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Tag: ashiatsu bolster

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Ashiatsu barefoot massage by March 3, 2020 0Comments

Using a small pillow for Sidelying barefoot massage bolstering

The benefits of side-lying barefoot massage are plentiful. Once you get past the “my client only wants to lie face down to receive the massage” mentality, you’ll find that you can access a number of muscles more easily when they lie on their side.

Why side-lying barefoot massage?

Providing side-lying barefoot massage allows you as a therapist to have better access and angles to work on shoulders, hips, quadratus lumborum, IT band, adductors, and abductors, to name but a few.

(You can learn side-body barefoot massage in our Intermediate class. We also teach side-lying barefoot work in our Fijian barefoot mat class.)

Sometimes you’ll find that your client (typically women, who are more curvy than men) may have trouble lying on their side as their 11th or 12th rib feels like it’s close to or hitting their iliac crest.

This makes it tricky for even the most skilled barefoot therapist to find the QL, as there’s often not enough space for even the heel. Resorting to the lateral edge of the foot may be a solution, but there’s something super simple you can try instead.

Bolstering with a small pillow

It’s easy fix- small toddler or travel pillow placed under their waist in between their body and the table.

Watch the video to see how Mary-Claire uses the pillow and how it flattens out the client’s torso. This makes barefoot side-lying massage much easier (and more comfortable for both the LMT and the client).

The client simply rolls over when you’re ready to work the 2nd side-the pillow should stay pretty well in place.

If you’re going to use the pillow under their stomach for prone work, they simply roll onto their stomach and adjust as needed. (See this video on how to do that.)

Are they rolling on their back next? Just have them lift up a little, grab the pillow and hand it to you or toss it onto the floor-whatever’s easiest.

Let us know what other bolstering techniques are in your grab bag (or you’d like to see!) in the comments.

Where you can find more info…

Visit our main website to find out more about all our classes at the Center for Barefoot Massage.

Or visit us on Facebook and Instagram!

Pro tips by November 14, 2017 0Comments

Wrapping a Mother Earth neck pillow for massage

Today’s Tuesday TOESday tip is a simple one for all massage therapists, whether you do barefoot massage or not. A small Mother Earth pillow under the client’s neck is a lovely accoutrement. Clients love it and frequently comment on how nice it feels when I place under their cervical spine.

The small bolster feels great under the client’s neck when they are supine, and it warms the tissues well. This makes it even easier to get in deeply with your toes or fingers.

But it’s a pain to take the cover off, and worse to put it back on. They need to be washed each time they touch the client’s skin, and they have to hang dry.

And if you accidentally put one in the dryer, good luck getting it back on the pillow! I learned this the hard way. It was, I imagine, about as easy as putting a girdle on a walrus.

Ashiatsu barefoot massage, Pro tips, Tuesday Toesday, Why FasciAshi? by June 20, 2017 0Comments

Tuesday Toesday – using a meditation pillow

Having an electric massage table solves a lot of problems for barefoot massage therapists, one of which is the ability to use only one stool instead of two. You simply raise or lower the table according to your needs. When using a portable massage table, ashiatsu therapists typically need 2 stools–that is, until now, for we’ve got a meditation pillow to the rescue.

Typically when an Ashiatsu therapists does work while the client is on the table and she’s seated, she will need a taller stool. Proper alignment calls for the therapist’s hips to be about the level of the client’s back when she’s doing seated work.

However, we don’t recommend standing on the tall stool because the higher you go, the more unstable your stool will be. Plus, you end up with crummy body mechanics-you’ll end up hurting yourself or tipping the stool forward onto the client’s head. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and definitely don’t recommend that.

Having an electric table resolves the need for a taller stool because you just raise and lower your table as needed. Doing seated work, lower your table. Standing? Raise it. Jeni’s got a quick video explanation of how she does it using a bamboo stick.

The problems with having to switch out stools in the middle of your session are:

  • you have to pick up or slide the stool out of the way and then
  • pick up / slide the other stool into place

The difficulty lies in that the client’s head is only a couple of inches from your stool. If you’re not extremely careful, you’ll either hit the wall with one of the stools, which makes a big “clunk” or you’ll hit the face cradle.

Add into the time involved in switching out your stools, and the client may wonder what’s going on.

Using a meditation bolster completely resolves this issue. Now, the ashiatsu therapist can just use the short stool. When she needs to be higher, she quickly and quietly can simply place the bolster onto the short stool.

[youtube id=”dMOhGpJcC-s”]

I’ve tried a couple of different kinds-one was filled with flax seed (or maybe buckwheat hull) and is squishy. It made a lot of noise when I sat on it, and it wasn’t terribly stable.

The kind that I’m using now are filled with cotton, are 6″ thick and are super stable and quiet.

An added bonus is that my SITS bones aren’t sore from sitting on a hard surface.

I tell you where I got this bolster in the video. They have lots of different colors. I simply chose paisley because I figured it would help disguise any random ashiatsu cream or oil drips. Students tend to be a little messy sometimes. 😉