TOUCH FACTOR MASSAGE & BODYWORK
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Body Rolling
Joe lavin
Picture from Kalijo Pilates
I love body rolling and think it is far superior to the many popular “foam rolling” strategies that I see a lot of people utilizing. My basic premise is that using different sized balls with different densities to strategically roll on, under and around your unique, 3-dimensional body will allow you to apply just the right amount of pressure in the specific places that you need it as well as helping you do some amazing stretches. Plus you can take your body rolling equipment with you wherever you go. If you are a proverbial road warrior, just deflate to miniature soccer balls, pack a small air pump and throw them in your carry on!
Here is one super quick solution and two more involved but very credible Body Rolling systems/strategies:
Super Quick Solution:
Get a
Size 3 Ball
and this very cute Size 1 Ball or this
Mini Ball
(should be about a size 1). Inflate them to about 80% for starting, drop them on the floor and start rolling your body all over them!
The Roll Model: Jill Miller has an extremely comprehensive book on body rolling, The Roll Model. You can
learn more about it on her website, buy it on
Amazon or check it out from the
Seattle Public Library or your local library. You do not need to buy specialized, patented balls for this. Just start paying attention and you will see prospective body rolling balls everywhere
Yamuna Body Rolling:
Yamuna, has turned body rolling into a functional and intentional practice. You can learn more about their philosophy and the balls they use on
their website. In addition, here is an article written in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science:
The Theory and Technique of Yamuna Body Rolling. It is a little bit technical, but thorough. They are very proud of their practice and do all that they can to keep it proprietary and accordingly, somewhat expensive. So if you are on a budget, just be creative.
My Improvised Travel Kit: If you travel a lot, this is a great way to take something very small with you and get some big self care results. A
small manual pump
and a one or two high quality inflatable balls like
this inexpensive one for firm to very hard rolling or something like these
pilates balls in several sizes for mobility rolling.
If all of that is just too much information, find some medium density balls of different sizes and start rolling your body over them in your really tight spots. Make sure that you start with light pressure and you never need to apply so much pressure that you have to wince or feel any sharp pain at all. Then let me know how that works for you....
The Importance of Community in the Massage Industry
I absolutely love it when a bodywork session transforms into something unexpected and wonderful. These are some highlights of correspondence between me and a recent client of mine after our first session. Everything is shared with permission and you can see more of Tanith's paintings here.....
I used to recommend some fairly intricate kinesio taping to help with posture modification for my clients but I have found that a simple posture correcting harness/brace does a fantastic job and are much easier to use. You do not need too heavy duty of a harness unless you have extra thick shoulder musculature, are looking for a more aggressive correction or are very active throughout the day. The nice thing is that you can try as many different posture correctors from Amazon as you want until you get the right fit and just return the ones that do not work for you.
I had an experience with a client shortly after a contentious moment in my country's political discourse (how is that for PC?) where I was actually compelled to end a session because I was not able to care for my client deeply enough to work out a better solution. So I wrote my client a letter which he has graciously allowed me to share here.,,,,
My client asked me how I would describe our Primal Unwinding session and I replied, "Like a celestial dance." Later, I unpacked that a bit more....
I took my daughter to the zoo the other day. We waited with the other people to see the cheetah walk out and stood in amazement as the cheetah did, well, nothing really. She just walked around, looked at us and then laid down. I imagined the cheetah wondering why there were people here to see her again, She didn’t feel that special. She had no idea what she was really made for, how fast she could run, what it felt like to be free, what a fierce predator she could be. She just had some sense that this crowd of spectators was interested in her so she should show up again, like she does every other day.
I want to share something I wrote trying to say thank you to a group of people that were a major part of my becoming a better bodyworker, toucher, connector and human being. It was in a five month training program with the Institute for Phenomenal Touch. It absolutely changed my life!
It is 2021 and it is time for me to start sharing more of my thoughts about massage, bodywork and life with anyone who is interested. I do a lot of writing to process my thoughts about touch as well as my massage and bodywork experiences. Most of the time these writings end up living only in my journal or on my computer and I would like to give them a little more life, see how they blossom...or wither.