what is massage
Body massage is an age-old tradition for maintaining good physical and psychological health. It has been developed over thousands of years from India and ancient China all the way through to modern day Europe and is still developing today.
Definition: The kneading of muscles and joints of the body with the hands, especially to relieve tension and/or pain.
Massage is essentially the manipulation of the body’s soft tissues through a variety of techniques and styles to promote and maintain good health. It is recorded as far back as 3000BC in China, where they called their ancient technique ‘Amma”. They used specific moves at certain points on the body for the promotion of good health as well as for relaxation. The Japanese also had a similar technique which they called ‘Tsubo’. Modern day Shiatsu, which is the application of pressure to particular points on the body to improve neural efficiency, general health and circulation is the direct descendent of the ancient ‘Tsubo’. In India massage has always been a key part of Ayurvedic Medicine and is where I really got in to massage, doing my first ever course in Kerala. Ayurveda is from the Sanskrit words ‘ayur’ meaning life and ‘veda’ meaning knowledge. It is an ancient text concerned with the arts of healing and prolonging life and is still used extensively today. In all of these countries, a fully holistic approach is taken and they are renowned for taking into account the whole person; the body, mind and spirit, in their medicinal approach and not just the symptom or condition.
Modern day massage, or massage as most people know it, is based on techniques created and developed by Per Henrik Ling who was a Swedish physiologist, massage is still referred to as “swedish massage” due to him. Thanks to an increase in complementary therapies and natural medicine, massage has become a more and more reputable and recognisable therapy and can be used alone for a multitude of benefits or as part of other treatment such physiotherapy and stress management.
"I’ve had a lot of massages over the years and Chloe gave by far the best deep tissue massage that I have ever experienced.
Not only is she very skilled but she is also very pleasant. I cannot recommend her highly enough."
- PETE BROCKWAY