximately 8 pounds. 
 Your skin gets strength and form from collagen, which comprises 70 per-
cent of your skin's dry weight. 
 You have approximately 640,000 sensory receptors embedded In your 
skin. 
 Your skin ranges in thickness from No of a millimeter on the eyelids to 3 
or 4 millimeters on the soles and palms. 
 Your skin becomes softer in summer and more dense in winter. 
Because you have so many sensory receptors In your skin (pain cells are the 
most plentiful, followed by a variety of pressure sensors, cold sensors, and 
warmth sensors), it's no wonder you can be so "touchy" if you're "rubbed the 
wrong way." And no wonder that a caring, calming massage can be so soothing. 
All you really have to do to get back "In touch" with your true, haptic self is 
to tune in to your senses, your skin, and your environment, like you did when 
you were six years old and mud puddles were sources of unending pleasure. 
To help you get back to that sacred sensory space, you can try the sensitivity 
exercises that follow. 
Sensitivity exercise #1: 
The Zen cantaloupe ceremony 
Consider, for a moment, the word "cantaloupe." Nice, round word that evokes 
the picture of the fruit itself in your mind. Perhaps the word even summons 
up a sweet cantaloupe memory or two. But too often the word itself is a sub-
stitute for the fullness of the thing, a crutch people use to classify this or that 
specific bit of reality, filing it away for easy reference. 
If you want to move yourself beyond your mind's habitual categorizing mech-
anisms, try the Zen cantaloupe ceremony: 
1. Buy or borrow a fresh, ripe, high-quality cantaloupe. 
2. Find a quiet, private place (where no one can see you and make fun of 
you) and sit with ...

 
Chapter 3: Your Skin: Frontier to the Rest of the World 37 
4. Slowly, with your eyes still dosed, reach your fingertips out until you 
make contact with the cantaloupe. 
Do not attempt to pick it up. Just feel the surface in extremely minute 
detail, as though you're trying to decipher a message encoded in the 
fruit's convoluted furrows. Pay attention to your fingertips. 
5. Begin to lift the melon up, using your fingertips alone. 
Spend a minute feeling the weight, shifting it from hand to hand. Then 
slowly bring the fruit up to your face, rubbing the rough texture against 
your cheek. 
6. After this thorough tactile encounter with the melon, place it on the 
plate again, and then slowly and ritualistically lift the knife and begin 
your incision, slicing out just one sliver, cleaning off the seeds. 
Open your eyes while slicing but then close them again. 
7. Lift the slice to your nose and take three long inhalations. 
8. Open your mouth and place the cool orange flesh inside your lips, but 
don't bite down at first. 
Let the juices gather on your tongue and savor the sensation. 
9. Let your teeth literally sink down into the fruit, and then let the piece 
melt in your mouth for a minute before chewing. 
10. Repeat the biting and chewing until you eat the whole sliver. 
Breathe deeply for a few minutes again. Then, finally, open your eyes. 
If you pay attention to the feelings that you have at each step of the cere-
mony, you'll discover that cantaloupes have much more depth than just the 
word "cantaloupe." 
Just as the original Zen tea ceremony was used by Samurai warriors in Japan 
to calm their minds and bring them into the present moment, the cantaloupe 
ceremony can help focus you on the tactile reality underlying your ongoing 
reinterpretation of the world through thoughts and words. You can repeat the 
experience with other fruits, vegetables, and just about any safe, non-toxic 
foodstuff. 
This exercise is a great way to help yourself get into the ri...

35 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Sensitivity exercise #2: 
The tenure of the World 
Your fingertips have the largest concentration of sensory receptors of any 
part of your body. This feature is quite convenient for giving massages, which 
requires a real sensitivity to the person you're touching. 
With their unique sensitivity, your fingers can actually "see" objects, a fact 
you confirm every time you fish through a purse or pocket, searching for 
keys. You can develop and fine-tune this capability through a simple attune-
ment exercise called the "texture of the world? The exercise helps you gain a 
certain sensibility that is crucial for getting and giving good massages. 
You need a partner for this experience — someone you trust. 
1. Have your partner gather four or five objects and arrange them on a 
table, without showing you what they are. 
See why you have to trust your partner? You don't want someone who 
may choose bird droppings, tar, rotten dairy products, and so on. 
2. Have your partner blindfold you and sit you in front of the table, 
within arms' reach of the objects. 
If you haven't been blindfolded since playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey 
as a child, be prepared for a startling and powerful experience. 
3. Reach out and touch one object at a time, picking it up and using your 
fingertips to try to determine what it is. 
If your partner has been creative in choosing the objects, you should 
have an interesting experience. Use just your fingertips for this exercise 
and resist the temptation to get your nose or other senses involved in 
the process. 
4. Override your mind's tendency to identify the object and then create 
a visual picture of it, categorize it, and dismiss it. 
Your mind goes into its automatic pattern the moment you realize what 
the object is. Instead of giving in to that tendency, continue to explore 
the object, discovering properties you overlooked before. If you can't 
guess what the object "r...

 
Chapter 3: Your Skin: Frontier to the Rest of the World 39 
Little skin, lotta feeling 
Do you know why little tots seem so extraordi-
narily sensitive when it comes to touch? 
Children up to three years old have a total of 80 
specialized sensory receptors called Meissner's 
corpuscles per square millimeter of skin, as 
opposed to 20 M a young adult, and 4 in old age 
(Montagu, p. 7). That's why babies are so over-
whelmed by tickles and touches. They feel more 
than we do. 
6. Remove the blindfold and check out your work. 
Just being blindfolded greatly alters your perception of the objects. Unable to 
take them for granted, labeling one a "golf ball" and another a "yellow stick-
on note," you will quite likely discover something about your ability to feel, 
and in the process Increase your touch-ability (see Chapter 5 for more on 
touch-ability). 
Layering It On 
Your skin, like every other part of your body, is a living, growing, changing 
thing. In fact, you have an entirely new outer layer of skin every 27 days, 
which means you're an awful lot like snakes, lizards, and other animals who 
leave their skins behind periodically. You Just shed your skin one skin cell at 
a time, so it's not so obvious. 
The epidermis, the outer portion of your skin that keeps replenishing itself 
and flaking off, is made up of several layers. The bottommost layer keeps 
reproducing new skin cells, which are then pushed toward the upper layers, 
collectively known as the horny zone. It is called the horny zone because the 
cells there are hardened, like horns. 
So, what you're really seeing when you look at somebody's skin is a whole 
bunch of dead, hardened cells that are about to fall off. In fact, exfoliation, a 
particular type of spa treatment that I explain further in Chapter 15, assists 
the skin in this process. 
Keep in mind that certain skin conditions make performing a massage Inad-
visable (see Chapter 10). For now, I'm talking about basic, healthy skin in an 
averag...

