I've Changed My Mind... Again

When I first started studying massage therapy and soft tissue therapy, I thought good treatment meant using really firm pressure. That seemed to be the general belief. It was reinforced by classmates, tutors and practice clients. "No pain, no gain" and all that!

Then, about halfway through my course, I started coming across different ideas. At first it was through social media, then through my own reading. Some of it challenged everything I'd been taught and, if I'm honest, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I wasn't sure what to believe.

Over the next five years, after more courses, a lot more reading and treating many different people, my thinking changed. I moved away from using deep pressure and became much more gentle. If a client told me something felt painful or particularly tender, I would back off almost immediately. I understood that I wasn't ironing out knots, realigning tissue or changing fascia. I was interacting with the nervous system, and I wanted to help it feel safe rather than threatened.

I genuinely believed I was doing the right thing.

But something didn't quite fit.

Some of my clients left feeling much better. Others didn't. Some people wanted that firmer pressure and told me they felt it helped them. If I stayed too light, they often left feeling like I'd missed the problem altogether.

At first, I found that difficult because I was convinced lighter was the better approach.

Then I realised something.......

I had changed my understanding of what massage was doing, but I had almost become too rigid in how I applied it.

So... I've changed my mind again.

Not completely. I haven't gone back to believing I'm breaking up knots or changing fascia. But I have become much more comfortable using firmer pressure when it's appropriate. The difference now is that I'm not using pressure to force a change in the tissues. I'm using it because it's the right pressure for that person, on that day at that time.

For some people that might be a very gentle massage. For others, it might be much firmer. Neither is automatically better. It's about understanding the person in front of me.