Asian Bodywork such as Shiatsu and Tui Na are very different from most Therapeutic and Relaxation massages you'll experience in the West.  These are vigorous, intense modalities of massage that are based in the same system of ancient Chinese medicine as acupuncture.  Using finger pressure and push/grabbing techniques along the acupuncture meridians, Asian bodywork seeks to balance the whole of the body in addition to specifically focusing on muscle tension, knots, and stiffness.

Here's the breakdown:

Tui Na is Chinese for push grab.  Tui Na uses traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and the meridian systems.  Acupuncture, Tui Na, and herbalism were the traditional medicine systems of China for hundreds of years.  Now in China, when you go to the hospital you can choose Western medicine, traditional (Tui Na, acupuncture, and herbs), or an integrated combination of both.

Tui Na uses pushing, grabbing, rolling, dragging, and dredging (the opposite of pushing) with the hands to stimulate and guide the body's channels and meridians into proper balance.  It's a very intense and vigorous massage that I wouldn't call nurturing, but I would call extremely therapeutic.

Shiatsu is Japanese for "finger pressure." In this tradition, the therapist uses the fingers, hands, elbows, forearms, and knees to apply intense compression to the body along the meridians of traditional Chinese medicine.  While acupuncture works on points along these meridians (necessarily, since the acupuncturist works with needles), Shiatsu works on the meridians in the entirety of their length and extension.  The hands of the therapist can follow the natural flow of the meridians and help direct it along its properly aligned route in a way that needles, posted at points along the route like street signs, can only suggest.

Thai Massage (also called Thai Yoga Massage) is a combination of compression and stretching techniques in which the practitioner guides your body into different positions to stretch it and release pent-up tension.

At MTW, we're lucky to have Dell Fisher as one of our regular therapists.  Dell specializes in Asian Bodywork, and talked to me a little about the roots and philosophies of the different modalities.

You're extremely accomplished in Shiatsu Massage Therapy.  You've taught workshops all over New England and are a teacher at the Cortiva Institute and The New England School of Acupuncture.  Tell me about the type of Shiatsu you practice.

I practice Zen Shiatsu.   The Japanese were forced to ban a lot of the traditional practices during the US occupation after WWII to stay in line with the US government.   A Japanese practitioner named Namikoshi aligned these practices with Western medicine in order to preserve the tradition.  He obscured a lot of the spiritual aspect of Shiatsu and made it more physical so it would be more acceptable to the American forces.  He was successful in that this allowed the tradition to survive through the occupation, but it also meant Shiatsu lost a lot of the elements integral to the practice.  Zen Shiatsu was developed by a Japanese psychologist named Masunaga, who revolutionized Shiatsu by bringing back those important aspects of spirituality.

Masanuga was also revolutionary because he extended the traditional meridians.  For instance, while in traditional acupuncture the lung meridian lies only on the arm, in Zen Shiatsu, it extends throughout the body. 

What are some of the differences you've noticed between Western medicine and traditional Eastern medicine?

Let's say five people have headaches.  In Western medicine, a doctor will give each person the same type of drug, be it an analgesic or another painkiller, to treat the symptoms, even though each person's headache may have vastly different causes.  In Shiatsu, the headache is looked at as a physical manifestation caused by something else, be it psychological or emotional issues, lack of sleep, stress, etc.  Whatever is going on physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually within the body will register on a number of different levels.  The headache could be a manifestation of any one of those things, and the cause will rarely be the same between any two people.  Shiatsu and other Eastern Modalities seek to treat the cause of the symptoms by balancing the body, mind, and spirit of the individual.

Generally I've found it extremely effective to combine several different modalities when working, but again it depends on the client's situation and his or her specific needs.

These Eastern modalities are really all stress prevention.  In fact, in ancient times the doctors/healers weren't paid if their clients got sick. As long as the clients were healthy, the healers were well kept and respected. A pretty good model, if you ask me.

So, what led you to this?  What attracted you to bodywork?