40 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
The hazards of breathing 
The "dust" particles that you see floating in a 
shaft of sunlight are mostly dead skin cells from 
the epidermis that have recently been shed by 
you and any other people who have inhabited 
the room. As you breathe, you can't help but 
inhale some of these flaky cells, thus sucking 
cousin Bob, Aunt Julia, the refrigerator repair 
man, and even your own self into your lungs. 
This situation presents no biological hazard and 
is usually not a cause for concern because most 
people don't know about it and therefore don't 
get grossed out. 
Whoops. 
Beneath the epidermis lies the dermis, which is filled with fat cells, blood and 
lymph vessels, oil glands, sweat glands, nerve endings, and hair follicles. The 
dermis also helps to bind the outer layers of the skin to the subcutaneous 
(which means "beneath the skin') tissues below. In this area, you find some 
very important cells called fibroblasts, which are responsible for producing 
connective tissues. You owe a great debt of gratitude to your fibroblasts, 
especially after you break your skin in some way, because these specialized 
cells are responsible for rushing to the area and filling it with connective 
fibers, mending you back together. Massage can also affect these fibroblasts 
to enhance the appearance of your skin. 
Getting the Skinny on Your 
Personal Border Guard 
Throughout your life, your skin defines the intimate boundaries of your exis-
ence. Skin Is the millimeters-thin line that separates you from the rest of 
Say and allows you to perceive that reality. Here are the six major tune-
ions of your own personal border guard, the skin: 
 Protection 
 Absorption 
 Secretion and excretion 
 Heat regulation 
 Respiration 
 Sensation 
EFTA00008086

 
Chapter 3: Your Skin: Frontier to the Rest of the World 41 
The importance of getting licked 
Have you ever watched a cat give birth? Directly 
afterwards, mamma cat begins licking her 
babies all over, with a special concentration in 
the genital area. The same is true for dogs. And 
horses. And cows. And aardvarks and 
antelopes and giraffes. In fact, every species of 
mammal with the exception of man lick their 
young immediately afterbirth. 
At first, you may assume that this licking is to 
clean off the gooey stuff plastered all over the 
newborn's body. That's partially true, but far 
more important than the cleaning is the licking 
itself, the touch of tongue to flesh or fur. 
I was in my first massage therapy class, in 
California, when the instructor stated that mas-
saging a newborn baby% perineum Ithe area 
between the genitals and anus) with a warm 
moist cloth was a good idea to simulate the 
action of licking engaged in by other animals. In 
other words, he was advising us to.metaphori-
calty lick the baby's butt. 
At the moment, and for several years after-
wards, I thought this California massage 
instructor was a little too "out there" for his own 
good. But now, after discovering the importance 
of this type of stimulation in every other species 
of mammal, it makes perfect sense. This critical 
form of early contact jump-starts the newborn's 
gastrointestinal tract and is perhaps the most 
primal type of "massage" that we can offer our 
young. 
You can recreate the natural sensations of lick-
ing for your newborn by taking a baby-wipe or 
moist towel and rubbing' it gently over the skin 
in this important area a couple times a day for 
the first few months of life, starting on day one. 
Protection 
Whenever anyone tries to pass over the border from Spain to France, say, he 
or she is stopped by the border guard (usually men in sadly decorative hats, 
with sour expressions on their faces). The same basic thing happens with 
your body. Your skin s...

42 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
and pesticides. Your skin is equally capable of allowing these terrorists to 
cross the border, which means you should stay on guard regarding the prod-
ucts you come into contact with. 
Excretion and secretion 
Your skin can also get rid of toxic elements, like exiling unwanted characters 
from the country. This process is called excretion, and it's handled by those 
ruffians, the sweat glands. You have several million of these glands, and they 
eliminate waste products via perspiration. 
In addition to excreting, your skin secretes as well, issuing forth an oily sub-
stance called sebum that coats the skin and helps preserve moisture. 
Secretion is a good thing, because the skin Is about 50 — 70 percent moisture, 
and you don't want it to dry out. 
Heat regulation 
Your skin is constantly monitoring the temperature in the environment and 
helping to maintain your body's internal temperature at an even 98.61E (37°C) 
through adjustments of blood vessels and sweat glands, which dilate or con-
tract in response to heat and cold. 
If you don't touch me, I'll die 
Touch is literally a matter of life and death. The 
philosopher Bertrand Russell noted the impor-
tance of touch, saying, "Not only our geometry 
and our physics, but our whole conception of 
what exists outside us, is based on the sense of 
touch? For this reason, it's urgently important 
that infants and small children receive an abun-
dant supply of human contact. 
In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry Dwight Chapin 
reported that when orphaned babies were rou-
tinely put in homes and left to wither away with 
essentially zero human contact, a startling 99 
percent of them died within one year of.admis-
sion (Juhan p.43). Those who survived suffered 
signs of retardation and maladjustment. 
To say that the world would truly be a better 
place if more people received massage —
especially as part of their developmental 
years — is not an exaggeration...

 
Chapter 3: Your Skin: Frontier to the Rest of the World 43 
Respiration 
Oxygen comes in through the pores of the skin, and carbon dioxide goes out, 
just like in the lungs, but on a smaller scale. If you're a James Bond fan and 
saw the classic movie, Gold Finger, you may remember the famous opening 
scene, which featured a woman painted completely gold and then left on a 
hotel room bed in Miami Beach. In the movie, she died because her skin 
couldn't "breathe," and a similar fate could happen to you in real life if all of 
your pores were suddenly blocked. 
Sensation 
If skin were basically Just nature's way of keeping what's inside of our bodies 
in and what's outside out, life wouldn't be nearly as much fun as it is, and, as 
it turns out, those guards at the border have a sensitive side beneath their 
hats after all. 
Providing you with a rich, complex variety of sensations is by far the most 
personally gratifying of the skin's functions, which is something you'll 
develop an even greater appreciation for as you practice the techniques in 
the other chapters of this book. 
Touching the Skin through Massage 
Recently, even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has become con-
vinced that massage offers undeniable results. My co-author, Michel Van 
Welden, has worked with the FDA extensively and has substantiated some 
claims for the effectiveness of massage. Following are some of his findings: 
toe Scientific evidence points to the fact that massage can positively impact 
skin tone. 
sof Pigs love massage. 
's true. In a series of experiments at Vanderbilt University and UCLA, Michel 
worked with a team of ace physicians administering a series of massage 
experiments on some very special subjects: Flopsy, Zeus, and Peewee, three 
Yorkshire pigs. 
The three pigs were chosen for their high moral character and love of luxuri-
ous spa treatments. No, actually they were chosen because pigs (even though 
you may not like to admit it) have remarkably similar ...

