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    Explore " bodywork" with insightful episodes like ""Frozen Shoulder" Part 2", ""Frozen Shoulder" Part 1", ""Eastern Modalities" w/ Rick Gold", ""The Dark Side of Modalities" w/ Jason Erickson" and ""PTSD" w/Matthew Howe" from podcasts like ""How's The Pressure?", "How's The Pressure?", "How's The Pressure?", "How's The Pressure?" and "How's The Pressure?"" and more!

    Episodes (100)

    "Eastern Modalities" w/ Rick Gold

    "Eastern Modalities" w/ Rick Gold

    This week I am bringing in Rick Gold to talk about eastern styles of massage. But before I talk about him, I want to speak to an important point:

    I want to take a minute to talk about the next steps in the evolution of this podcast. I have been releasing episodes every 10 days or so for about 18 months and we are nearing in on our 60th episode. It has been a wonderful journey with lots of personal growth and education along the way, and although I look forward to continuing doing interviews with experts in the field, I am excited to announce a new format for some the future podcasts. It will be a panel of experts giving their perspective on how to work with some of the most common and challenging conditions that we face as massage therapists. Each episode will focus on a single condition, and we will get the benefit of seeing experts from all different perspectives and modalities discussing and exploring the subject. I will need a few months to conduct these interviews and get everything lined up. So this episode will be the last episode until the new year, when I will begin releasing these round table episodes. If you are familiar with my previous guests you will recognize some of the names on this panel. We will have Whitney Lowe, Joe Muscolino, Ruth Werner, Walt Fritz, and others including today’s guest, Rick Gold. I am super excited to introduce this format of podcast to you all. I hope you find it valuable and engaging!

    Now on to this particular episode. I have noticed that the vast majority of my guests have had their education and practices rooted in the western modalities. I believe it is really important to have a balanced set of perspectives, so I feel really good about bringing Rick in to help this podcast engage in the conversation around eastern modalities.

    I feel lucky to have Rick on for this conversation, as He has pursued advanced studies in China, Japan, and Thailand. He is one of the earliest pioneers of Thai Massage therapy in the United States, Brazil, Isreal, and Europe. He has written books on Thai massage and is considered an authority in the field. He is also one of the four founders of the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, a regionally and nationally accredited college of traditional Chinese Medicine with campuses in San Diego, Chicago and New York City. Oh! And he happens to be a licensed acupuncturist and holds a Doctorate in Psychology. 

    "The Dark Side of Modalities" w/ Jason Erickson

    "The Dark Side of Modalities" w/ Jason Erickson

    This week I am bringing in Jason Erickson to talk about modalities and why they can sometimes hold us back from being better therapists and better educators. A little bit about Jason, he is a former chronic pain patient, and his back to pain-free health inspired him to become a therapist, a trainer, and an educator. Jason has a Massage practice in Minnesota, where he also trains clients, and works with elite athletes. He is also the Master of Ceremonies for the San Diego Pain Summit and has presented at the International Massage Therapy Research Conference. I really enjoy Jason’s easy going style, and his passion to help people. We touch on a number of interesting topics in this episode, but the one that stuck out the most to me was how to approach a modality without loosing the flexibility to treat each client individually. As usual I ask my question about failure, and we learn what new habit he has recently adopted. 

    "PTSD" w/Matthew Howe

    "PTSD" w/Matthew Howe

    This week I am bringing in Matthew Howe to talk about working with clients who have PTSD. Matthew is the president of an international education company called Touch Education. He blends his 15+ years of clinical experience with the art and science of touch. They offer several continuing education classes with an emphasis on bodywork for PTSD. You may also have heard about him from an article he wrote for Massage Message about Autonomic Flexibility. I have had a few conversations with guests around working with Trauma, but talking with Matt gave me the opportunity to focus specifically on PTSD. I really enjoyed my conversation with Matt, as his personality is very warm and welcoming. I am sure this is one of the qualities that helps him be so successful as a practitioner and as an educator.

