Do you remember the Hans Christen Anderson story the Princess and the Pea? This story is, some would say, about the dangers of jumping to conclusions without all the facts. Others believe that it’s about presenting yourself honestly despite how you may appear.
In the tale, the old queen, upon seeing the bedraggled girl, needed to prove that she was a real princess. Placing a pea under a mattress, she laid a total of 20 mattresses and eider-down covers upon the pea. (She was strong, apparently, and had good balance while standing on something tall. 😉 .)
The princess tossed and turned all night because she felt something hard under her body. Yes, it was the pea, under 20 mattresses. Because she was so delicate, she was able to feel the pea as if it were a rock.
Our feet are rather like that princess, delicate and trustworthy. We can feel grains of sand or hair on a client’s body. Those are small–think about how we are able to palpate knots, ropy muscles, bony prominences.
People ask us about our ability to palpate all the time. Yes, we can feel with our feet. A lot.
Wikipedia even tells us: the soles of the feet are extremely sensitive to touch due to a high concentration of nerve endings, with as many as 200,000 per sole. This makes them sensitive to surfaces that are walked on.
The feet have a very high concentration of nerve endings, mostly because the information coming from your feet is used to make all the constant, tiny muscular adjustments necessary to maintain balance.
Is there a need to tell the public about this? Apparently, yes.
Can the hands to things that the feet cannot? Absolutely. We love our feet, but we don’t want them on someone’s face. That’s just weird.
It’s unlikely that anyone wants our toes in their orbital sockets or maneuvering their hyoid. We’ll leave that to hands.
Tiny little moves may be best suited for the fingers.
This does not, however, mean that your hands are far better tools than your feet for massage-based services.
How about broad, deep pressure? The feet are a clear winner here.
Some people may like “twisty fists” in their bums. I can tell you from experience that the foot feels better to the client.
The forearm and fists are often not the quadriceps’ friends.
Now, we are not saying that there’s no place for hands-on massage. That would be silly. Many different types of massage are valuable, and most of them are done with hands.
But to say that the hands are “a far better tool” than feet is also incorrect.
We have many 1000s of clients who believe that the “feet can’t be beat” when it comes to massage.
Plus, there’s this: 😉
