She’s Motivated!

In a staff meeting at our Lauterstein-Conway Massage School, I recently noted a colleague promoting a course we had never offered. I said, “She’s smart.”  Our Marketing Director, Jennifer Shaw, never being one to mince words, said, “Intelligence’s got nothing to do with it! She’s motivated!” I was delighted. She was right in so many…

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Art and Massage: Ode to Kung Fu and Massage

By David Lauterstein, 4/22/10 People make fun of massage And also of martial arts. Both do attract people in love with fantasy land. I have the fantasy I am a healer. I have the fantasy I am a warrior. Yet the desire to be a healer and warrior are two of the highest goals we…

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Lauterstein-Conway Massage School: Earth Day

The biggest puzzle seems to be – here we are alive improbably on a planet teeming with nature, surrounded in our whole solar system and way beyond it with no other life forms.  What did we do to deserve this?  Each of us knows on some level that naturally we ought to bow down each…

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Mired in the Truth: Beauty and Massage

Plato identified the three realms of virtue: goodness, truth and beauty. Massage has been, to some extent, lately mired in truth. So-called science-based or orthopedic approaches have been extremely popular. The “facts” are trotted out as the rationale for how we should approach client’s neuromuscular symptoms. But what people most respond to is quality of…

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Massage Therapy: Growing New Arms

The other day I working on a woman who has chronic complaints in her extremities. As I worked, I had a deeper insight into the origins of her pain, tension and discomfort. A Case Study: The Servers Some people are raised to do for others. Their own independent self-expression and the meeting of their own…

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Anatomy Review: Massage for the Scalenes

The scalenes are actually the uppermost of the intercostals muscles, those muscles lying between your ribs that assist inhalation and exhalation. However, big surprise, there are no ribs in the neck! Actually a number of books say the scalenes attach to the vestigial ribs of the cervical vertebrae. That is, little buds appear on the…

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The Calling of Massage Therapy

There are those people who are drawn to play music, and they can not go a day or two without wanting to pick up the guitar. There are those who love writing. Finding words for their experiences gives their lives an essential, deeper meaning. Similarly there are those who are drawn to touch. Touch is…

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Massage and the Nervous System: Part Three

Part three of Massage and the Nervous System. (See parts two and one.) As massage therapists we know how to get our hands on muscles and connective tissues. But now we see somehow we have to get our hands on the nervous system because otherwise it’s a bit like flipping light switches with no electricity – some action…

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In Memoriam

One of our most wonderful graduates, Rasa Sittler, passed away on December 28, 2009. Rasa Sittler was born in Germany and emigrated with her family to the U.S. as a young girl. She studied theater in Germany and later in New York. She performed internationally with the Munich Bach Choir and with the Players Workshop…

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Massage and The Nervous System: Part Two

Part two of Massage and the Nervous System. (See part one.) As massage therapists we know how to get our hands on muscles and connective tissues. But now we see somehow we have to get our hands on the nervous system because otherwise it’s a bit like flipping light switches with no electricity – some action…

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