    "Online Marketing" w/ Rajam Roose

    "Online Marketing" w/ Rajam Roose

    This week I am bringing in Rajam Roose to talk about Online Marketing for massage therapists. Rajam started practicing massage back in 1999, and maintained a very successful practice for more than 15 years. She has since decided to pass along many of the tools to her success and and teach massage business owners the skills to take advantage of digital marketing and the confidence to do it successfully. While there is a lot of information and programs out there to help people take advantage of digital marketing, there was just not very much that was targeted specifically to help us bodyworkers navigate those waters. I can’t tell you how many times I have had students and colleagues tell me how they avoid online marketing and the moment it comes up in conversation they are like deer in headlights. It's my hope by bringing Rajam on to talk with me that we can start to break this subject down into more understandable pieces. Hopefully by the end of this conversation the subject my feel more accessible and perhaps even inspire a few of you to take that first step. Rajam also happens to be the founder and CEO of the San Diego Pain Summit. So I had to slip in a question about that event. I have heard about this Summit from several of my guests, and I am excited to say that I will be attending it in Feb 2019. One of my goals there is to meet and interview some of the presenters so that you as my listeners can benefit from some of the subjects we cover there. 

    "Massage Professionalism" w/Beverly Giroud

    "Massage Professionalism" w/Beverly Giroud
    This week I am bringing in Beverley Giroud to talk about Professionalism in the world of Bodywork. Beverly is the director of education at the costa rica school of massage, where among many other responsibilities she provides leadership, academic counseling, mentorship to support academic achievement for all students. She is also the author of a book called “Ethics and Professionalism for Massage Therapists and Bodyworkers". I thought it would be useful to bring someone in to talk about professionalism, because it can feel like both a catch-all phase, and quite subjective at the same time. So this conversation is designed to bring a little clarity to the issue. I ask questions about common ways massage professionalism gets ignored and about how sexual misconduct plays into that topic.

    "The Emotional Component of Massage." w/ Carole Osborne

    "The Emotional Component of Massage." w/ Carole Osborne
    This week I am bringing in Carole Osborne to talk about the emotional component of massage. A little bit about Carole, she is a practitioner, author, course developer and instructor and mentor. Her articles have appeared in many professional and mainstream publications since 1980. In 2008 she was the AMTA teacher of the year. She published a deep tissue textbook in 1990, and a book about infant massage in 1998. She is a continuing education provider, and is passionate about the material and spiritual connection inherent in bodywork. I really appreciated the conversation with Carole, because I have noticed my tendency to pick guests that fall more in the medical and orthopedic massage end of the spectrum. With Carole our conversation came back to more of the human element inherent in our work. We talk about the trend of avoiding the emotional component of massage, and about how we can find a better balance with that while still staying within our scope of practice. It was an interesting topic, and I appreciated the way Carole presented her thoughts considering that it is not an easy subject to be articulate about. As always with emotions, its more messy and gray area than it looks on first glance.

    "Massage in the Courtroom" w/ Ben Benjamin

    "Massage in the Courtroom" w/ Ben Benjamin
    This week I am bringing in Dr. Ben Benjamin to talk about being an expert witness in massage court cases. I have been curious about how massage therapists and massage businesses get sued and why for a long time now and when I think about it there is always a twinge of fear. I think mostly that fear comes from not knowing how often it actually happens, and worrying that because I am not completely informed on the topic, that I am more at risk. Anyway, for those of you who know me, if I have fear or anxiety around a subject then it won’t be too long before I find a way to have a public conversation about it. So here we are, and I thought it would be good to bring in Ben to talk about the topic because he has extensive experience in the massage room, the classroom, and the courtroom. Ben has been in the field for over 3 decades now. He regularly called upon to be an expert witness for massage legal cases, and I have been searching for quite some time to find someone in his position to interview about this subject. I am grateful for his honesty and forthcoming nature, as I have had several individuals tell me that they don’t want to be on the record for this subject matter. So I really appreciated his candor, and it helps me remember that it takes some resolve and a degree of risk to be willing to put your opinions out into the public sphere.