I was an optician and a bass player for twenty-three years.  Someone who had seen me play in a band stopped me on the street one day and we got to talking.  He was going to Shiatsu school, and it sounded fascinating to me.  I called the school that day and they were having an open house, so I went.

I went to four or five open houses in the months that followed.  All these strange synchronistic things started happening.  I'd run into a optical client who was graduating from the Shiatsu school, or I'd be in a bookstore and a book on Shiatsu would fall off the table when I'd pass it.  It was like the universe was trying to tell me this was where I was supposed to be.

It's been a remarkable journey.  Everything and everyone in my life was pointing to this path.  Fortunately I had the wisdom to be able to see it.


I'd heard a lot about these Asian modalities.  Now I wanted to experience them for myself. 

Dell gave me a comprehensive Integrated Bodywork session that involved Shiatsu and Tui Na.  We began by going over my chronic pain issues, (IT band, hip, shoulders, head), but we also talked about my severe allergy problems and stress levels.  Since Shiatsu and Tui Na are based in the acupuncture systems, the range of issues they can tackle is much broader and more holistic than a deep tissue or sports massage. 

When Dell began, I could definitely see where the names "push grab" and "finger pressure" came from.  Initially relaxing it wasn't, but it was the most outrightly invigorating massage experience I'd ever had.  Dell dragged my muscles and skin precisely and expertly out of their normal holding patterns.  There was no coddling here.  In transition, he would sometimes take and arm or a leg and shake it out like a bedsheet, making sure all the "wrinkles" were out.

He employed some very unique hand techniques, including a rolling maneuver where he would flop his hand, palm to knuckles and back again, across my aching muscles.  Dell also worked on my stomach, which is something no massage therapist has ever done to me before. 

"I always work the stomach, though most people don't.  We hold a lot of tension and worry and fear in there that needs to be released.  Especially women.  The stomach is a very powerful place.  It's the center of life." 

He worked on my belly in very gentle circles, contrasting greatly from the pushing and grabbing from earlier. 

After that, I began to feel an inexplicable tingling sensation spreading warmly throughout my body.  This was strange, but undeniable.  I really felt some sort of vibration running through me. 

Dell had taken his hands off of me but was still in the room.  My eyes were closed as my cells continued to be washed with this warm tingling wave.  Incredibly, after that vigorous, intense massage, I felt utterly relaxed.

I asked Dell about this sensation when we were finished.  He didn't seem surprised at all that I mentioned the feeling.

"Oh yeah, I did some subtle energy work at the end.  It's similar to reiki, but what I practice is called shinkiko."

"That's incredible.  I could actually feel it without even knowing what you were doing."

"Well, everything's made up of energy.  When you're sitting on a chair, the chair is just energy vibrating on a different frequency than your body and the air around you.  The Chi (life force) we have in us is all subtle energy.  At any given moment we can be vibrating at a different frequency.  

"Intention makes such a difference.  We know from quantum physics that when you look at something, it changes.  As bodyworkers we walk into a room with the intention of helping someone, and once we touch that person, ideally, it happens."

This may be too much information, but I sweat a lot.  In hot weather, almost any activity at all will cause me to "glow" (a word so much more ladylike than "drip"), and during real exercise, forget about it.  Between yoga and the gym, I work out three to four times a week for one to two hours at a time, and by the end, my gym clothes are drenched.

Last time I was at the doctor, I mentioned that I had been concerned because I drink water almost constantly, but I always seem to be thirsty.  With that kind of tact only doctors seem to possess, she asked me if I sweat a lot.  "Yes," I answered honestly.  "As a matter of fact I do."

She suggested I start drinking Gatorade to help restore my electrolytes and help my cells absorb the liquid I'm taking in, instead of just sweating all of it out.  "You're body needs the sugar and salt as well as the water itself in order to absorb the fluid.  When you just drink water and sweat, you don't retain the water at all.  That's why they invented Gatorade for athletes.  All these athletes were getting dehydrated, even though they drank tons of water."

