003_the history o ftouch (1)

8/12/2019 003_the History o Ftouch (1)

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C h a p te r 2

A B rie f H is to ry o f T o u06 08 00 80 0. 006 800 000 080 8 0006 0* 00

In Th is C hap te rThe development of massage therapy around the world

00- Massage in today's world

Where massage is going

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h is chapter is supposed to extol the virtues of certain Greek physicianswho developed massage a couple thousand years ago, and then it's sup-

posed to move on to the beginning of the twentieth century and talk about acertain Swedish man who was the father of modern western massage. Andthen the chapter should chronicle the . . . ZZZZZZZZZZ.

Was that the sound of your head smacking the table? Are you already gettingso bored that you're about to fling this book against the nearest wall in des-peration? "Why can't he tell me something fascinating and different?" you'reabout to scream.

Okay, I can hear the psychic echoes of your potential screams, so this chap-ter is going to be a teeny bit different than the history chapters in mostmassage books, the ones that treat the chronology of massage like the dryacademic stuff you find in history texts. What could be more unlike thevibrant flesh-and-bones reality of a subject as physical as massage?

Dram at ic Mo m ents in M assage H is toryFor your benefit and edification, I'm going to recreate dramatic scenes fromvarious important massage moments throughout history. Much of what fol-lows has been garnished with a large dose of creative license, but restassured that the information is based upon historical fact. Only the boringparts have been deleted to protect the innocent reader.


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24 Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness

Sham an Bob han ds -on hea le rThousands of years ago, beneath the primeval rainforest canopies of the vastAmazon jungle in what is now part of Brazil, an old shaman squatted down bya river, twisting the leaves and stems of a hardy vine between his worn fin-gers. The shaman's name was unintelligible to modern ears, so we'll call himBob. His fingers were working the powerful ayuhasca vine, which gave hispeople visions that helped them to heal. Bob boiled the leaves and stems ofthe vine in water with other plants, making a thick syrupy tea that he broughtwith him back into the village.

It was night. The rainforest canopy above was filled with the screechingsounds of life. Arranging the members of the tribe in a circle around a fire hehad built, Bob gave them each sips of the tea, and they began to twirl and

dance and sing traditional songs. Some of them, the ones who needed healingthe most, fell into a trance, and Bob approached them.

As the others watched, Bob appeared to literally reach into each person'sbody with his fingers. Then his fingers would flutter up toward the dark skyabove the fire. He would touch them, brush them off, shake their limbs, stay-ing in almost constant contact, and everyone could see (with the help of theayuhasca) what Bob always saw blurry spots where each person's bodywas weak, demons of darkness clinging to a shoulder.

Although Bob used powerful herbs and jungle plants, his primary tool wastouch. The difference between a casual touch from another tribe member andan intentional, focused touch from Bob was sometimes the differencebetween life and death. His touch healed, and everyone knew it.

The Tao of m assageThe enigmatic Chinese word, Tao, confuses many people. For one thing, whyis the word spelled T-a-o when it's pronounced Dow? And for another thing,what's it supposed to mean anyway? Does it have anything to do with theNew York Stock Exchange?

Many of you have heard of the Tao of Pooh or the Tao of Physics or the Tao ofFlower Arranging, and if you ever read one of those far-out books on Easternphilosophy published in the 1970s the kind printed on organic-oatmealtype paper you probably remember the phrase, "The Tao that can bespoken of is not the true Tao." So then, how are you supposed to talk aboutit?

Regardless of the fact that you apparently can't talk about the Tao, you canstill talk about massage, which is exactly what an early Chinese Taoist didaround 5,000 years ago. He wrote a book called the Con Fou of Tao-Tse (CunFooh of Dow Zee) that described the use of medicinal plants, exercises, and a


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Greeks goeaIMagine the.;Greeksun burning in a clear, bluesky: Belovii,.inthe outdoorygrnazein,dozelis ofnaked athletes are

-ekercl4lrig, each of them so

tanned and muscled and'hialthy that they looklike, well, GreekWhy you ask?Theword gynmaSiuself comes from the Greekgym

,zein, which means"toexercise naked,

;'

fro4iymnos, naked. Those fun-lovihg Greeks, Itell ya.

