The LMT Refinery

In my early massage days, I remember sitting on my rolling stool doing neck work and thinking, “Man, I wish I could just throw my foot up here and decompress this shoulder while I work.” 😂

Enter barefoot massage a few years later…and it opened up a whole new world and solved some major “problems” for me.

I LOVE seated barefoot work, especially the ability to have up to four points of contact at once.

One contact can anchor while another explores. My foot can create broad, steady compression or traction while my hands stay available for the detailed work. I can distribute pressure, make tiny adjustments, and stay connected to multiple areas at the same time.

Four points of contact isn’t about doing more.
It’s about feeling more.

It gives me more options for how I connect, assess, and respond to what I’m feeling.

And for me (and my clients) that’s where some pretty cool therapeutic gains live👣🙌

Sometimes the thing you wished you could do years ago just needed a different tool.

There’s something really rewarding about building a business that can grow beyond your own two hands.

And it definitely didn’t happen overnight. Growing a team comes with a whole different set of lessons…hiring, training, letting go of control, figuring out culture, making mistakes, and learning how to lead people without expecting them to be you.

It’s become one of my favorite things to talk about with other massage therapists, especially when they’re starting to think about growing beyond a solo practice.

Not because everyone needs a team. They absolutely don’t.

But if that’s the direction you want to go, there’s a lot I’ve learned along the way that I’m always happy to share 🤍

Active movement added a whole new dynamic to my work.

Active Ashi wasn’t really something I sat down and decided to create. It grew through exploration.

A lot of it started with an amazing client who was always willing to let me experiment, give me honest feedback, and explore movement in ways that were a little outside of how I had traditionally worked.

Add in conversations and feedback from chiropractors I work alongside, plus my increasingly nerdy obsession with kinetic chains after we created our Mat Based Techniques class…then Active Ashi started taking shape.

That’s the part I love most about bodywork.

It gives me information I don’t necessarily get from working on a completely passive body. Movement changes relationships throughout the body, and I get to feel and respond to those changes in real time.

And it doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes it’s a small movement layered into a very simple contact.

Active Ashi grew from curiosity, collaboration, and a lot of “huh…what happens if we try this?”

Which, if I’m being fair, is how a lot of my work has evolved.

We’ve got a ONE spot left in Active Ashi during our October Focus Weekend in Palm Harbor if you want to come nerd out with us 👣🤓

(Grounded Flow is full, and we have a couple spots left in Tools and Touch)

8CEs | NCBTMB and CEBroker approved

As massage therapists, we are a collection of our experiences.

I’ve taken classes I thought I would love, only to realize the work wasn’t for me and never use it again.

I had a client ask me for TWO YEARS to take a barefoot massage class. I resisted because, quite frankly, I thought it was weird 🫣

It ended up being one of the most career-changing choices I ever made.

Every class. Every client. Every experience. Every interest we chase down because we’re curious. They all shape the way we eventually show up at the table.

Some of my work was taught to me by fantastic teachers. Some has been self-discovered and intuitive. Some has been shaped by experiences that taught me exactly what I didn’t want to do.

Today, I use my hands, feet, knees, elbows and forearms. I use movement. I use compression, shear, specificity and broad pressure. And I try to stay curious in the moment rather than being loyal to any one technique.

Because there’s a whole conversation happening during a massage that will never fit into a short Instagram reel.

I’m listening to what you tell me during your intake. What you tell me during the session. What you don’t say. How you breathe. How you move. How your tissue responds. And I’m constantly letting that information influence what I do next.

That’s the skill.

Not having the biggest collection of techniques.

Knowing when, why and how to use what you’ve learned.

Stay curious 💛

My favorite thing about this whole experience was watching the exact same reel land completely differently depending on the platform 🤔

But underneath all the chaos, it reminded me how easy it is to become rigid in an industry that should require a LOT of critical thinking and adaptability.

There are so many ways to work with the human body. I don’t need to practice all of them. I don’t even need to like all of them. But I want to understand something before I decide it has no value.

Twenty years in and I still want to be the therapist asking, “Huh. Why do they do it that way?”

Not the one yelling from the comments that everyone else is doing it wrong.

Stay curious, friends.

Some of these might ruffle a few feathers 😅

But here’s what I actually mean:

Too much lotion = less control and less ability to engage the tissue.

Coming in hot = going from zero to DEEP without giving the nervous system or tissue time to adapt.

Your phone = unless there’s a legitimate reason, it doesn’t belong in your hand during someone’s session.

Lights = give them a minute. Let them come back to earth before you hit them with the fluorescents 😂

Talking = follow the client’s lead. Some want connection. Some want silence. And sometimes we need to communicate because, you know…we’re working with another human being.

Discounting = stop deciding what other people can afford for them.

Draping = your client’s comfort level matters more than yours. Appropriate, secure draping doesn’t have to mean exposing as much as you personally feel comfortable with.

And the internet one? 👀

I don’t want to see your cheeks or your crotch in b***y shorts while doing massage. If the primary reason a technique is being filmed or performed that way is because it looks provocative, extreme, or gets attention…maybe ask yourself why. Who are you trying to attract 🤔

Massage doesn’t need to look crazy to be effective.

Did I miss one?
What would you add?

Massage therapists are really good at making things pretty.

Pretty websites. Pretty Instagram feeds. Beautiful branding.

But pretty doesn’t automatically equal findable.

And lately, doing SEO audits and websites for other massage therapists has made me realize how much opportunity is sitting right there for small practices that have never really thought about how Google (and potential clients) understand their business.

You don’t necessarily need a giant marketing budget or some complicated SEO strategy.

Sometimes you just need to make it really freaking obvious who you help, what you do, and where you do it.

Start there.

Then make it pretty 😂

And if you need help figuring out what Google thinks you do, let me know 😉

Grounded Flow looks a little different because it is.

Instead of relying on deep, downward compression, we change the angle of pressure. Fascial grip + glides create shear through the tissue, giving us access to deep fascial work without deep compression.

It’s a totally different engagement of the tissue.

Then we layer in active movement. Now we’re not just working with tissue, we’re adding sensory input while the nervous system is actively coordinating movement. We can explore new movement options under load, rather than only working on a passive body.

And the question I get every time I show this position:

What about your hip flexors?! 😳

For me, not at all. It’s all in how we shift and distribute our weight instead of holding ourselves there with force we use the wall and stabilizing straps (it’s all about angles.) I actually get a pretty great stretch here, and it feels good to me.

This footage is sped up 7x.
Slowness is a skill.

Grounded Flow will be back in 2027, but if you don’t want to wait, there are still a couple spots left in our upcoming October Focus Weekend 👣

(This class is also offered at LMT REFINERY MI. Keep an eye out for class dates next year too)