Tag: FAQ

Already Ashiatsu-Trained?

We’re thrilled you found us — and that you’re curious about our myofascial barefoot massage approach, Myofascial Ashiatsu “FasciAshi” Barefoot Massage

If you’ve been practicing Barefoot Massage already and you are ready to add the AshiStrap, this is where it all started! That game changing suspended strap was originally developed and implemented in 2003 by Jeni Spring – the innovator of the FasciAshi approach, our co-founder and owner here at the Center for Barefoot Massage. We love the strap, it is the core support behind the success of our practitioners

Learning FasciAshi will give you the tools to integrate fascia + pain science into detailed, deep massage sessions with sustainable footwork that feels effortless in your body We’re excited to show you our approach!

How Training Works at the Center for Barefoot Massage

At the Center for Barefoot Massage, everyone begins with FasciAshi Fundamentals.

No matter where you trained before.
No matter how long you’ve been practicing.

This is intentional — and essential.

Every class we teach builds directly on the concepts, language, and movement literacy introduced in Fundamentals.

Starting together ensures:

• safety for clients

• sustainability for therapists

• depth of learning at every level that follows

Why This Structure Exists

FasciAshi is not a remix of existing barefoot methods. It is a fully developed, evidence-informed approach that integrates:

• modern fascia research and western myofascial technique theory woven throughout the technique

• Mindfulness in every step, encouraging Interoceptive awareness to support pain science

• tensegrity-based anatomy specific goals for each stroke

• career-protective body mechanics that intricately involve the Ashi-Strap

The way we use our feet, bodies, bars, the suspended strap, angles of pressure and distribution of load is fundamentally different from other barefoot styles. Depth requires shared foundations — and we teach from the ground up.

Why Transfers No Longer Work

When we opened in 2017, we intentionally set a higher standard for barefoot massage education — and we have continued raising that bar every year since.

From the beginning, the way we use our feet, bodies, and equipment has been different. As our curriculum evolved to integrate fascia research, pain science, tensegrity-based anatomy, and sustainable body mechanics, that difference became more and more clear.

We operate with a growth mindset. Our teacher team is expected to keep learning, questioning, refining, and updating how we work on our own clients. This reflects on how we teach as research and clinical understanding advances. We look for that same curiosity, adaptability, and willingness to evolve in our students.

For many years, we worked to bridge the gap between our curriculum and therapists trained elsewhere. We refined onboarding, adjusted expectations, and invested significant instructor time supporting crossover. Over time, it became clear that the distance between FasciAshi and other barefoot lineages had grown too wide to bridge without restarting at the foundation.

Allowing crossover between fundamentally different lineages ultimately serves neither. It diminishes the integrity of FasciAshi by implying equivalency where there is none, and it fails to respect other barefoot methods by suggesting their foundational training is interchangeable with ours.

Each lineage deserves to stand on its own terms.

FasciAshi has evolved through years of independent development, original curriculum design, and ongoing integration of neuro-myofascial and stretch therapy theory, palpation skill advancement and career-sustaining mechanics with the assist from our suspended Ashi-Strap,

Beginning with Fundamentals is not about hierarchy — it is about honoring the internal logic, safety framework, and educational coherence of the system itself.

Clear boundaries protect the work.
Shared foundations preserve its depth.

Beginning with FasciAshi Fundamentals ensures every therapist entering our program shares the same movement literacy, clinical reasoning, and safety framework — which is essential for everything we teach next.

What Makes FasciAshi Fundamentals Different

This is not an intro class.
It’s the keystone of the entire CBM curriculum.

Fundamentals includes:

Specialty, niche focused work

We help Massage Therapists to niche with Barefoot Massage as a solid vehicle for success  – or at least to use their feet as a tool to offer unique, specialized services. Tap into your interests and hone your craft through avenues that include sensory awareness, injury treatment, mobility and performance, all while working deeply, effortlessly.

Pain science education
Understanding nervous system responses, threat, safety, and why “more pressure” isn’t the goal. We teach tools you can use to educate your own clients within each session. This included awareness helps your footwork land on receptive tissue, and work together with your clients to reduce persistent pain.

Fascial research
Connecting current research to what you feel underfoot — not just theory, but lived, tactile understanding. Knowing the “why” behind every stroke is something we’ve taught since day 1, and the knowledge continually evolves and expands with science, data and collected experience.

Tensegrity principles
Working with whole-body load, angles, and force transmission — not routines or memorized sequences. Each stroke has an anatomical focus to enhance detail, effectiveness and outcome.

Movement literacy
Learning how your body works best while doing the work, so your feet stay powerful and your career stays long.

Everything that follows — Intermediate, Stretch Therapy, Advanced, specialty tracks like Hot Ashi and Clinical Neck — assumes this shared foundation.

Why Therapists With Experience Still Start Here

Therapists who come to CBM already trained in barefoot massage often tell us:

“This changed how I think while I work.”
“I finally understand why certain strokes feel so different.”
“I didn’t realize how much I was muscling through before.”

Your experience doesn’t disappear — it deepens.
Fundamentals gives context, language, and structure to skills you already have, and prepares you to evolve them safely. We are excited to see how including FasciAshi into your existing approach helps you and your clients reach your shared goals!

The Bottom Line

There are no transfers.
There are no shortcuts.
There is no testing-out.

There is a clear, intentional pathway — and it starts with FasciAshi Fundamentals. (Click here to see when + where it’s offered next)

And honestly?
That’s where the good stuff begins.