At any rate, the sun's beating down, all thesenaked Greeks are running around outdoingeach other in feats offitness, and old AsciePluis over there in the trainer's corner, ready and

waiting each Erne anOther Adonis comes run-rung up w ith a torn Achillesferidl:, or sore lowerback. The natural thing,of course, is to offermassage, along with Other herbs and remedies.Supposedly, Asclepius became soproficient atthis healing that be could even raise the dead.As a reward, Zeus struck him down with a thun-derbolt and killed him.

This Aale brings us to one of the very earliestphilosophical lessons tied to the practice ofmassage : If yot:r like to massage naked Greekethletes,try to keep ita secret.

Chapter 2: A B rief History of Touch25G E TA te

system of massage for the treatment of disease. Because it was one of thefirst books ever written on any subject, the Con Fou really goes to show you

just how ancient and important this whole subject of massage is after all.

A G re e k m a n W ith a m iss io nAsclepius (as-klee'-pee-uhs), son of Apollo, the Greek god of healing, mayhave been an actual Greek man who lived around 1200 B.C., but just as likelyhe was a mythological figment of the Greek imagination. At any rate, he wascredited with being the first to combine exercise with massage. He alsofounded the world's first gymnasium.

T h e M id d le A g e sNobody massaged anybody else (or was even allowed to touch much) duringthe Middle Ages, which almost wiped out western civilization. Luckily, a fewhardy souls decided, despite vigorous opposition, to sneak off and toucheach other in barns, stables, and other hidden places whenever possible,thus assuring the continuation of the human race and allowing people achance to practice rudimentary massage techniques at the same time.Needless to say, the Middle Ages were not a good time to be a professionalmassage therapist, and many of them suffered extreme deprivations. In fact,some say that a famous book by Victor Hugo, and the Broadway musical


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26 Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater He alth and H appiness

The R ypoeritical oath You may won der why do ctors ha ve to take ahypocritical oath after they finish medicalschool and before they begin practicing. Afterall, you trust your physician with your life; whywould you wa nt hjm or her to be a hypocrite?

The answer is simple. They're not taking a hyp-ocritical oath, b ut-rather a Hippocratic Oath,which me ans that it was first uttered by noneother than that great G reek physician himself,Hippocrates (460 3808,C,). In the very first lineof this oath, Hippocrates swears by Apollo and

Asclepius to uphold the vir tues of his healing art,

to not seduce women or m en) in the house-,.holds he vis a physicjah, and to abstain

from mischief kinds. ..a d irates also Spoke about massage move-

ments, saying that "hard rubbing binds, muchrubbing causes parts to waste, and mode raterubbing ekes them grow.",:He recommendedmassage foe*ny conditions.

So, the man who penned thaVvords that physi-cians around the w orld utter to this day was a

believer in massage. Go fighre.

based upon it, are actually plagiarized versions of an original story about thelives of these wretched medieval massage practitioners. Sadly, the originalmanuscript has been lost, and the true origins of Les Massagerables will for-ever remain a mystery.

The Sw edish scenar ioIn most places you go in the western world today, when you ask for a mas-sage, you'll receive one form or another of Swedish massage. And so, you mayask, why is it called Swedish massage? Here are some of the typical answerspeople have given to that question:

1.0" People in Sweden were the only ones liberal enough to allow massage tobe named after them.

kor The Swedish director Ingmar Bergman liked to receive massage after ahard day on the movie set, and so they named the technique after him.

mo Nobody knows why it's called Swedish massage, but everyone agrees itsounds better than Lithuanian massage or Uruguayan massage.

Actually, Swedish massage is named after a Swedish physiologist and fencingmaster by the name of Per Henrik Ling (1776-1839), who developed a system ofMedical Gymnastics that included the moves we now use in basic massage. Heeventually became known as the father of physical therapy. The fact that his


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Massag ng Cam and AbePerhaps thediscordin the massage world canbe ,treted backt6ilie.pair of Adierican:brotherswho weref i APqnsib leforbringing m ass tothe Uni ates from Sweden serdGeorge Taylor. The fraylef...bitithersshairttf i lar interests, obviously; they baiW, bcatriodoctors, both vverit to Europe ,:te JeartilheseneWec ues, and theyboth W antetto s pen4.their

lives helping other people. But, as soseems tohappenwhenpeOple go on a :quest tohelp others, they just c4tildn4 sebtii. to bi::itong

themselves.Coating back to New York in the 1859s theyopened a clinic together, but within a year theidissolved itlind went their own ways.