44 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
massages with a device that strongly affects circulation. The FDA eventually 
approved this device as an effective way to tone the skin and improve the 
appearance of cellulite. Here are some of the findings of these experiments, 
as reported in Newsweek magazine, November 1998: 
 This type of Massage, called Endermologie', stimulates fibroblasts, 
which produce collagen. 
 An increase in collagen fibers can improve the elasticity and youthful 
appearance of the skin. 
Michel should know. He's been a physical therapist in France for almost 30 
years, and in that country the physical therapists do an awful lot of massage. 
In fact, each of the 35,000 practicing physical therapists in that country gives 
an average of 4,374 massages a year, most of them paid for by national insur-
ance. Perhaps that's why the French have a saying, bien dans son peau, for 
someone who is happy and content; the phrase means "good in his skin." 
EFTA00008090

Chapter 4 
I've Got You Under My Skin: 
The Basics of What's Inside 
In This Chapter 
> Discovering your three-dimensional body 
Getting a feel for muscles and bones 
j> Exploring the organ systems 
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 6 OOOOOOO 
0 
OOOOOOOOOOOOO 
0 0 0 OOOOOOO 
M
ost people would prefer to leave the interior of the human body a mys-
tery, like the ingredients in a Hostess Twinkie. You're better off just 
enjoying the thing, they figure, and not asking too many questions. This atti-
tude works fine for most applications in life, such as walking around, going to 
the movies, eating pizza, and so forth, but once you decide to massage some-
body, you'll benefit by knowing a little about human anatomy. 
Here's why: 
 You become aware of certain areas that are delicate or sensitive and 
should therefore be avoided (see Chapter 10 for more information on 
this issue). . 
 You develop an idea of what's going on internally when someone com-
plains about specific aches and pains. 
 You discover how certain strokes on the surface are acting on deeper 
structures, such as the circulatory system, the lymph system, and more. 
 You come to understand how your touch is affecting the body as a 
whole. 
The purpose of this chapter is to give you a very basic understanding of how 
your touch is felt, not Just on the surface of the body, but into its depths as 
well. 
EFTA00008091

46 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Michelangelo's inner vision 
Have you ever been to Florence and visited the 
Galleria della Accademia where Michelangelo's 
famous statue of David stands? Well, let me tell 
you, it's worth it. You enter and walk down a long 
corridor filled with half-finished sculptures 
before you come to the high glass-domed cham-
ber where. David awaits. The power oldie piece 
is not just 'nits mass and detail, but alsain its 
fullness. David seems to be filled to-diet:1m 
with life, as,if he's about to burst out of his skin 
at any moment 
How did Michelangelo know exactly howeach 
of the muscles and bones were arranged inside 
the human body in order to recreate such real-
ity? Did he study anatomy at the medical school 
of Florence? Did he look it up in books? 
The fact is that studying anatomy the time-
honored way (using cadavers) was illegal 
during Michelangelo's lifetime, outlawed bythe 
Catholic Church as sacrilegious. Undaunted, the 
artist found a sympathetic priest who gave him 
a key to one of the city's morgues where 
Michelangelo would break in at nightto perform 
illicit autopsies. Even though he had to risk his 
own life to do it, exploring the interior of the 
human body proved:invaluable to the creation 
of his art. 
To give a massagethat feels like a work of art, 
you'll want know what's inside the human body, 
too. And these days, nobody's going to arrest 
you for wanting to find out 
Wow, That's Deep 
Perhaps the most fundamental misconception people have as they first set 
out to massage somebody Is that the human body Is a two-dimensional 
object rather than a three-dimensional object. How Is that possible, you say? 
Everyone knows we're not flat. Right? 
Well, that's true, but everyone knows that a lake is three-dimensional, too, 
having depth as well as width and breadth, right? What do you picture In 
your mind when you think of a lake, though? If you're like most people, you 
think of ...

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 47 
You can give a nice, pleasant rubdown without knowing a thing about what 
you're doing: The mere tactile stimulation of skin-to-skin has positive thera-
peutic effects; but to give a good massage, one that makes people say "wow, 
that was incredible," you have to learn how to swim. 
Proof That you're Three Dimensional 
Here's a way to prove scientifically that you are indeed a three-dimensional 
being and that all kinds of secrets exist below the surface of your skin. You 
only need two things to do this experiment: your hand and a flat surface such 
as a table or desk. 
First, turn your hand palm-downward and hold it over the table a few inches 
high. Then reach down with just your fingertips to touch the surface. And 
finally bend your middle finger and fold it under your hand until the first two 
knuckles are flat on the table. Good. 
What I'd like you to do now is lift your other fingers up and away from the 
table top one at a time while leaving your middle finger firmly planted. Go 
ahead and do this right along with me as you're reading If you'd like. First try 
the thumb; it lifts downright easily, doesn't it? Way up high. Next try the 
index finger; not quite as impressive as the thumb but still definitely off the 
table. Try the pinkie finger; you see how it lifts up about the same or higher 
than the index finger? And lastly, try the ring finger. Go ahead. I'll wait. What's 
wrong? Come onl Lift it up already. Can't do it? 
Why can't you lift your ring finger? You may have tried this experiment 
before, but did you ever figure out what's going on? Somebody showed it to 
me when I was in high school, but it wasn't until I was studying anatomy as 
part of massage training that I understood what's happening. 
The secret is this: Buried within the depths of your forearm are three tiny 
little muscles, one that lifts your index finger, one that lifts your pinkie finger, 
and one that lifts ...

45 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Figure 4-1: 
Tiny mus-
cles deep 
in your 
forearm 
determine 
the possible 
movements 
of your 
hand. 
Learning► to Feet 
For a moment, imagine you have a bas-relief map of the world before you In 
which all the landmarks are raised from the surface. Now imagine an opaque 
layer of rubber a quarter-Inch thick covering the whole thing. Reaching down 
and touching this smooth surface, can you tell where your fingers are Just by 
feeling? Where's California? Where's the tip of South America? Where's the 
protruding peninsula of Iberia? Can you determine what it is you're feeling, 
even without seeing it? 
Now, making a leap in your imagination, think of the human body as that 
covered-up map that you are trying to identify by feeling its contours. This 
type of feeling-with-a-purpose is called palpation. Many professional massage 
people use palpation to determine what type of massage they are going to 
give to an individual, based on the way the person's body feels compared to 
the norm. You can get very sensitive fingers by practicing this, and in the 
next section, I lead you through an exercise to help you start that sensitiza-
tion process. 
EFTA00008094

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 
Getting a feeling for palpation 
Try this exercise to begin sensitizing your fingers to the various textures, 
shapes, and landmarks you will find beneath the skin. 
I. Sitting in a chair, with your back straight, turn your head to the right, 
as if you were trying to look back over your right shoulder. 
2. Now, reach up with your right hand and, using just the fingertips, feel 
gently along the front of the neck until you locate the long band of 
vertical muscle stretching from your collar bone up to the side of your 
head, called the sternocleidomastoid muscle, which is illustrated in 
Figure 4-2. 
3. "Walk" your fingertips up and down this muscle, feeling for where it 
connects near the center of your collar bone (the origin) and up along 
the base of your skull (the insertion). 
Do certain parts feel tighter than others? Is part of the muscle thinner 
than others? 
4. Grasp the muscle between your fingertips, as if it were a guitar string 
and you were going to pluck it. 
Be careful not to dig your fingers into the sensitive front part of your 
neck. 
5. Still grasping the muscle, slowly bring your head back to center, feel-
ing the softening in the muscle between your fingers as you do so. 
Repeat the process several times, back and forth. 
6. Walk your fingers down to the base of this muscle and then onto the 
collar bone, following it along out toward the shoulder. 
How does the bone feel different than the muscle? In what ways is it the 
same? 
7. Now walk your fingers away from the collar bone up over toward 
your back until you reach the top of your shoulder. 
Use a little firmer pressure to feel along the length of this muscle. Where 
does it feel harder? Where does it feel softer? Are there any "knots" or 
"bands" of harder tissue within the more pliable surrounding area? 
Notice whether there are any points that feel more tender when you 
touch them, and whether these tender points corr...

