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AMTA 2017 School Summit

February 26, 2017 by Tania Leave a Comment

[Written while listening to this.]

This is a fun picture post of the AMTA 2017 School Summit which took place at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel on February 23-24, 2017. It was a blast! My only regret is not getting more pictures of all the fantastic educators I got to mingle with.

Day 1: Here’s the first photo with my road trip buddy, Carla Gaskins-Nathan of Rooted Bodywork. We went to the summit as representatives of the PCOM-NY campus.

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Group shot! Let’s play a version of Where’s Waldo?, but instead of trying to find Waldo, see if you can find me… then Carla.

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Photo credit to AMTA

 

Later that day, the AMTA treated us to a comedy show at Laugh Boston. Here is a photo with a couple of the comedians who performed. Their sets were hilarious! I think stand-up comedy is the ultimate performing art and requires a great deal of bravery and confidence. They were awesome. And tall.

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Day 2: Here I am having a fan girl moment with Susan Salvo of Massage Passport and Whitney Lowe of the Academy of Clinical Massage. These 2 have authored the textbooks I learned from! The coolest thing about them is they continue growing and innovating as educators. I want to be like them when I grow up 🙂

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The next photos are double-selfies with 2 incredible and inspiring educators. Brent Jackson, is the academic program manager of a unique and impressive hospital based massage therapy program in South Carolina (the first of its kind!) and Jill Berkana, is the founder and owner of The Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy in Denver, CO. If I had to do it all over again, I would love to learn at both of these schools. These 2 are on fire and are producing phenomenal manual therapists. They just care so much and are excellent at what they do.

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Selfie by Jill Berkana
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selfie by yours truly 😉

 

Here is Tim Herbert of the Trail Guide Series we all know and love and have dog-eared many pages of. This guy gives THE BEST bear hugs!

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And lastly, here is one more photo with Carla and Susan Salvo, for the road. They are both ridiculously photogenic.

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There were people I didn’t get to snag photos with, but do want to give a shout out to for being wonderful company and getting down with great conversations and presentations: Dr. Jerrilyn Cambron of the NUHS and president of the Massage Therapy Foundation, Angela Austin of Lourdes College in NJ, Sue Passini in Connecticut, Heather Langly from AACC in Maryland, Cindy Moorcroft from the Center of Natural Wellness in Albany, Angie Myer of COMTA, Christopher and Xerlan Deery from PA, and Daniah Craft from the Indiana Massage College.

Thank you to Bon Vital and Biotone for all the goodies!

Looking for to another meet-up soon!

The Awkward Shift in Manual Therapy

April 24, 2016 by Tania 11 Comments

[Written while listening to this and then this. Comments are welcome below.]

This week I had the opportunity to take an awesome continuing education class (led by Rolfers® Rey Allen and Michael Polon). It is based on the groundbreaking work of Diane Jacobs, PT. It was one I’ve had my eye on for a couple of years, then the timing was finally PERFECT. A great CE class is food for the soul of a MT 🙂 And after 20+ years of doing this, I’ve become VERY picky.

In last week’s post, we “chatted” about one reason this site was born and this week we’ll piggy-back on that topic a little more. Let’s begin with the great divide that is happening in our profession and then *spoiler alert* we will close with the inevitable shift that is on the horizon. And by horizon, I mean it’s still 10-20 years away from being accepted as an undeniable truth, but we’ve gotta start somewhere.

Two words. Pain Science.

I won’t begin to open that can of dendritic worms here- at least not in ONE blog post, because it is a giant can with waaay too many worms. But Google has a lot to say about it, so you can start there and we’ll continue to whittle away at different angles of the topic for as long as this site is up and running. Which will be a long time.

As a teaser, let’s just say that discoveries in pain science over the last (I’ll generalize) 10-15 years are about to shake the foundation of everything we thought we knew about the body, particularly from a structural perspective. Massage therapists, I hope you’re all sitting down. Surgeons, chiropractors, orthopedists… I suggest ya’ll hold on to each other tightly and don’t let go. Let’s take each other by the hand because this may be uncomfortable until everyone gets used to it. The same denial and awkwardness awaits us as did when people began to realize the sun did not revolve around the earth. And that the earth was round and not flat. And that simple hand washing could save lives. Rest assured, things get REALLY exciting after the fledgling awkwardness. Just like your first 8th grade slow-dance.

The Great Divide

On one side we have science. And we all like to high-5 science when it goes along with exactly what we assume, think, or thought we thunk. On the other side we have what we were taught and/or what we believe is true. Remember: beliefs are not facts a.k.a. unicorns are not horses.

unicorn-Pinpoint BodyworkBut who doesn’t love unicorns?! Unicorns are awesome! Yes, they are but we all know they don’t exist. Put it this way: the unicorns of manual therapy are being outed. However, where the horses will lead us is in an even more magical and wondrous direction. You can believe that. (This effects other disciplines too, like surgery, orthopedics, etc., but we’re a MT site so that’s what we relate it to.)

So, guess what happened when science told stubborn-me so much of what I thought I knew for 15+ years had been proven wrong? That’s right, I threw an internal hissy fit.  It looked something like me scrambling online like a mad woman for nearly a year to try and reverse-prove the science wrong. (Yeah, that didn’t go so well.) The good news is the hissy fit subsided after I realized how cool the facts were because they solidify what we as MTs have known all along about the inseparable body-brain-mind connection. (Don’t worry, we’ll discuss this more in the future). It is almost EVERYTHING. Almost.

The great divide boils down to basic stubbornness and I’m admitting to have been very guilty of it. I mention this to let you know, in advance, I understand any initial backlash. Been there, done that. And so, I trust any hissy fits will subside as mine did.  We all now know and accept the earth revolves around the sun.

Where will you stand in the divide?

mountains-Pinpoint BodyworkEasy answer. One of three things will happen.

  1. Maybe it’s a little uncomfortable at first, but you accept the facts and refine your work to produce better results based upon the most current information we have available. You accept the earth is round and are not afraid to travel across the ocean to new and exiting places.
  2. You insist on holding on to past theories, even though they’ve been squashed. But as more and more people start to realize there is more (or less) to it, you slowly start to let out-dated thinking go and then gleefully join the gospel choir in singing “it is the earth that revolves around the sun, and not the other way around”.
  3. In spite of all the evidence and shifts in understanding, you outright refuse to let those beliefs be replaced by actual facts. The world will have to pry those beliefs out of your cold dead hands. You, like, seriously, really believe in unicorns. Hell, you’d saw 14 inches off the end of a broom and duct-tape it to a horse’s forehead to prove to everyone unicorns DO exist! Then you’ll point to a rhino and say “Oh yeah! Well, that has a horn so that’s a unicorn!”

Wherever you stand, it’s cool. I get it. Just don’t be the guy in #3 because that’s just mega-cray-cray bonkers. I’ll leave you with that. See you next week!

Hasta la pasta, rasta.

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  • Modalites vs. Concepts in Massage Therapy
  • AMTA 2017 School Summit
  • I am a massage therapist, not a “healer”
  • Beware the Hipsterization of Cupping in Massage Therapy

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