firmstrokes's Personal Masseur Interview

Last Updated: Aug 06, 2023

- I enjoy helping people feel better.

- Technique is typically easy to learn; however, having good customer service and understanding anatomy and movement help a masseur be exceptional.

- I have a good knowledge of anatomy and physical therapy from having been a trainer's assistant for the football team in college and from rehabing from a coma when I was 16.

- In my spare time I enjoy cooking and baking for other people, as well as volunteering in the community... which means I don't really have so much free time!

- Yes. My clients tell me that they feel better at the end of a session every time, and I get a good hit of dopamine from providing touch and relief.

- I want clients to feel that their comfort needs were addressed and that their bodies, minds, and spirits were treated with respect and dignity. It is a great honor to be trusted to deliver touch to others, and I want clients to sense that this is how I truly feel.

- Gain a basic understanding of anatomy starting with the critical parts for movement including tendons and ligaments, as well as common skin conditions. You're going to work with bodies in varying conditions. You'll want to be able to capably assist clients recovering from injuries and carefully refer clients to have a medical professional take a look at some things.

- Been at it over 35 years and will continue until my hands no longer work

- Pre-COVID I typically had one 3-4 week trip a year and several long weekend trips. My most frequest domestic travel has been to deep southwestern Virginia where several fourth great grandparents in my partnernal ancestry settled, as well as across the border into Kentucky where my father lived and my stepmother and living half-siblings remain. My last international travel was to Iceland in late February 2020 for 10 days that included soaking nude in a thermal stream an hour north of Reykjavik while blizzard conditions raged beyond the heat dome above the water. My favorite destinations have been Mongolia, South Africa and Kenya.

- I originally pursued bodywork as a means to bring comfort to others from the experience of simple physical connection.

- After a session with me, I want clients to feel "better," that tension and tightness in the body is reduced and that they would trust me again with their wellbeing.

- Humans are typically wired to crave touching and being touched, and I definitely notice a shift in my energy and mood when I have not worked with/on a client in over 24 hours.

- I initially learned massage and therapeutic touch through Body Electric in the late 1980s in order to serve people living with HIV and cancer. My first client was a friend of a friend who hadn't been held or touched with care outside of a medical setting in over two years. His emotional response of tears of joy and trembling with excitement stays fresh in my mind.