"It's MY tec hnigue for helpingother peoplef eedr, said Charles, adjusting hisbovyter 'hathis head,

"No way, it'smine, replied George, ad.ustinghis identical bowler cap.

"Min

'Mine.

6n0!:-tomogrtoil s,oprObtem2lbetlIa$:perpsted-Tot1 is day, w ith ariious4100004frroiatori andotiOxiptior0WOMirigt4titOi(w4,.0160:00Itw a y.George and Charles Taylor were tieCainera Abel of; f i ro:-#04 .00'000440.Pi-WO.And,:even,

7;: . 7

,f9 1141P P 0 P 10 :feel-

:.PP:lbOtt9rjRnPAPY

rtents aittIolloi.400kfoodkOebOtairriln,theirsasthe best .Thrs bask, l hype, will helpy4u gain anappreciation for ma'ssag e es a who le.

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Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 27original system embraced massage is interesting because physical therapists inthe modern world have to a large degree ostracized massage from their reper-toire, and there is sometimes discord between them and massage therapists.

Decline o f m assage in thetw entieth centuryDue to the infighting amongst massage practitioners, and the sudden, power-ful influence of technology in the medical world, massage faded from favorduring the early and mid-1900s. Also, the earlier popularity of massageinduced some people to try to make a profit from it illicitly. Around the turnof the century, several schools in Great Britain, for example, were turning out

poorly trained practitioners, some of whom ended up acting as prostitutes,which was a big downfall for massage. Since the days of Hippocrates, andeven further back into the ancient history of China and India, massage hadbeen accepted as a healthy pastime by a sizeable number of people. Now,things were different.

TA,


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Freud and m assageSigMOndFretidiAtie inventor of M odernpsydp0.-analysis,

:.;used",itiastage withhiS patients.

on, When. freed,wanted,40.valm reassureSu . : . . . . . . . . . . . . .: .his ClientSthathe wason:theiuSide; he usedmassage maneuvers primarilyhands:Unfortunately, Freud left massage Yehin&et,:hefi*her deVeloped his p sychoanalytictotnkues,., petkaos. out ofa fleae tna t wouldn'tbe

able to knowwhatwas reallyworking,talkingor touching. Buthewas greatly in favor of it fromthe start. In the modern wo rld, many ps ychologists are rediscovering:the power of messagea nd incorporating it into their practice Withbody-centered psychotherapy and somatictherapiet,

25 Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happ iness

s Tke Throughout the mid-1900s, many massage therapists in the U.S. worked in a YMCA or a Turkish bath house and weren't expected to do much more thanpummel their victims (er, clients) with some extraordinarily vigorous maneu-vers, usually meant to purge the recipient of excess alcohol and fatty acidsingested the night before. In fact, some spa towns, such as Hot Springs,Arkansas, had massage facilities that were open on Sunday mornings espe-cially for this purpose. The upstanding men of the community came in earlyto have the effects of Saturday night's revelry pounded and sweated out ofthem by hardy massage practitioners.

Hipp ies save m assage from ex tinctionOverall, things weren't going so well for massage in the United States. Andthe same was true, for the most part, in Europe. Only people with hangoverswanted massage._Of course, on a worldwide level, massage in many areas stillretained the same untainted prestige it had enjoyed for centuries. But even inthe most remote areas there was a clamoring for things new vibrating mas-sagers instead of actual massages, for instance and as technologicalrevolution swept the planet, it left people high and dry as far as contact goes.

The human species was literally getting out of touch.

As always, when society swings too far in one direction, a mounting momen-tum tends to bring it back toward equilibrium. Somewhere in the 1960s,people began to tire of the soulless sway of machines and technology in theirlives, and they started to react against it. These revolutionaries were calledhippies, or flower children, and they spread out from San Francisco to covermuch of the world, toting with them tie-dyed T-shirts, prayer beads, big blackvinyl discs called albums, and home made massage tables.