I'm a plain water and coffee girl.  I usually don't drink any sweet beverages at all.  No soda, no juice, no fancy sugary Starbucks beverages.  The notion of drinking a sugary drink once a day wasn't extremely appetizing, and I found the idea even more displeasing when I picked up some Gatorade in the grocery store and read the ingredients.  Water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, and yellow 5.  Mmm.  Ester gum.  Yellow 5.  And of course the exotic, ubiquitous, "natural and artificial ingredients."  Deeee-licious.

If you've been reading this blog with any regularity, you've probably realized that three of my favorite consecutive letters are DIY.  The way I see it, if you can do something yourself more naturally and cheaply than buying it premade, it's probably a good idea to try it. 

If the important part of a sports drink is the sugar and the salt, why couldn't I make one myself?  It's not like it takes an advanced degree in chemistry to mix some sugar water.  Besides, I've been doing pretty well mixing Manhattans and Mint Juleps at my house's summer soirees.  This couldn't be much more difficult than that.

With characteristic hubris, I set out sans recipe to create a homemade elixir of hydration.  I dumped in some honey (preferable, in my opinion, to sugar both in texture and flavor), some salt, and a few teaspoons of lemon juice into a glass.  I poured in some hot water, mixed vigorously, then topped the glass up with cold water and took a sip. 

What I had created tasted almost exactly like human sweat.  I took this to mean it was probably hydrating, since sports drinks are intended to replenish what sweating depletes, but it definitely wasn't something I wanted to drink.  Ever, really.

I decided I needed a recipe for this one.  I did a quick internet search and found several options. 

E-How has a recipe with all the same ingredients I used originally.  They suggest mixing either sugar or honey, a bit of salt, and either lemon, lime or orange juice (I bet you could even use other juices, if you wanted to be really daring), and they also suggest tried and true proportions to avoid any unfortunate outcomes such as my glass of sweat.

I followed their recipe using honey and lemon juice, just for fair comparison's sake.  I admit after the first fiasco, I was a little hesitant to jump into this one with a deep swig.  When I did take a sip, however, I was pleasantly surprised. 

This recipe tastes like a mild lemonade.  Pretty good, but still a little sweet for my tastes.  I cut down on the honey they recommended and created a drink more in line with my personal tastes. 

Here's a simple recipe from Kitchen Table Medicine.  They forgo the extra sugar (there is sugar in fruit juice, after all), and instruct you to "[f]ill your sports bottle with half juice and half water. Add a pinch of organic sea salt, shake, and enjoy!" 

Kitchen Table Medicine can be a little too Organic Fundamentalist for my tastes, but their explanation of why you should use sea salt over table salt is pretty convincing.

"You can use table salt, but organic sea salt is best to use as an electrolyte source as the minerals of the sea are very similar to our own electrolyte composition in our blood. Sea salt contains 84 minerals. Aside from sodium, you are receiving potassium, iodine, magnesium, calcium, zinc, manganese, and more!"

KTM also says that a pinch of salt is enough for most average Joes and Josephines.  If you're an endurance athlete, though, you might want a slightly saltier beverage.  (Just don't overdo it.  I learned that the hard way.) 

All in all, making your own sports drinks is a healthy, inexpensive, and in my opinion, yummier alternative to buying the neon blue and purple, corn-syrup laden bottles in the grocery store.  One of the best parts is this beverage is completely customizable.  Make it sweeter, or saltier.  Use orange, grapefruit, or lemon.  Whatever you want.  It's yours.

I recommend making a whole pitcher of the stuff and keeping it in your fridge for a fast thirst quencher whenever you need it.

This summer I wanted to take my yoga practice to the next level, and knew I needed take a few advanced classes to do so.  Last time I checked, however, there were approximately 10,000 yoga studios in the Cambridge/Somerville area.  Sifting through all of them was daunting, and I've never had much luck with throwing darts at phonebook pages and choosing whatever establishment I hit.

