Table Talk: Great Performance

     Yesterday, at the spa, I massaged a man named John. I showed him to the room where we would be working and asked whether he had any special needs. “Neck and shoulders,” he replied. Since one’s work often impacts particular muscles, I asked what he did. “I’m in town for a performance tonight.” I wasn’t sure whether he was an actor, a singer, a guitarist, or in charge of lights or sound. From something he said, though, I thought he might be connected with a musical performance.

     The massage went well. I established a comfortable rhythm as I worked his body thoroughly, massaging each muscle group. With loving palpations, using long, gentle strokes, I responded to the changes in his body. I paid close attention, working deeper where the tissue was tight and lighter where it was already supple. John began to relax. We talked very little, but he seemed pleased with the massage. Afterwards, when John came out into the hall, I handed him a glass of water and asked how he was doing. He smiled, said he was fine, and told me, “That was a great performance.”

     His assessment matches one of my favorite ideas about my employment, for I consider massage therapy to be a performing art, one with similarities to music, dance, and drama. Like other arts, massage communicates a message, develops a style, and involves the therapist in various roles. I find mastering massage techniques similar to learning piano scales and arpeggios. When I work around my client on the table, I feel like I am dancing. I love the free, improvisational movement of my whole body when coaxing muscles to relax. It reminds me how I used to dance for my choirs to get them into the mood of the anthem we were learning. Now the accompanying massage music invites me into a rhythm of beats and phrases. A dancer’s half turn on the balls of my feet changes the direction of my stroke, and I glide.

     In my artistry as a massage therapist, I take chances as I create or elicit feelings in my audience of one. I want to move my clients into a relaxed state, a reduction of stress, a sense of pleasure, and an experience of letting go. I hear their sighs and moans like applause and am spurred on to create within them a sense of well being. I play a tune on the body, or I sculpt a new relationship of muscle and bone. I introduce my themes, develop them as I engage the muscles, and invite the deepest relaxation with a reprise, a recapitulation at the end that will continue to assert itself like a tune one remembers when leaving a concert. I want the client to come to a full cadence, to a feeling of rest and completion as I lift my hands from their body when the performance has concluded.

     I am always excited by the improvisational challenges related to different environments and different types of massage. I like the street performance feel of chair massage in a coffee shop, lunch room, or exhibition hall. I even enjoy constantly changing rooms at the spa and meeting its one-hour time limit. By contrast, work in my own studio gives me more control. I find myself responding to my selection of music and to the aromas of various oils. I like being free to extend the massage when it seems appropriate. Massage offers me no script but, rather, a recipe I can follow or alter. While I must meet particular requirements to designate a massage as Swedish, deep tissue, integrative, Thai, or neuromuscular therapy, the style in which I deliver them is my own. Mostly, I love “jazzing” an old massage theme, improvising in response to sights, sounds, smells, and feelings in my sessions with my clients.

     From time to time I receive compliments: “Nice massage,” or “That was the best massage I’ve ever had,” or “I’ve never had a massage like this before.” While I appreciate these comments, I liked most what John said: “That was a great performance.” My preference for his compliment doesn’t surprise me since I see life as art. For me, God is the great artist; my work is a reflection of the Creative One. And always I want to give a great performance, “for the glory of God,” as the old theologians said it, and for the benefit of my clients. So be it.

Chorus Line Bears by Phillip Hoyle.
Enjoy their enthusiasm. Great Performance!