50 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Figure 4-t 
Turning your 
head to 
one side 
exposes 
your stem-
ocleidomas-
told muscle, 
which is 
then easy 
to palpate. 
Take several minutes to do this. Get a feeling for feeling. Let your fingers 
become familiar with all the permutations of texture, density, and tone that 
you can find Just below the surface of the skin. 
Bony landmarks 
If you attend massage school yourself one day, you'll learn all kinds of intimi-
dating anatomical terms with which to impress your friends and loved ones, 
such as "Boy, Cheryl, that's one exquisite medial malleolus you have there." 
Cheryl probably won't know that you're talking about her inner ankle bone. 
And there's a very good chance she won't care either. Therefore, I'm not 
going to bore you or her by loading you down with all kinds of Latinate words 
and phrases. Instead, I'm going to do something fun, in plain English, that's 
going to help give you an idea where things are located anatomically. 
EFTA00008096

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 51 
Your medial malleolus, or inner ankle bone, Is one of at least forty seven 
"bony landmarks" throughout your body. Now, before you go making any 
crude comments about bony landmarks, let me assure you that this is indeed 
what they are called by professionals everywhere. They have compelling 
names, such as xiphoid process, occipital protuberance, and greater tuberosity 
of the humerus. I'm going to use laymen's terms, though, and expose you to a 
few of these landmarks as part of a game. That's right, It's time to play .... 
The bony landmark game 
It can really be a lot of fun getting to know what's where beneath your skin, 
and, in fact, for many centuries (before the invention of TV) people the world 
over would sit around the campfire playing the bony landmark game. This 
was a great way to pass the time between wolverine attacks, and It's an effec-
tive method to teach anatomy to the young at the same time. 
The game is simple: I describe a particular landmark (see FIgure 4-3) for you 
In terms that yoti can understand and give you directions on how to locate it 
through palpation. Then, all you have to do is supply me with the common, 
everyday term we use to describe this landmark. It's important that you actu-
ally do the palpation, not just read the words, because that is what will 
familiarize you with the terrain you massage In future chapters. 
Ready? 
1. You can find this landmark by holding one hand out in front of you, with 
your palm facing you. Feeling with the fingertips of your other hand, 
notice that you have two bones in the forearm, one on the pinkie finger 
side (the ulna), and one on the thumb side (the radius). Follow the bone 
on the pinkie finger side all the way from your wrist to its extreme other 
end. You'll find a bump there, called the olecranon process, otherwise 
known as the 
2. Cross one of your feet up and rest it on the other knee so you can exam-
ine it. ...

52 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Figure 4-3: 
"Bony land-
marks" are 
specific 
areas on the 
skeleton 
that you 
can feel 
from above 
the skin. 
5. Walk your fingers back up along the side of your body about 6 — 8 inches 
until you hit the next bony landmark. It should be a sharp ridge that 
sticks out and that you can follow along toward the front of your body 
for a few inches. This is the iliac crest, also known as the 
bone. 
6. Reaching your hands up to your face, locate your chin and then feel 
back along the lower ridge toward your ear. It curves up here, forming 
the ramus of the mandible, otherwise known as the point at the angle of 
the 
bone. 
EFTA00008098

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 
7. You'll need a partner for this one. Have her lie face-down on a comfort-
able surface with her back exposed, and then gently lift her arm, bend it 
at the elbow, and place her hand on her lower back. Let her upper arm 
rest down along her side. You'll notice that by doing this you cause a big 
bump to appear on her upper back. Feel along the edges of this triangular-
shaped bone, otherwise known as the 
Answers: 1. elbow, 2. Inner ankle bone, 3. heel, 4. thigh, 5. hip, 6. jaw, 7. shoul-
der blade. 
These are just a few of the many landmarks you can palpate, and this game is 
meant to get you comfortable with the fact that you can actually feel and 
affect the structures of anatomy without being a scientist or doctor. When 
you practice hands-on massage, remember this and use your knowledge to 
guide you through your partner's body. 
Sett tissues 
Now that you know how to familiarize yourself with bony landmarks, you're 
probably wondering about all the other parts of your body that are not bony 
landmarks. After all, you're not going to be massaging bones. It's the soft 
tissue that you'll have In your hands most of the time, and by soft tissue I 
don't mean Kleenex brand facial tissues. I mean muscles, mostly, and a little 
bit of connective tissue as well. 
VINI0+  
Muscles comprise 40 to 60 percent of your total body weight, depending 
upon your gender and physical condition, and you have over 600 of them, 
large and small. Each one is compartmentalized in a sheath of fascia, which 
sets it apart and helps it function as a distinct unit, although the truth is that 
you never use just one muscle to perform any given action. As Mark Beck 
says in Theory and Practice of Therapeutic Massage, "Muscles have anatomic 
individuality, but they do not have functional individuality." They are always 
working in groups to create movement. That's their whole purpose for being. 
The larger obvious muscles y...

54 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
"Okay, contract the quadriceps, especially the rectus femoris, and simultane-
ously pull in the psoas, push off the soleus, shorten the gastrocnemius, and 
extend the web of flexors and the tibialis anterior. Now compensate for the 
lifted foot by tightening the opposite gluteus maximus and bracing all the 
muscles in the lower back, too numerable to mention here. Whoops, that 
threw me off, and ... whoa!" 
And down he'd go, before even moving one step. In fact, It's much more com-
plex than that for even the simplest of maneuvers, and we'd all be helpless to 
try and stand up, sit down, or walk to the refrigerator if we had to think about it. 
So how do we do it? Basically, we learn to move one little piece at a time as 
we develop during infancy and childhood, laying each chunk of the pattern 
down in a movement-memory groove, and then building upon it with the next 
movement. That's why you see babies experimenting with things like kicking 
their legs out, bobbing their heads around, and bringing small electrical 
appliances toward their mouths for examination. Every time they do some 
thing successfully and then master it through repetition, they file it away, and 
that's one less thing they have to consciously think about next time. Of 
course, this is the same procedure that athletes use later in life through their 
practice as they gradually layer all the perfect little movements they need 
one upon the next until they no longer have to think about it but rather, "Just 
do it." 
By all of this explanation, I mean to say that muscles don't just flex and con-
tract — they learn. What you're holding in your hands when you massage 
someone is conscious matter. In fact, It's your muscles that tell you where 
you are in space and time, through special nerve endings embedded in your 
muscles known as proprioceptors. I don't want to freak you out with bizarre 
sounding anatomical terms, but there are ...

