What do so many of my friends and massage clients in Seattle have in common?

What one activity do they spend so many hours doing during the course of a day?

Sitting in the same position, and most likely in an uncomfortable office chair. Not just one day a week or sometimes, but day after day. And to be blunt, that shit accumulates in the mid-section of the body, as well as other areas such as shoulders, hands, upper arms.

You can feel it without even thinking about it all that much. Can’t you?

Over time, the body just holds onto this stress and strain, and one day an area in your back or hip gets pushed too far.

You go from uncomfortable to truly hurting, and you wonder how it happened.

Even if you just get up and do a few easy simple stretches, you can feel a difference in your energy level.

But having some deep tissue massage work done is more likely what is needed, especially when you’ve been ignoring those neck pains, shoulder twinges, and chronic lower back pain that just doesn’t seem to go away.

Daily tension gets ignored, and pushed down and held in places like the butt and pelvis area.

And since this is such a core area that affects your whole body’s movement, sooner or later, muscle and joint tension builds up and creates problems.

Sometimes when people say things like “That really gives me a pain in the ass.” they are being more literal than they think.

Please pay attention to your body throughout the day.

Listen to what it’s telling you.

Maybe it wants to stretch, and if you take five minutes to unplug from the wired world we live in and listen to the inner world of your own body’s rhythms, you’ll get rewarded with a deeper connection to your own life energy.

And won’t that feel great?

Let’s face it, we all want to feel better. As a massage practitioner I know this fact in a deep way. Clients come to me with a long list of stresses, strains, pains, aches, and just plain old built up body tension.

No only do I understand this, but the bodyworkers I often network with know this as well. People want to feel better, in every part of their body. Even in certain areas it might be difficult for them to talk about. Pain that comes up when they stretch or move a certain way that shouldn’t be so painful.

One thing that I’ve been discussing with my fellow healing profession workers is my shift in focus to groin and pelvic injury treatment.

Since this is a delicate subject, even talking about it with other massage practitioners can be like opening a can of worms that either calls for a lengthy discussion or becomes a conversation stopper.

You never know.

In our society, the genital region is taboo and working around this highly charged area is something most massage practitioners and bodyworkers just do not do. And I get it. I completely understand why groin and pelvic work isn’t all that popular with my fellow massage practitioners.

Let me put this out there: People truly need this type of elemental and integrative body work. So much of our culture’s stresses and long-term pains are held onto in the pelvic region.

Who knows if it began with the repressed way we’ve held things inside for generations, and it may date back to the whole formation of this great big crazy body of a country (the body inside our own minds, the body politic, the bodies of all these humans around us we come into contact with), but healing and release needs to happen more often.

Most healers and body-workers I have met through the years have hearts so big and generous – they want to give their healing skills to everyone.

They know they can benefit anyone they touch.

But what is best for my client? What does any perspective client REALLY need?

Some times it is clear: they want to heal their low back pain, for example.

Sometimes is is very unclear what needs to be healed. I find that most people, however – when they seek healing – will be often naturally guided to find the healing modality and practitioner(s) that will be of the HIGHEST GAIN to their healing paths.

Another way of saying this is: when you find the correct practitioner and modality FOR YOU – you will leap and bound into greater expressions of good health in a relatively short period of time with regular treatments or even just one treatment.

Good and lasting healing is often something of an investment in time and money.

Sometimes something like chronic low back pain takes a year or two of consistent injury treatment sessions to completely heal the pain so that it hardly comes back. (I ask you this: how long did it take for the pain to get there?… a lifetime, perhaps?)

The point of that ramble is: because clients often have specific needs – it would only make sense that practitioners of healing arts SPECIALIZE in one or two things – aka- they create a niche for themselves so that those searching clients find exactly what they are looking for in a healer.

I found out, years ago, that my passion for massage was invigorated by the assessing and treating of pain and injury in the groin and pelvic regions.

My motivation for improving my skills in treating the hip and groin made me feel “in” the “student mind.” Like being in massage school, I was so excited and fascinated to learn and practice bodywork.

Because of my personal interest in this aspect of massage, I have become adept at treating trauma, pain and injury in the groin, pelvis, low back and hips.

I helped heal physical trauma in the pelvic region, as well as the psychological, mental, and emotional trauma that is so often associated with the pelvic region.

To wrap this all up – it seems wise to choose your practitioner with care.

If you know what you need – find and go to a specialist.

If you know you want to improve the quality of your life and you know you need healing but you don’t know where to look: try energy healers, talking therapies, movement therapies, mystical therapies or things you would not have tried otherwise as well as socially accepted modalities.

Sometimes finding your perfect healing match is part of your healing path. Sometimes finding a practitioner who can help deeply heal you is like stepping out of your box and out of your comfort zone.

I would say too, that a healing practitioner – finding their niche can be a part of their healing path as well.

For my fellow practitioners: get specific, if you aren’t already.

We are not in competition. We are working together to save and improve the lives of the people on this planet.

Niche yourself!

In a city like Seattle, where the clinics and spas are packed with talented professional massage therapists, how do you choose your massage practitioner?

What do you need? A spa setting? A clinic? Hot stones or perhaps energy work?

Your needs are specific. What I provide is specific as well.

I specialize in treating injuries in the groin, pelvis, low back and hips. I have been focusing on this work since 2002 while also treating all the other types of injuries as well.

I had recognized at that time that I was afraid to touch people?s inner thighs during massage.

My work ethics, my pride, my professional standards and my ego were not very happy with this.

So I went to work getting more comfortable with doing massage in the groin and pelvic areas.

I started practicing on closer friends, trades colleagues and long-term clients of that time. At first, I asked lots of ?are you ok with this? questions.

Over time, I have been able to treat pelvic and groin injuries with not only confident specificity but with care, safety and compassion as well!

It?s very exciting to say all this considering, on the business end of my massage practice, I have been contemplating a niche.

Choosing a niche is like jumping off a cliff and I have niche-ed before and it did not go as well as I had planned.

And considering that niche ? this particular niche ? is like jumping off an even taller cliff.

Be-gad.

But the truth is, there?s a need out there for massage Practitioners that are adept in groin massage, and pelvic massage!

People get injured there! It needs to be treated. I do it well and, dare I say it, it?s one of my great passions to treat the pelvic and groin structures in my bodywork practice.

People that have received my work often comment on how the pain truly decreased in their low backs in a significant and lasting way.

I am adept at core-muscular treatment over-all but the pelvis, hips and thighs are where my skills and talents as a treatment specialist really shine.