    "Procedural Memory" w/ Irene Lyon

    "Procedural Memory" w/ Irene Lyon
    This week I am bringing in Irene Lyon to talk about working with trauma. A little bit about Irene, she is a nervous system specialist and therapeutic coach who helps everyone — from the mom next door to the next big thought leaders — transform their bodies, businesses, relationships and lives through regulating their nervous systems. Irene has intensively studied and practices the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, Peter Levine (founder of Somatic Experiencing) and Kathy Kain (founder of Somatic Practice). Irene has a master’s degree in research in the fields of biomedical and health science. She regularly appears on podcasts and online summits teaching all things nervous system health, healing trauma and neuroplasticity. In this episode we cover what got her working in the field of trauma, and then dive into the subject of procedural memory. I was fascinated by the mechanics of procedural memory and ever since that conversation I have been paying attention to how it might play into my life and the lives of my clients. She also talks about the fight, flight, or freeze response. And we learn about the ACE study, which stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences, and the implications from that body of work. Here are some resources she mentioned: 1) Dr. Mate's first book,When The Body Says No - Understanding The Stress-Disease Connection 2) Dr. Mate's website https://drgabormate.com/ 3) The Need For Authenticity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUGGNPAK6uw 4) https://soundcloud.com/irenelyon/origins-of-the-ace-study 5) https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime

    "We are a body Part 1" w/ Karin Gurtner

    "We are a body Part 1" w/ Karin Gurtner
    I am bringing in Karin Gurtner to talk about Movement Therapy and how we as bodyworkers can learn from that practice and add value to the work we do with our clients. Karin is the founder of the art of motion, training in movement®, a renowned training organization for Contemporary Pilates & Slings Myofascial Training based in Switzerland and Australia. Her resume is quite impressive with certifications in massage, gyrokenisis, pilates, yoga, personal training and many many more. Without taking the next several minutes to list off all of her accomplishments and accreditations, hopefully it is suffice to say she is incredibly experienced, and a motivated learner through and through. This is Part 1 of our conversation, as we had so much content to cover that I thought it best to break it up in to two episodes. That being said, we do cover quite a bit in this first part, everything from what it means to move and how that effects our relationship with our body, to the value of conscious movement training, and finally we get more technical and discuss the difference between proprioception and interception. I really enjoyed my conversation with Karin, she has so much energy and excitement around learning about the body and how it works. Not only is her work inspiring, but her zest for life is contagious as well. She also has the honor of being my first guest to lead my audience through some movements during the episode. I’m curious to hear how that lands for you, so please send me an email through the website www.howsthepressure.com and let me know if it worked for you. I give you my conversation with Karin Gurtner.

    "Spatial Medicine" w/ Tom Myers

    "Spatial Medicine" w/ Tom Myers
    This week I am bringing in Tom Myers to talk about bringing anatomy trains to the larger healthcare community. We also talk about how he is using it to connect different health care providers within a common language. For those of you who don’t know Tom, I imagine that is a very small percentage of you out there, he is the founder and cartographer of Anatomy Trains. His work has literally changed our industry and understanding of not only how the body is put together, but how it functions from a myofacial perspective. Needless to say it is a great honor to talk to Tom about his work. When preparing for this conversation I can say that I was certainly a bit nervous, and wasn’t sure what to expect. What I found was that Tom is not only smart, articulate, and embodied, but he is also a truly kind human being. This is not always the case when someone comes into the kind of prominence that Tom has risen too. I immediately felt that he was open and welcoming. We covered a lot of ground, from his work facilitating conversations between different healthcare providers, to the way he helped his daughter develop kinetic intelligence before she could walk. It was, as I hoped it would be, an engaging and inspiring conversation.

    "Client Confidentiality" w/ Allissa Haines

    "Client Confidentiality" w/ Allissa Haines
    This week I am talking to Allissa Haines about client confidentiality. Now I know that all, or hopefully all of us believe that client confidentiality is an important factor in running a practice ethically. However I thought it would be good to bring in someone to talk about where there might be some grey areas for some therapists. How far do we take it? What is the ethical standard we are shooting for? Are there circumstances where it doesn’t really apply? Where do we commonly make mistakes in on this topic? I ask some of these questions and more of Allissa, who also has a massage podcast called “Massage Business Blueprint”. She has written articles in many publications, including a regular column in Massage and Bodywork Magazine. She teaches all over the country, has been running a thriving private practice for over 13 years, and is a big advocate of online marketing for massage. Producing the podcast has allowed her to cultivate a community of massage therapists who are passionate about growing their business and being the best therapists they can be. For those of you not familiar with it, I would highly suggest you check it out. Now despite how it might see that the topic of client confidentiality is pretty narrow, the conversation actually covers quite a bit of ground. From handling multiple family members, to handling the death of your client. Because Allissa runs an online forum for bodyworkers, I also had to get her two cents on how to get the most out of social media and online communities. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Allissa.