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 55 
Cartilage, ligaments, and tendons 
Many people find themselves confusedly refer-
ring to various connective tissue structures 
between the muscles and bones as "tendons" 
or 'ligaments" or "cartilage" without really 
knowing what the heck they're talking about. 
Now, I knowyou're not one of those people, but 
just in case you have a friend who's guilty of 
such anatomical faux pas, here's the skinny to 
set you straight 
V Cartilage gives shape to external features 
like the nose and ears, and it is also found 
between bones as a cushion at the joints. 
(Vertebral discs are made from cartilage, for 
example.) 
 Ligaments connect bone to bones. 
tor Tendons connect muscle to bone. 
Muscle tissue itself is largely insensate, meaning if someone were to cut, jab, 
or even burn you directly on an exposed muscle, you quite likely wouldn't 
feel much at all. Your muscles don't so much feel massage as they experience 
massage as it retrains them how to be more relaxed in stillness, and fluid in 
movement. 
Muscles learn, and massage teaches. 
Name that muscle 
What often intimidates people when they're first learning massage is the 
anonymity and invisibility of muscles. Skin is plainly visible: You can clearly 
watch your own hands make contact with somebody else's body, skin to skin. 
But muscles? How can you really tell what muscle you're touching when that 
muscle is covered by the skin? And besides, the muscles are all jumbled 
together and not that clearly defined, except in professional body builders, 
whose muscles are so hard and tight that they're almost impossible to mas-
sage anyway. So how are you expected to really know what the heck you're 
touching when you're touching a body? 
Glad you asked. This brings us directly to our next little exercise: Name That 
Muscle. This game is a bit tougher because you need to know the names of 
the muscles, which you might have forgotten if you weren't ...

56 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Figure 4-4: 
See 
whether you 
can match 
the right 
muscle to its 
description. 
Posterior View 
Spinalis capitis 
Spinalis certicis 
Rhomboids 
Spinalis thoraces 
Anterior View 
Pectoral 
Trapezius 
Gluteus maxima; 
Hamstrings: 
leaps Ismail, 
Serrriteadinosus 
Seminembranosus 
Recta 
abtlominus 
Paces 
First, here are the answers: 
 Pectorals 
 Deltoid 
 Spinal's 
 Rectus abdongnis 
 Gastrocnemius 
 Hamstrings 
 Triceps 
 Gluteus maxims 
 Trapezius 
 Biceps 
EFTA00008102

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 57 
1. Standing with your back against a wall, push against the wall with one 
heel and reach around to the back of your thigh to feel a tightening in 
your 
2. Place the back of your hand flat on the edge of a desk or table in front of 
you and then push that hand firmly down onto the desk. With the other 
hand, feel the underside of your upper arm and discover a tightening in 
your
3. Standing up tall, lift your right leg out behind you as far as it will go com-
fortably, keeping it straight. Place your hand on your right buttock to 
feel a tightening in the 
4. Reach across with your left hand and place it on top of your right shoul-
der, right next to your neck. Now shrug your right shoulder as far up 
toward your ear as possible to feel a contraction of your 
5. Standing up, push onto your tip toes to feel a contraction of the 
 
in the rear of your lower legs. 
6. Sitting in front of a desk or table, place one hand palm-up beneath the 
table and lift up, creating a contraction in the 
muscle of your 
upper arm. 
7. When you lie down to perform a sit-up, the muscles in the front of your 
body that you're trying to tone through contraction are the 
8. Stand in front of a wall and push forward against it with your right hand 
while touching the right upper portion of your chest with the left hand. 
The muscles you feel bulging beneath your fingers are the 
9. Sitting up straight, reach across with your right hand and place it on the 
left shoulder, out by the arm. Now lift the left arm straight out to the side 
until it's at a ninety degree angle from your body, engaging the 
muscle beneath your hand. 
10. You'll need a partner for this one. Have him lie on his stomach, with no 
shirt on, and then ask him to lift his head and shoulders off the floor 
with no help from his arms. The two long cords of muscle down along 
either side of his spine are part of the 
group. 
Answers: I. hamstrings, 2. tri...

58 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
1. If you stand up and lift one leg in front of you with the knee bent, you 
engage a deep muscle that connects your leg bone to your backbone 
called the 
2. You'll need to observe a partner for this one. Have her sit facing away 
from you with her back exposed and then gently reach one of her hands 
up as far as possible along her spine. Her shoulder blade will lift and 
you'll be able to feel between it and the spine for the 
muscle. 
3. Lift your right hand over your head and reach across with the left hand 
to grasp your right side below the armpit. The large muscle you feel 
there is the 
Extra credit answers: 1. psoas, 2. rhomboid, 3.1atissimus dorsi. 
This is not a test. Repeat, this is not a test. It's just a way for you to become 
familiar with locating muscles. I refer you to several of these landmarks, bony 
and otherwise, when you move through the how-to massage chapters in Part III. 
Other Body Systems 
Don't get the idea that it's just the skin, muscles, and bones that count when 
it comes time to massage somebody. You also deal with a few other anatomi-
cal systems that are strongly affected by your touch as well. These include 
the... 
 Circulatory system 
 Nervous system 
 Endocrine system 
 Digestive system 
 Respiratory system 
The next few sections take a brief look at these systems and discuss how 
they're important when you give or receive a massage. 
Cireutettery system 
The heart is constantly pumping your blood (about 11 pints of it in a 160-
pound adult) out through your arteries and into each and every tiny little cell 
of your body, carrying the nutrients and oxygen that make it possible for you 
to stay alive. Then the blood travels back to your heart through the veins. On 
this return trip, the blood has to pass through a series of one-way valves that 
keep it from accidentally heading back in the wrong direction. 
EFTA00008104

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 59 
Massage strokes have a direct effect on the flow of blood in the veins, so keep 
In mind that when you massage someone, your strokes should always be in 
the direction of venous flow. You wouldn't want to accidentally push the 
blood back through these valves and therefore weaken them. When a number 
of the valves weaken and stop working efficiently, blood can pool up visibly 
and form varicose veins. 
As much as half of all your blood is in your skin at any given moment, which 
accounts for that rosy glow certain people have, and also for the less healthy 
appearance of varicose veins and other problems. Massage works powerfully 
on your circulatory system, and for this reason you should always be aware 
of how your hands are affecting it. 
Massage also affects that other circulating fluid referred to in Chapter 1, the 
lymph. In fact, there is an entire system of massage called manual lymphatic 
drainage meant to assist the movement of the lymph because, as you may 
know from Chapter 1, lymph has no heart of its own to pump it along. 
Nervous system 
As a busy person in the twenty-first century, you don't have any time to 
fiddle around reminding your heart to beat, your lungs to breathe, and so on. 
Lucidly, your autonomic nervous system takes care of all that for you. This 
system is further broken down into the sympathetic and parasympathetic ner-
vous systems. The sympathetic nerves prepare your body for action, and the 
parasympathetic nerves calm you down. Massage is a great way to stimulate 
the parasympathetic nervous system, thereby lowering the pulse, slowing 
breathing, and in general, chilling you out. 
The largest and longest nerve in the body is the sciatic, which many people 
are painfully familiar with. It runs from the base of your spine down the back 
of your leg, and when any of its length becomes pinched or trapped between 
muscles, bones, and connective tissues, it can caus...