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Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 29

Keep in ouch, LorraineTh e hippie mov ement brought people back intotouch with themielves, as exemplified by thestory.of Lorraine, wh o, in 1968, com idn't,depide

etly what to do w ith her life and so w ept offin search ofsomethingnew in Californiklike somany of her ge 7tation.

"i Peed to get in touch w ith myself, intonedLorrairie to ,anyone wh oasked her what she

was doing. P'erhaps she didn't realize how pre-cise her choice of words truly was.

Heading her faded yellow VW.Bug west. with'Go A sk A lice" playing.,overandiciveragain onthe eight-track tape-deck mounted under thedash,Lorraine- kept driving anddriving :Until she

came to the remote spot on the windinghigh-asputhOtBitStitin'cilifOrniethaiTso man y

people :had.:Olti her

The place w as called the E salen: institute, and itwas 1106 0::f0i 'O:00:000 1:1 6

.448 'sing Wbfk-

justplainblitsingPiit -PePplefrornakOkeriffe,WOrld

came to to get ieCk . .

. : 1 6touchwiththe selves and withlife Lo rraineFmovedIn, stavoaltitfive yea rs)And.;b1tOP tithe sloe leftshe had found her calling in lifer. . .and ...became amassage therapist.

M a s sa g e To d a yThrough the years, massage has had a serious, multiple-personality disorder,kind of like Sybil. Every time you look at it, you're never sure exactly whatyou're going to see. A Greek physician massaging athletes? A Swedish physio-therapist creating movements to help ease common suffering? A shamanpurging evil spirits? A spiritual seeker sending healing vibrations through herfingers during an Esalen style massage at a spectacular seaside retreat?

S o m a n y ch o ic e sMassage is enjoying such a large renaissance right now, in fact, that at timesthe market may appear glutted with too many massage therapists. An alterna-tive newspaper in Asheville, North Carolina, for instance, printed a cartoonsummarizing the plight of that city's abundance of highly trained, under-employed massage therapists. The cartoon showed an out-of-work therapiststanding at a corner holding up a sign: "Will massage for food."

So where does that leave you as you head out the door today, tomorrow, ornext week to go seeking your own massage experiences? Well, you certainly


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30 Part I: Discovering M assage for Greater Health and Happ iness

have a lot more choices, which I clarify in Chapter 9. You also have a lot moremassage therapists to choose from somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000new massage therapists in the U.S. each year, for example. And France, which

is not a huge country, has over 35,000 practicing kines, short for kinesiothera- peut, their term for massage/physical therapist. These practitioners arepopular, partly because insurance has covered their services since 1974;people in France are used to receiving massage as part of their healthcare.

Although you do have more choices than ever, I think the assumption thatwe're getting anywhere near a critical mass of massage practitioners in theworld is mistaken. There are just too many people around these days to mas-sage over six billion of them as of August 1999 and the populationcontinues to expand rapidly.

What you can expect in terms of massage in the year 2000 and beyond is anever-increasing number of choices, kind of like you find in those designercoffee shops. Whereas before the choice used to be simple regular ordecaf? now you're faced with an overwhelming array of mochas andfrappes and lattes and on and on. This phenomenon has been termed theStarbuckizing of massage.

Touch research

To keep up with all the rapid changes and to document the effectiveness of

massage in the midst of all these changes, somebody had to start some seri-ous research into the matter, and that's just what they do at the TouchResearch Institute.

If you happen to live in South Florida, and you were to stroll down to thelocal medical center, you probably wouldn't be too surprised to find somescientific studies being conducted in one of the buildings there. But you maybe surprised to find that, instead of an operating room or a clinic, these stud-ies are being conducted in softly lit chambers with flute music playing in thebackground. And the subjects, instead of undergoing cutting-edge medicaltechnologies, are receiving the age-old techniques of massage therapy.

The Touch Research Institute was founded in Miami in 1992 to study theeffects of touch on human beings. Whereas the senses of smell, hearing,sight, and taste all have had their institutes and studies for decades, poorlittle orphan touch was neglected until the 1990s.