O2 Yoga is on the corner of Highland and Cedar streets in Somerville, not far from Davis Square and MTW.  Kris swears by it.  "No matter where I've lived in the city, I always go back to O2," she said when I asked her.  It was a pretty glowing recommendation, so I signed up for two classes.

O2 offers Basic, Intermediate, Power, and Astanga classes.  The Power and Astanga classes seemed to be the more advanced, so I signed up for one of each. 

My first class was an Astanga class on a Friday afternoon.  I walked in ten minutes early to a calm, clean intake area with a shelf for shoes, a front desk, and very nice rest rooms.  The man who would be my teacher, Elliot, was sitting at the front desk signing people in.  When I signed in, he asked me if I'd ever done an Astanga series before.

"No," I said, a little defensively.  "But I'm pretty good at yoga."

Elliot handed me an introductory packet explaining the Astanga series and went on to explain what we would be doing.  I was a little embarrassed by my original defensiveness, since it was obvious that he wasn't challenging my abilities at all, only preparing me for what we were about to do.  "We'll start with a series of vinyasas, then work through a progression of poses with a vinyasa between each one." 

I looked at the packet he handed me, which had the entire series illustrated, from the first downward dog all the way through completely impossible looking poses like supta kurmasana:

 

This was going to be different from any yoga class I'd ever been to.

Elliot didn't go through the poses with us like most teachers in the gym-offered yoga classes I've seen.  Instead he called out the poses and vinyasas and walks around the classroom making adjustments.  Sometimes subtle, sometimes major.  While I was in shoulder stand, he came around in front of me and asked, "Can I adjust you?"  "Sure," I said, and he proceeded to take my ankles and literally lift my shoulders off the floor.  "Okay, now move your shoulder blades closer together."  I did so (it was easy with no floor underneath them), and he placed me back down gently, properly aligned.

Elliot has a different style of teaching than I'm used to.  He's very blunt and not overly nurturing.  At times he seemed almost sarcastic, but that doesn't mean I didn't like his manner of teaching.  It gave me a feeling of camaraderie, like we were a group of soldiers taking verbal jabs at each other to bond during a trying task.  At that level of class, I don't want to be coddled.  When I'm awkwardly trying to lace my forearms through my thighs in a forward bend and bind my wrists behind my lower back, it adds some relieving levity when Elliot chimes in with a dry "Not today, huh Chief?"

As Elliot mentioned, the poses got progressively more difficult during the ninety minute class, and in between each one you had to hop back and do a vinyasa.  By the end of the class I was sweating quite a bit and even lowering into chaturanga dandasana became quite challenging. 

Afterward, I lingered behind to discuss the Astanga series with Elliot. 

"Is the series the same every time?" I asked.

"Yes.  This is the primary Astanga series.  Anywhere you go in the world, you can take a primary Astanga class and it'll be what we just did." 

"That's interesting," I said.  "One thing I found challenging was everyone else seemed to know what they were doing.  I had to keep looking around to see what the next step was, especially since you used the Sanskrit terms for the poses and I'm not really used to that."

"Some people hate the repetition, but when you get used to it you don't even have to think about what you're doing anymore.  You can just be the movement and the expression of the poses.  Some people really respond to being able to shut off the active part of their brain like that."

I could definitely see the benefits of repetitive motion without the added burden of having to think about what you're doing. 

"Wait a minute," I said.  "You said this was a primary series?  What does that mean, that there's levels higher than this?"

Elliot almost laughed.  "Oh yeah.  We offer a secondary class here, too, which is sort of like what we just did but focusing on back bending instead of forward bending.  There are six levels in all.  I've only seen people practice up to level three.  In level three, the whole first part of the series is done with one leg behind your head."

"Whoa.  But people still do that?"

"Oh yeah.  People practice at level six.  Just no one around here."

Compared to the Astanga class with Elliot, the Power class was much more similar to the yoga classes I was used to.  Frederique, a very patient and positive woman with a slight French accent was the instructor for this Sunday evening class.  The vibe was more laid back and the students were comitted to their practice, but seemed less rigidly serious than the students in the Astanga class.

