Taking Time to Dive Deep

I just came home from a 3 day shin tai retreat with my friend and colleague Celeste Rixey. We met at her family’s vacation home on a little secluded lake in the Catskills of New York state. It was wonderful to take the time to immerse ourselves into our chosen theme of central channel.* We spent most of our time reviewing class notes, exchanging treatments and sharing client experiences. It was so fulfilling and fun to dive into the materials together, and it took us deeper than we could have done on our own.

Evening break from shiatsu/shin tai immersion

I came home refueled with inspiration for our upcoming Central Channel class in Annapolis this March, as well as feeling clear and strong from the work we did on each other. Spending time with someone who is as interested in shin tai as I am was a real treat! In between study sessions we enjoyed healthy food and time outside - more support for expanding our awareness of how to perceive and work with energy.

Many people who study bodywork don’t develop a practice that supports their professional, financial and spiritual needs. One of the reasons behind this is a lack of ongoing education and support. Without these it can be challenging to develop the perception, technique, theory and communication skills needed to do effective healing work. Ongoing classes and a network of professional colleagues are 2 key things which can assist you to create the thriving practice you envisioned when you began your bodywork journey.

Many practitioners don’t put time aside for this kind of professional development due to lack of time, money or the will to make it happen. Let’s explore how you can avoid this pitfall and keep your practice thriving.

* The central channel is a circuit of energy that moves along the pathway of the spinal cord. It directly affects the functioning of the meninges, the spine, the central nervous system, the Governing Vessel meridian, the chakras, and the craniosacral fluid. Using non-force techniques, practitioners learn to identify and work with six distinct stages of stress to release and reintegrate trapped life force. Release of meningal stress patterns helps to improve a myriad of physical problems along with increasing emotional, mental and spiritual health. Click here to find out more about this upcoming 6 day class.

It Begins with You

You’ve probably experienced periods where you’re not feeling clear during treatments, you want more clients and/or you’ve become disconnected from the passion you used to have for bodywork. Perhaps your enthusiasm is not what it once was, and you no longer feel creative during your treatments. I think we’ve all been there. For some practitioners this situation can drag on and lead to a gradual diminishment or even end of their practice. What can you do if you find your practice feeling flat?

Number 1 is to take care of yourself. Self-development and care is a priority: nutrition, exercise, meditation, getting bodywork, spending time in nature, cultivating loving relationships - all these things expand health and consciousness. They naturally stimulate your ability to give excellent treatments and attract more clients. Sometimes it helps to be reminded that taking care of yourself isn’t a luxury, it’s part of your job! If you don’t schedule time for self-development much as you do other appointments there’s a good chance it will get shoved aside until everything else is done or dropped altogether.

Now onto other ways to keep your bodywork practice thriving.

Bodywork is a Lifetime Study

Touching others with skill and awareness is a lifetime study. Many of us bodyworkers take a 2-3 year intensive immersion in order to learn a modality and afterwards take more advanced courses once in awhile. For most people, this amount of training simply isn't enough to be able to give penetrating, transformative bodywork. To maintain a high level of enthusiasm and creativity requires something more.

To learn a complex skill, like playing a musical instrument, most most of us would likely need to take lessons for years and years, perhaps even for the whole time we’re using that skill. Without ongoing guidance and inspiration we can’t become an expert. Without good results we tend to lose momentum. We lose inspiration. Things become flat or ineffective. You may even find yourself bored by something that initially was incredibly interesting.

Have you ever watched a new technique being demonstrated in a class and gotten excited to use it in your practice, yet when you get home and try it you can’t figure it out? You’re not alone. This is a common occurrence that most of us have had many times.

SO helpful to have friends to help you find those landmarks!

I remember being in a Structural Alignment class with Saul back in the 90’s watching him demonstrate an anterior hip adjustment. The evaluation seemed so simple when he did it. The related adjustment looked easy: lay the person down in supine, bend the knee of the anterior side and bring the leg to its limit of motion and then talk the receiver through a series of gentle pushes against your resistance. As I went to practice in my group afterwards, I confidently palpated my receiver to find their PSIS and ASIS and found…. hmmm, wait a minute…. where is the PSIS? I think this right hip is anterior…. ? Ok, lie down and let’s do this. Hold on…. where exactly does my hand go? Do I have them press towards the floor with their foot or their knee or what? Jeez, I thought I understood this technique but I need to watch that again about 100 times 🙄. Maybe I’m no good at this.