Perhaps touch was neglected because it is just so obvious. When you thinkabout it, nothing is not touch; your body is a large antenna feeling everythingas it happens to you. The other senses all involve touch in one way oranother, too; molecules of various kinds hit you in the taste buds, the opticalnerves, the ear drums, and the nasal passages, which set off the sensationsthat make the senses work.


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A massage plgrimage to Esa enThe pioneering work done at Esalen helpedkeep ma ssage alive ands fi after its decline inthe early and mid-1900s.Tsalen, located in BigSur, a couple hours south of San Francisco, wasfounded by Michael Murphy in 1952, and someof the best massage teadhers and researcharsin the world have taught and worked there.Theresult of their efforts has been a shifting otztlleentire paradigm upon which massage is bNo longer simply a remedial form of "gtics" to restore movement and ease

massaget has become a wayto increase aware-ness ind'sbinetiates even access the spirit.

If you're passionate about learning wh as-sage can be on this spirit-enhancing level, you

may want to make a trip to this massage-meccayoursOlf. Wherever you a re in the worfyouar massagI makingy o u r sage

age to Esalen w ill benefit your

Esalen's location itself is spectacu ar, perchedupon steep,,,sligs,, overhanging the PacificOcean, whI

rrings flow from the moun-

tainsidetainside diro .A

z . a series of pools adjacentto the ma ssage area . tEsaign's Web site is atwww.esalen.org )

Nudity alert' Esalen is clothingoptional, and nudity is common. Think of it as agroat way to get use ,to the grand mas-terpiece of the huinaiikdy.

Chapter 2: A Brief History of Touch 3

In 1998, two new Touch Research Institutes opened, one in the Philippinesand one in France, which points toward a globalization of studies on mas-sage. How can they get away with testing massage like that, you ask? How canpeople just lie around feeling good and then call it research? First of all, theydon't call it massage, but rather Tactile Kinesthetic Stimulation, which, trans-lated, means "massage that someone can receive a medical research grantfor." And the studies include extensive psychological tests, blood analysis,double-blind tests (tests in which neither the participants nor theresearchers know which subjects have a particular disease or condition andwhich don't), and a large amountof paperwork. So it's not just a big vacation.

Some of the studies that have been done at the Touch Research Instituteinclude the following groups:

v I-1W patients: Serotonin and killer T-cells increased due to the massage.

ko Premature infants: Massaged infants gained weight more quickly andleft the hospital an average of six days earlier than non-massagedinfants, at an average savings of $3,000.

kor Depressed teenage mothers: Massage helped them gain self-confidenceand provided a way for them to connect with their infants.

to' Children with post-traumatic shock syndrome after hurricaneAndrew: Massage offered psychological reassurance that the worldcould be a safe place again.

v. " Cancer patients: Researchers are still gathering data about how mas-sage can help with this disease.
http://www.esalen.org/http://www.esalen.org/


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32 Part I: Discovering Massage for Greater Health and Happiness

T h e F u tu r eof M assageMany people are familiar with John Naisbitt's book Megatrends, which dis-cusses the problems people face as society heads into an increasinglytechnological world. Naisbitt says that as people get more high-tech, theyhave to become equally high-touch as well. Massage, of course, is one obviousanswer to this dilemma.

Following are examples of some high-touch trends that show every sign ofcontinuing into the future as massage integrates more and more into soci-ety's high-tech lifestyle:

pi' Diplomacy: Massage therapists already travel around the world asambassadors of compassion. This trend will continue as hands-on tech-niques evolve and cross-cultural communication develops further.Performance: More and more performers, athletes, and high-profile indi-viduals will discover the value and relevance of massage. Everyprofessional sports team, for example, will have massage therapists onstaff (many do already), creating a trickle-down effect as fans and thegeneral public become increasingly aware of massage through theteam's example.

1.0 Affordability: As the world gradually shifts from a manufacturing-basedeconomy to an information- and services-based economy, the demandfor massage will continue to grow. Employers and insurance companies

will be increasingly willing to pay for massage services, which will benefitthe bottom line by reducing absenteeism, stress-related injury, and so on.

Increased sophistication: Massage techniques (some of which havebeen around for centuries) will become more and more sophisticated aspractitioners from various schools cross train and add new skills totheir repertoires.

003_the history o ftouch (1)

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