    "The Mechanism, Part 2" w/ Joe Muscolino

    "The Mechanism, Part 2" w/ Joe Muscolino
    This is the second half of my conversation with Joe Muscolino. If you missed the first half of our discussion I would highly recommend listening to that episode first so that you can have context for this discussion. At the end of this episode you will get to hear about some of the work that Joe does, as well as his online video library. If you find Joe’s process helpful and want to learn more I would highly suggest checking it out. I recently talked with Joe and managed to get all of my listeners a free month trial of his video library service. All you need to do is go to https://learnmuscles.com/?ref=34 and enter the coupon code freemonthhtp. Anyway, I hope you check out his library, he uploads 7 new videos per week, so there is a lot of content to be had. But back to this episode, for a little bit of context, Joe is talking about a client he once saw who he thought had performs syndrome but it turned out to be dysfunction in a small muscle called coccygeus, and that he only was able to deduce that by being objective. Its from there that we start this episode where I ask him a question about being objective.

    "The Mechanism, Part 1" w/ Joe Muscolino

    "The Mechanism, Part 1" w/ Joe Muscolino

    This week I drop in with Joe Muscolino who is a well traveled continuing education instructor. The conversation we recorded had so much content that I decided to break it into two episodes so that it wasn’t too overwhelming. I find it useful to have information broken down into chunks. If you are an individual that does not like to have to wait to hear or see the conclusion of something, then I recommend you wait until the second episode is released to listen to the first. Joe is a Doctor of Chiropractic who has been in private practice since 1985, he has taught anatomy and physiology at the university level for 5 years, and he taught at a massage school for 24 years, and he does workshops all over the world. He writes a regular feature article in massage and bodywork magazine, and he has written many other articles for other magazines and trade journals across the field. He also has an extensive online video library and resource center catered to manual therapists which you can find here: https://learnmuscles.com/?ref=34 for a free month use the promo code freemonthhtp.

    "MFR" w/ Walt Fritz

    "MFR" w/ Walt Fritz
    This week I am bringing in Walt Fritz to talk about MFR, which stands for Myofascial Release. Walt Fritz is a licensed physical therapist with a B.S. in Physical Therapy and B.A. in Community Mental Health. He has been a physical therapist since 1985 and has taught Myofascial Release continuing education since 1995. Walt also operates the Pain Relief Center, in Rochester, NY. Where he sees both local clients, as well as clients who travel from across the country. You can learn more about him at waltfritz.comI really enjoyed my conversation with Walt. He is clear, specific, and concise. In this episode we cover a number of subtopics around Myofascial Release. In particular why he started practicing it as a Physical Therapist, and how his relationship with the work changed over time. We touch on a number of important human topics, like what it means to lose community, the importance of communication and feedback, and finally what it takes to stand up for what you believe, especially when the people around you do not agree. I hope you enjoy this conversation. I give you Walt Fritz.

    "Sports Massage" w/ George Kousaleos

    "Sports Massage" w/ George Kousaleos
    This week I talk with George Kousaleos about collaborating with healthcare teams in the sports context. We cover a number of sub topics, like his work with the Olympic teams in 1996 and 2004. As well as his involvement in XPE sports and working with professional athletes and college athletes hoping to make it to the NFL. He explains his method of including and training massage therapists in the art of working with high performance athletes and how to do that within the context of a healthcare team. We cover common mistakes that massage therapists make as members of a healthcare team, and of course I ask my question about failure.

    "Massage Research" w/ Susan Salvo

    "Massage Research" w/ Susan Salvo
    This week I drop in with Susan Salvo to discuss research projects she has done regarding massage. We also talk about how data from studies make its way into our text books, and about the decision process of what stays in and what leaves as the new editions are updated. We also talk a little bit about massage therapists getting sued, and I ask a few questions about the business end of massage therapy. As usual I ask my question about failure, and we see if I can finally stump a guest with a questions about bad advice.

    "Cadaver" w/ Bonnie Thompson

    "Cadaver" w/ Bonnie Thompson
    This week I talk with Bonnie Thompson about Anatomy and Physiology. Bonnie is the founder of an institute that allows massage therapists and others to study the human anatomy through the use of cadavers. We talk about many aspects of her work, including why she started this project in the first place? Why she chose to work with cadavers? What they add over a textbook? We learn some cool things about the abdominal region and we talk about a failure of hers with a massage client. Lastly we learn what is next for her institute.