60 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
The mind-body connection 
Did you ever wonder what the heck people 
were talking about when they used the term 
mind-body connection? Is it part of the nervous 
system youveren't told about in school? Did 
you think maybe there was a tube or special 
cable of. Some kind near the base of your neck 
that linked your mind and your body, and that 
you were the onlyone who hadn't been shown 
where it was? Well, don't worry; you're not 
alone. In a far-reaching survey conducted by my 
wife one day at her restaurant, it was ascer-
tained that only 2.4 percent of normal people 
understand what the term mind-body connec-
tion really means, and those people are 
new-age geeks. 
Typical incorrect responses about what the 
mind-body connectionis included the following: 
 That sinking feeling you get when your 
mind realizes your body did something it 
shouldn't have 
 Nerves 
 The neck 
Actually, the mind-body connection is simply 
awareness. It's an awareness that permeates 
way.down into every cell of your body, as com-
pared tote awareness of your brainalone. It's 
the entire.you consciously affecting every other 
partofyou. 
This whole mind/body split problem developed 
gradually over many centuries and was not 
really caused by any one individual, but many 
scholars have pointed to the French philosopher 
and mathematician Rene Descartes as having 
had the greatest influence. He's the one who 
coined that famous Latin phrase, "Cogito, ergo 
sum? which means "I think, therefore I am." 
That was in 1637. Well, pretty much ever since 
then people have been assuming that it was 
only specific:types of electrical activityinside 
their skulls that proved they indeed existed. 
VVhat's.glossed over in the history books is that 
Descartes neverreceived a great massage from 
an expert holistically oriented practitioner. If he 
had, he certainly would have modified his state-
ment a bit, to something like, "Cogito ...

Chapter 4: I've Got You Under My Skin: The Basics of What's Inside 61 
Figure 4-5: 
From input 
to output, 
your food 
travels 
about 30 
feet. It's a 
good idea to 
follow the 
general 
direction of 
this path-
way when 
massaging 
the 
abdomen. 
EFTA00008107

62 
Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness  
Cleaning the pipes 
If you visit a health food store and search 
through the:herbei.potionsthatiine theshelves, 
youll,firid some stienge-looking mixturesthat 
granite "internatt lea Ming:" The ingredients in 
these products have two major actions: ebsOrp-
ton and expulsion; and they act priinarily in your 
large intestine, alsecalledthe:colon. Fiftt, cer,
tainingredients (often psyllium husktlrabtorb. 
mut h. of theinatter that.teridsto.get lodged in 
the many.folds Ogle colonrand.thene mixture 
of herbs comes along to "sweep" it all out. It's 
similar tothe technique favored'by many garage 
mechanicsof throwing sawdust on dirty grease 
before pushing it away withe broom. 
This type of cleansing is highly advisable, and 
some extra massage at the same time may-aid 
the elimination process by Stimulating lymph 
flow. 
One landmark along the digestive pathway that many people are able to pal-
pate Is the cecum, which is a little pouch at the beginning of the large 
intestine, or colon. You can locate it by first touching bony landmark number 
5, your right hip bone, and then walking your fingers in toward your belly 
button a couple of inches. Sometimes this spot makes a liquid-squishing 
noise, especially after meals. In Part III, I discuss how to use this landmark as 
a starting point for some abdominal massage techniques. 
Respiratory system 
Breathing is an extremely important activity for human beings, as can be 
attested to by the millions of people around the world who have stopped 
breathing and suffered serious side-effects, even death. Massage is an excel-
lent opportunity to engage in some full deep breathing, as described In 
Chapter 7. This reconnects you with the source of life. It also fills your blood 
with fresh oxygen because the first place your blood goes when it leaves your 
heart is the lungs. 
Surprising facts about your stomach 
Mott of us think of the stomadh as a. large 
roun...

Part II 
The Art of 
Receiving 
Massage 
The 5th Wave 
By Rich Tennant 
' This is what I get £or marrying a massage 
therapist. Every Thanksgiving he's got to knead 
the tvrheiA, spine before YKYJ1 calve it." 
EFTA00008109

o
kay, I can hear you scoffing now: the art of receiving 
massage? That's like the art of getting rained on. You 
really don't have to try very hard; just step outside and 
get wet. Anyone can do it. 
In this pan . 4 
4 
Receiving massage? Nothin' to It. No problem. Child's play. 
Right? 
Wrong. 
Receiving massage is more like dancing your part in a 
very intricate pas-de-detuc, such as the tango, which, inter-
estingly, means "I touch" in Latin. Both activities, at their 
best, are extremely interactive. During the tango, if you 
just stand there and don't do anything, you're going to 
make your partner look pretty bad. Similarly, when you 
receive a massage, you've got to communicate with your 
partner, through both verbal and nonverbal means, in 
order to get the most out of the experience. Your partner 
touches you, you react to that touch, your muscles 
respond accordingly, and then your partner adjusts his 
touch to suit the reaction, and you go back and forth like 
this throughout the entire exchange, constantly conscious 
of each other's presence and movement —two dancers 
creating one dance. 
A good massage is a two-way street, equal parts proper 
giving and informed receiving. That's the focus of this part 
of the book, in which you'll begin as a freshman in 
Massage 101 and then graduate Just three chapters later 
with the ability to receive a massage like a real pro. I 
'mow, it's tough, but somebody's gotta do it. 
Along the way, you'll master the tricky intricacies of mas-
sage vocabulary, discover the ten rules for receiving a 
massage, and get the scoop on all the massage gizmos you 
see for sale everywhere. I also cover the difference 
between various massage styles, discuss how to enjoy the 
pleasures of massage without guilt, and offer techniques 
for increasing your touch-ability, and lots more. 
EFTA00008110

Chapter 5 
A Massage Road Map 
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO 
0000000 
000 00 OOOOOO 0 OOOOOO 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 
In This Chapter 
D Obtaining healthy pleasure 
D Examining your touch-ability 
D Choosing the right style of massage for you 
D Deciphering touch terminology 
00 0000000000000000000000000 
0090000000000000009000 
When
you first begin to discover massage, you'll undoubtedly 
encounter some strange new words and some strange new concepts 
that might confuse you at first. Have no fear! This chapter is your own per-
sonal travel guide to help you navigate the sometimes puzzling new terrain in 
the world of massage. Here you'll find out how to accept the pleasures of 
massage into your life and how to choose the type of massage that's right for 
you. You'll even find an English-Massage dictionary at the end of the chapter 
that will help you speak the language of massage with other people. 
Healthy Pleasure 
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, sometimes massage is like a box of 
chocolates — you never know exactly what you're gonna get, but you know 
it's gonna be good. However, if you eat the whole thing, you're gonna end up 
feeling guilty and a little bloated. 
Many people just can't seem to understand that massage is anything more 
than... 
11 1.0 Indulgence 
1.0' Luxury 
t.01 Pampering 
And therefore they pass when it comes to massage. Some people raise their 
noses up at its pleasures as if they were too good for it. Others shy away from 
the experience, calling it expensive and extravagant, as if massage were too 
good for them. 
EFTA00008111

