Welcome to Bodywork Professionals
It is the mission of Bodywork Professionals to provide a standard of massage therapy, bodywork, and soft tissue treatment that is effective and consistent. Massage therapy and bodywork can be an art or a science, and we explore the possibilities in each perspective.
We Believe that bodywork and massage therapy is good for humans well being, and should be affordable to everybody. We offer fair prices and flexible hours.
For some open appointment times this week, click here.
***Note About Swine Flu - General Safety & cleanliness****
We practice universal precautions when performing our work. Open wounds are always covered by the therapist and an open or irritated part of the skin is not touched. We use a linen service to clean and sterilize all of our sheets, and are fastidious about changing them and keeping clean. As Far as we know the H1N1 virus is pretty bad but not the end of the world. Some people have died, but most healthy adults will recover after a period of illness. We are hearing bout it on the news and internet and that's a good thing. Technology and communications allow us to track and know more about whats going on but it can also be scary. We are bombarded with frightening images, and stories about doomsday, but this too shall pass.
That being said we are stepping up our efforts to keep the office as sterile as possible. As always, if you are feling sick or flulike symptoms consult your physician and know that it's ok to cancel, even if it's less than 24 hours with no problem.
We Welcome Kathleen Gates, LMT
Kathleen Gates has been a long time friend and college. She has over 10 years of experience being a licensed massage therapist and while I have been courting her for sometime to join us a Bodywork Professionals she has finally agreed. She will be starting the first of June with evening hours (she has 3 young children) and occasional Saturday appointments.
Bodywork and Massage are like Listening with Hands
By Nick Pavoldi
One of the important parts about being a bodyworker is knowing how to listen to your clients and their body. People often ask if our work hurts. I've found that good communication, especially listening on the part of the therapist, makes the session not painful at all. There is a difference between pain and experience. Direct work on tissue that is inflamed or irritated can give the body a lot of feedback. This feedback is important information and can be the product of a under functioning body indicating what parts are being most misused. Expressions involving stance and gesture can be more telling than the words behind them and can convey context and attitude. A bodyworkers job is to listen to the form that makes this happen. Bodywork looks at what path that led the body to this point, and where it would like to go. Our job is to support healthy structure and function. We have a bag of tools at our disposal, and rely on feedback from our clients to do our work properly. Feedback may be verbal, or a signal the body sends out on it's own communication network. A good therapist knows how to interpret these signals to direct the flow of work. Our Staff at Bodywork Professionals are skilled practitioners, and know that the person they are working on has their undivided attention during their session. By Jenna Bensen, LMT 've been practicing massage for two years at Bodywork Professionals. Since my time here I have learned a great deal about bodywork. Not only can massage and bodywork be relaxing, it can help with chronic pain and help speed up the recovery process from an injury. I have always enjoyed helping make people feel better. For some time I did this through cooking. When that became too demanding I started to search for a different avenue. I believe we live in a very chaotic and stressful world where people don't pay enough attention to the self care of their bodies. It makes me happy when someone comes in who is stressed and just needs to vegge out for an hour. This is a sign that they are in tune with their bodies and know what they need. They care enough about themselves to find healthy ways to destress. Jenna's insight
Frequently people will come see me who have been living with chronic pain or an injury. When this occurs, the work that I do on them is different than that of someone who wants to relax. I may focus on a particular spot that has been causing them pain or do some deep tissue work. My goal in this case is to aid them in the process of becoming pain free so they can go about their lives and function in a healthy state.
Bodywork and Children
We've had several request from parents looking to have their children worked on for a variety of reasons. Some things to keep in mind:
1. Mom or dad have to be present in the treatment room at all times when working with minors.
2. The session is about the child and their body. We ask mom and dad to talk to your therapist before or after about issues un-related to the child or their body.
3. Depending on the age and size, the therapist might abbreviate a session when goals have been met. Children can not tolerate quite as much input as adults, and knowing when to quit can yield good results.
4. Phone consultations are highly suggesed prior to the session. We'll take the time time to talk about what's find out if this work would be right for your child.
For fun, we thought we would make a short dog massage video. We used my Aunt Lucy's dog Celia.
This short video is Jenna and I working with her. It's come to my attention that New York does not allow massage therapist to work on dogs without a special veterinarians license. We had no intention of changing our practice to working with animals. So in case anyone was wondering; we cannot work with animals beyond recreational touch.