I was glad I went to the Astanga class first, as I could definitely see the Astanga influence in the Power class (interspersed vinyasas, for instance), and I felt much more prepared for the class.  Frederique was very good at giving students options of various levels of difficulty for some of the more challenging poses, and she was very precise and gentle when she came around to give adjustments.  I always appreciate a yoga instructor who will come over and adjust you if you don't have proper alignment.  Some of the poses are so complex that it's very easy to slip out of line.

Overall the Power class was challenging and rewarding and probably a better class to take if you're looking for sheer physical benefits, but I have to say I was bowled over by the ritualistic, meditative feel of the Astanga class.  If you've been practicing yoga for a while and are ready to take your experience to the next level, an Astanga class at O2 would be a great place to begin.

02 Yoga's South End studio

O2 Yoga also has a studio in the South End, and offers a variety of specialized workshops and events, including a Men's Yoga class, and an incredible yoga retreat in Maya Tulum, Mexico. 

Visit O2 Yoga at www.o2yoga.com.

Special training in the treatments and contraindications of various cancers is vital.  I'm also trained in the side-effects and contraindications of the treatments themselves.  The thing is, the treatments for cancer often have multifaceted complications in their own rite.

After my training in muscular therapy at the Cortiva Institute I did an advanced training at Boston Medical center working with cancer patients under a mentor.  I worked with patients while they were getting chemotherapy therapy or before or after a medical treatment.  Sometimes they would come in between medical treatments just to get a massage.  I learned the importance of tailoring massage therapy to the patient's individual needs.  Working with cancer patients was all about how the person was feeling that day.  The same patient would often have very strong days where he or she would want more muscular work, and very weak days where just a gentle healing touch was enough to support them through a trying time.

I'm not trying to cure the cancer or replace doctors.  My job in Oncology Massage is to relieve stress and provide support.  I don't see it as a treatment as much as a nurturing experience.  What I really aim for is to create a certain amount of time, thirty minutes, an hour, etc., that's totally for the individual.  A nurturing, healing place where the person can be taken care of, rather than "treated. 

What benefits does Oncology Massage offer to people with cancer?

Massage can ease nausea, pain, and fatigue associated with cancer and its treatments.  It is also very effective in relieving the stress, anxiety, insomnia, and depression that often go along it. 

A big part of Oncology Massage is to support patients physically, emotionally, and spiritually through the treatments.  It can be very challenging for a person with cancer even to relax.  I do a lot of guided meditation and guided relaxation during massages to help them get into that calm space.  A nurturing massage provides a relaxing experience that they can bring into the rest of their day.

What are some of the specific challenges that you encounter?

A lot of times with cancer, the places that hurt are the very places where you can't touch.  Say a man has had repeated radiation on his throat.  His throat is in pain but so irritated it can't be touched.  In that case I would use guided meditation to bring the feeling of the massage through his whole body, including the throat which can't be touched and is the origin of much of his discomfort.  Oftentimes there are painful areas that can be addressed with gentle touch, but sometimes effects can be brought about indirectly through integrated energy experience, even if I can only work on the hands, feet or scalp.

A lot of the challenge for the patient is to reacquaint themselves with their "new normal."  When people have cancer, their bodies are always working very hard to fight the cancer.  They may want deep tissue, but it's imperative not to work to deeply and put any extra stress on the immune system.  It can be difficult for patients to accept the new limitations of their bodies, but I seek to guide patients into positivity and acceptance of their "new normal."

It sounds like very fulfilling work.

It is.  I've found that a gentle healing touch can make such a difference. It's extremely valuable in that it allows them to experience the body positively.  We know now that mindset and intention can both have such an impact on recovery and prognosis.  Massage offers a vacation from all the medications and treatments.  It lets people just be, centers them, and gives them a strong and relaxed place to draw from throughout the journey to come.