If you’ve taken Shin Tai Structure, do you remember this? Anterior hip adjustment….

Learning a Complex Skill Takes Practice

While watching an expert demonstrate a technique, it can often look easier than it is. After all, the instructor is experienced and can work with effectiveness and nuance. Even if you watch carefully, take copious notes and even make a sketch showing how it works, this is only the beginning of learning a new technique. There’s a good chance that once you get home you won’t be able to remember the details of positioning and execution. You may go over your notes a few times, struggle to figure it out and eventually give up and move on to things you’re already comfortable doing.

We even see practitioners become frustrated and discouraged during a class. They expect they should be able to learn something right away just because they watched it once or twice and then tried it out on someone in class. It's NORMAL to not get it right away. It's NORMAL to need some ongoing help to really be able to apply what you've begun to learn. Especially with something as complex as healing bodywork.

Review & Followup is Key

Each class presents so much information, it is almost impossible to absorb it all the first time.

When you take a class for the first time there’s a good chance you didn’t catch more than 50% of the information. We encourage students to repeat classes at least once, especially the advanced work, as well as getting together with fellow classmates to practice. Otherwise, how are you going to incorporate the material you haven’t yet absorbed?

Without ongoing review and refinement with an instructor and/or colleagues, your skills may not develop past the beginner phase. Therefore, clients may not be experiencing real, consistent results. When you notice that and they don’t come back, you may find yourself losing the drive you once had. You may turn back to your previous work and drop the new material out of your repertoire after the first few weeks of trying it out.

Once of our goals at Shin Tai International is to provide resources to keep your skills fresh and developing, so that you can keep expanding your capacity to facilitate vibrant health in those you touch. We’ve spent the last 8 years developing a library of online courses full of shiatsu shin tai theory and technique. Topics are explained in detail with easy-to-follow written and video instructions. We invite you to take advantage of this unique collection by clicking the links below. Each course is a invaluable resource that will boost your skills, your income and your fulfillment all for less than the cost of a treatment!

Cultivating a Network of Support

Remember much easier it can be to learn and explore together?

Many times in shiatsu/shin tai classes people have a depth of experience with each other that is unique to the bodywork world. Due to the sensitivity needed to learn how to listen, touch and affect someone else’s energy system, along with the healing the work stimulates, students often move through deep release and processing together. But once the class is over everyone goes their separate ways.

How can we continue those relationships for our personal and professional growth? Conferences or ongoing practice groups would be great, but in many areas these are not easy to find. If you don’t have the drive to create them yourself, you may find yourself feeling rather isolated in your treatment room, trying to mature your skills on your own.

One of the benefits of the online courses is to provide a forum for you to interact with other colleagues. You can ask questions, share experiences and create relationships with bodyworkers around the world. Practitioners can generate new ideas, share knowledge and evolve skills. Cultivating this kind of connection builds a network that supports all of us professionally and personally. Plus, being part of a supportive community makes your life and work more fun.

Can you help me out?

Saul is behind the scenes on everything we share with you, although he isn’t teaching much and seldom writes articles or emails directly. He’s deeply involved in expanding the light body work as well as continuing to develop shin tai. My passion is to share this evolving information. But right now I’m not sure which way to focus. Which leads me to ask:

What would help you with your bodywork practice? Do any of the following make you say ‘YES, that’s it!’?:

More courses or livestreams? If so, what topics?
A retreat for practitioners here in the states?
Hearing more from fellow practitioners?
Weekly Q&A sessions with Saul or I?

Please leave any ideas, comments or requests below - I’d appreciate any feedback you have!

Thanks for being a part of this shiatsu/shin tai community. Your presence inspires us to create quality resources for practitioners like you. Bodywork is such a wonderful way to bring more health and consciousness into our world, and I feel honored to spend my time sharing the unique, empowering work that Saul has developed over the last 50 years. Sometimes it’s overwhelming choosing how to do that, but having too much amazing information to present is a lucky challenge to have :)