66 
Part II: The Art of Receiving Massage  
The Mary Poppins problem 
In my opinion, you can trace the debilitating atti-
tude so many people have concerning pleasure 
back to one particular perton, somebody you'd 
never suspect Yes, Em talking about Mary 
Poppins. In the filth, she waltzes around looking 
all prim and.respectable and happy in her tight-
fitting outfit, singing, "It takes a spoonful of 
sugar to help the meditine go down" until even-
tually people end up believing her. Now, 
everybody thinks that anything good for him or 
her should feelhad. No pain, no gain, right? This 
philosophy pretty much messed up an entire 
veneration. What if sugar was the medicine? 
What if pleasure — not the medicine — made 
the pain goaway? 
As one scholarput it, "Recent research sup-
ports the view that the deprivation of physical 
pleasure is a major ingredient in the expression 
of physical violence" (Juhan p.53). People need 
pleasure to be healthy, and receiving massage 
is one of the most natural, healthyways to expe-
rience pleasure without any negative side 
effects. 
The following definition is inscribed on a coffee 
mug from a massage school in New Jersey: 
Mas-sage: In.lthe pleasure that relieves the 
pain. That's a good way to look at it. If you think 
of massage as pleasurable medicine, you will be 
able to accept it into your life more easily. 
The underlying reason for both of these attitudes is guilt. Many people 
simply have trouble Justifying paying for something that feels as good as mas-
sage. They also have difficulty justifying having another human pay such 
lavish attention to them for an entire hour. 
Well, this guilt is truly unfortunate, and completely unnecessary, because 
massage is actually much better for you than chocolate. In fact, it has all of 
the pleasures without any of the negative side effects. That's right, there's not 
a single thing wrong with massage. 
Massage ... 
 Is calorie free 
 Is fat free 
 Won't rot your teeth 
 Is i...

 
Chapter 5: A Massage Road Map 67 
In fact, beloved entertainer, Bob Hope, has received a massage almost every 
day of his life for over fifty years. He's dragged a number of massage thera-
pists all over the globe with him while he was off entertaining the troops and 
making his movies. I had the opportunity to massage him once myself. At the 
time, he was 87 years old, but because of all the massage he'd received over 
the years, his skin was smooth and supple, and his muscles were amazingly 
well toned. 
Of course, you may not have the time or money for a massage every day like 
Bob Hope. But time or money isn't what's most likely to stop you in the first 
place. It's your attitude. 
Testing pour Touch-Ability 
The one thing about massage that you really can't avoid is the fact that you 
have to touch another human body in order to do it. This basic reality is 
what keeps many people from taking the first step of either getting or receiv-
ing a massage. Touch another human? Yuck! 
Most societies have quite a few touch-related taboos and complexes, things 
that may be holding you back from experiencing massage. The following 
touch-ability survey can help reveal your own, perhaps unconscious, touch 
taboos, and suggest ways to overcome them. After you know what problems 
you're dealing with, you can proceed more easily. Be totally honest with your-
self. There are no right or wrong answers, only helpful ones. 
For each question, fill in the number that most closely matches your feelings. 
 Strongly disagree: 1 
 Disagree: 2 
 Neutral: 3 
 Agree: 4 
 Strongly agree: 5 
1. My childhood family encouraged touching and hugging between 
members. 
2. I can offer a compassionate touch on the arm, shoulder, or back of 
someone I don't know, and doing so feels natural. 
3. When someone bumps me on the street, instead of feeling anger, my first 
reaction is to brush it off as an accident. 
4. My natural Inclination is to massage animals (at least ones that don't 
bite)...

68 Part II: The Art of Receiving Massage  
5. I can touch or be touched by someone I find attractive without having 
sexual intentions or fantasies about them. 
6. I prefer to go barefoot outdoors when safe and appropriate. 
7. I have, on occasion, hugged a tree or draped myself luxuriously over a 
warm rock in the sun. 
8. I believe In heart-to-heart hugs that express my affection and openness 
to people. 
9. People tell me I have "good hands" and ask me to rub their shoulders 
when they're feeling stiff or sore. 
10. In work situations, I offer encouragement and recognition to others with 
a heart-felt touch in combination with words of praise. 
Total: 
The higher the number you come up with, the greater likelihood that touch 
and massage are something easy for you to accept in your life. If you scored a 
50, great! Forge straight ahead into the following chapters, and enjoy. If you 
scored in the 40s, you're among the most tactile people in the world, and 
massage is probably a part of your life already. If you scored in the 20s or 30s, 
you're somewhere in the average regarding touch-ability, and you may want 
to stop here for a few minutes and consider trying some of the experiences 
listed below. If you scored below twenty, you're still in the developmental 
stage of touch-ability, and you will definitely benefit by trying some or all of 
the following suggestions. 
 Pick a parent, sibling, or even a cousin and give that person a hug for no 
reason. 
 The next time an appropriate situation arises, gently place your palm on 
the shoulder of someone you've Just met, offering compassion and soli-
darity for a moment. 
 When someone bumps or jostles you, stop and take a deep breath and 
look for the hidden cause of your anger. Usually, the anger results 
because you feel that you're in the "right." Let go of being right and be 
forgiving instead. 
 Spend a full fiveminutes concentrating on nothing else but massaging 
the head and ears of a dog or cat (assuming...

 
Chapter 5: A Massage Road Map 69 
 Head out to the woods, a quiet park, or deserted beach and hug a tree, 
or drape yourself luxuriously over a warm rock in the sun. 
 Give a heart-to-heart hug that expresses your affection to someone who 
would truly appreciate it. 
 The next time someone you know complains of tight shoulders, offer to 
give him or her a five minute mini-massage. Don't worry about doing it 
"right." Just focus on caring and compassion. 
 The next time someone you work with does something right, offer a 
heart-felt touch on the arm or back in combination with a few words of 
praise. Examine your intentions before making this sort of contact, to 
make sure you don't have any subconscious motivations that could later 
lead to a sexual harassment case. And offer this tactile support in plain 
view of other coworkers. 
So Lithe Time, So Many Massages 
Okay, so you're filled with enthusiasm to go out and experience your first 
massage; you pick up the phone, call a massage school or clinic in your area, 
and ask to book an appointment. (See Chapter 8 for details on booking an 
appointment). 
"What kind of bodywork do you prefer?" asks the receptionist. 
"Bodywork?" 
"Yes. Massage." 
"Oh. Just something that feels good," you say. 
"Of course. But we offer several modalities. Would you prefer the Swedish, 
the sports massage, the deep tissue, the Hellerwork, the Aston repatteming, 
the Thai massage, or the neuromuscular session?" 
"Ah, let me get back to you on that," you say, and you hang up ready to slip 
quietly back into your non-massage lifestyle before you even begin. 
Don't let this scenario happen to you! Now that you've decided to get a mas-
sage, the last thing you want is to get confused by the vast array of choices 
available and end up not receiving any kind of massage at all. 
Be forewarned, this section is just an overview of the types of massage avail-
able. For now, I just want to familiarize you with a few of the choices, based 
upo...

