Trajectory of Touch

When most people think of massage they think about a therapist pushing down on the body, squishing the muscles. The back alone along the spinal column has five layers of muscles. Some need to be coaxed out in order for a therapist to fully address them. Pushing directly down on muscles is only one of infinite (?) trajectories a therapist can utilize. I've talked about the importance of pressure in previous blogs and now I'm speaking of direction AND pressure. In order to "catch" some of these muscles and adhesions I have to be attentive to pressure and direction of muscle fibers. Typically, I start pushing down gently and slowly and then I feel where the tissue wants to go--it is resistant in certain directions and compliant in others. The ease of direction is typically what I follow initially. This is the direction that the muscle "wants" to go. For example, if I push on a spot between the shoulder blades, the tissue may be cooperative as I move slightly caudal (towards the head). I work in that direction a centimeter at a time and then change direction to let's say moving slightly to the left to move the muscle away from the spinal column to "release" or soften the muscle. As I get to the next layer to the deeper muscles my trajectory gets more dynamic and the centimeter I'm working with is halved. You can see why this work takes so much time. I can spend an hour on the back alone and feel as though I've only gone 2-3 layers. I think that concentrating the work in this way can have dramatic effects on the tissue and overall deep relaxation benefits which we see in Shiatsu and myofascial release.

I like this analogy (over simplified, but you'll get the idea). Let's imagine you are given the task of making a bed. The comforter is laying flat and affixed to the box spring with some give and there are sheets under the comforter that are bunched up and uneven. The rule is that you cannot take the comforter off to make the bed. You have to apply pressure to spread out the sheets and reduce bunching. You have to apply different amounts of pressure and "catch" the sheets under the bed. Under the skin there is a matrix of tissue in tension and being creative with trajectory until you feel the muscle soften is key to creating an unforgettable impression .