70 Part II: The Art of Receiving Massage  
 To relax 
 To feel better 
 To improve your body's functioning 
Often, your reasons are probably a combination of all three. You may have a 
little pain in your shoulder you'd like to ease, but at the same time, you want 
to lower your overall stress level. The three components of massage dovetail 
with each other; what helps you relax may lessen your pain, what realigns 
your body may help you relax, and soon. 
The spiritual aspect of massage is a fourth component, a wild card that can 
pop up unannounced during any type of massage. This spiritual aspect is the 
way that you can use massage to attune to your own inner experience and 
get in touch — literally — with a deeper sense of self. (See Chapter 7 for more 
information on this topic.) 
So which is the right style for you? Take a glance at the following categories 
and become familiar with some of the massage styles associated with each. 
Massage for relaxation 
Stress and tension are real. The human body has developed through eons of 
evolution to respond to stress and tension by preparing to either fight the 
obstacle or run away from it. This, the famous fightorllight response, came in 
very handy when primitive man was confronted with the occasional, large, 
dangerous animal. But in modern times, people are faced with a constant, 
unceasing barrage of tension-inducing stimuli, and they're getting overloaded 
by it. If you live in a large metropolitan area, for instance, you're being 
exposed to the equivalent of several dozen grizzly bears and a pack of raven-
ous wolves every time you venture out into rush-hour traffic. 
Reducing the stress and tension in your life is a very good reason for wanting 
to get a massage. You don't need any more justification than that. 
If you're interested in relaxing massage, ask for the following: 
 Swedish massage: What most people envision when they think "mas-
sage." This method includes stroking, kneading, squeezing, rubb...

 
Chapter 5: A Massage Road Map 71 
When in Hawaii ... 
Once, in Hawaii; I was inthe mood fora relaxing 
massage to help relieve jet lag-after a long trip. 
I was working at a spa there, and one of the 
massage therapists on staff, a native-Hawaiian 
named Wesley Sen, offered to give me a lomi 
long massage. 
"Is that relaxing?" I asked as we walked 
together back to my hotel room. 
"Sure it's relaxing," he said. 
"Then why are you carrying that pole with you?" 
Sure enough, Wesley was tarrying a thick, ten-
foot long wooden pole in one hand. "It's just for 
balance," he said. "Don't worry." 
Back in my room, Wesley had me lie down-on 
the floor and then proceeded to pray over me in 
Hawaiian, which sets the mood atthe beginning 
of every true lomi lomi experience. In his prayer, 
he invited:healing forces to be present with us in 
the room. For the next hour he stood on me, 
kneeled on me, pressed on.me, and-tossed my 
limbs around, all along skillfully keeping his 
weight partially-supported by-the pole, one-end' 
of which he pushed against the floor to balance 
himself. 
Wesley is not a-small guy I was amazed that he 
could perform this-entire-balancing act, using 
my body as a tightrope, and never once cause 
me the slightest discornfort. Afterwards,. I was 
more relaxed than I'd felt in mantmonths;the 
relaxation penetrated way down into my joints 
and up my nerves.into my brain. Also,.a pain I'd 
been experiencing in my shoulder disappeared, 
never to return again, and my digestion 
improved noticeably, too. 
Skillfulyrelaxation Massage can take
beyond relaxation; healing what ails. otr and 
improving your body's functioning as- Well. 
Several massage styles offer relaxation as well 
as deeply therapeutic results, such as lomi lam', 
Trager, Rubenfeld Synergy, and many others. 
Po Relaxation massage: Another generic term for nice-and-easy massage, 
relaxation massage usually refers to a light form of Swedish massage. 
 Esalen massage: Developed at the famous ...

72 
Part II: The Art of Receiving Massage  
Pr massage 
Many people visit their massage therapist for the same reason they visit their 
doctor — to fix something that's painful. This type of massage Is called reme-
dial massage, because it's used as a remedy. Several types of massage, 
including good-old, relaxing Swedish massage, can have definite remedial 
effects; but here's a short list of some styles particularly well-known for 
belonging to the "massage apothecary." 
Of course, only well-trained professionals should attempt to give these types 
of massage. 
If you're interested in remedial massage, ask for the following: 
 Manual lymphatic drainage: This type of massage helps your body 
flush toxins, such as pesticides and residual chemicals, by stimulating 
the flow of lymph in your body. It's a very gentle massage that features 
light superficial movements on the skin. 
 Touch for health: This treatment, which helps balance your inner heal-
ing energies, isn't really a massage at all because the therapist's hands 
don't necessarily come into contact with the recipient's body. The tech-
nique was developed by a nurse on the faculty at New York University 
and has been taught to thousands of healthcare practitioners. 
 Neuromuscular therapy: This type of massage works on tight muscles 
that create the deep patterns of tension that can keep you in pain. 
 Cranio-sacral: This type of massage adjusts the healthy functioning of 
your spine and cranium. 
 Deep tissue massage: This generic term refers to any number of thera-
pies that apply deep pressure and affect the body's connective tissues. 
 Shiatsu: This massage involves pressure point therapy — to balance the 
entire body and restore health — on specific points along invisible 
energy lines In the body called meridians. 
Shiatsu is the most well-known of several types of massage that work on 
the meridians. It can be quite relaxing, but its primary focus is on restor-
ing health and balance, as are oth...

 
Chapter 5: A Massage Road Map 73 
Remodeling your body for fun and profit 
Several types of massage have developed over the years that focus on 
realigning your body, straightening you out, helping you form a healthier rela-
tionship with gravity and a more graceful, efficient way of moving. People 
often refer to this type of massage as structural bodywork. You only want to 
sign up for one of these if you have specific goals in mind (such as improved 
posture, better athletic performance, and soon.) and, of course, you want a 
highly trained pro to do the work. The movements involved are quite deep, 
and the experience is not "relaxing" in the normal sense of the word, but your 
massage therapist will always keep your comfort foremost in mind. 
If you're interested in structural massage, ask for the following: 
 Rolling: The most well-known form or structural bodywork, this type of 
massage was invented by Ida Rolf. 
 Hellerwork: A unique development of Rolfing, this type of massage was 
created by Joseph Heller. 
 Aston patterning: This type of massage is a combination of touch tech-
niques and movement repatteming that helps people move with ease 
and improve their posture. 
 Myofascial release: This type of massage is a combination of techniques 
that combine to "unwind" and release chronic tension patterns in deep 
tissues, which can cause many painful conditions. 
Touch Terminology 
Massage has its own lingo, much of which can be somewhat confusing at 
first. Massage lingo can also be intimidating, for two main reasons: 
 Some massage terminology has origins in the medical field and can 
sound academically dense. 
 Some of the words used are Just plain weird (and the only people you've 
heard speak them before are sophisticated, semi-naked celebrities on 
Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous). 
Truthfully, though, no insider's massage clique is sitting around in cashmere 
robes at some exclusive, country-club spa, ready to snicker at you for not 
knowing w...

Size: 54 x 3 pixels

Size: 283 x 158 pixels

Surrounding text: MASSAGE FOR DUMMIES*®

Size: 10 x 19 pixels

Size: 9 x 16 pixels

Size: 8 x 36 pixels

Size: 6 x 31 pixels

Size: 5 x 34 pixels

Surrounding text: gu EN altt

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: Figure 1-1: The limp

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: muscie on stress. —

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: Figure 4-1; Tiny mus-

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: oryour * hand. —

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: Figure 4-2: Turning vour Ss

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: men easy to palpate. | —

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: Figure 4-3: “Bony land-

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: from above the skin.

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: Figure 4-4; See

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: muscle to ms description, L —

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: Figure 4-5: From inout

Size: 44 x 3 pixels

Surrounding text: ume abdomen. L —

Size: 16 x 22 pixels

Size: 8 x 24 pixels