tell us about a great massage you’ve received, ask questions,... · our intention is to reach out...
TRANSCRIPT
Your Massage School and Community NEWSLETTER
published by the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy
October 1, 2020
This is your school newsletter. Published bi-weekly, it consists of
information, articles, stories, opinions, perspectives, interviews and
calendar events, any information that might be useful to massage
therapists. It is about you and the experience of massage therapy.
However, this is more than just the school newsletter in that it represents
our massage community, served by the school. With this publication, we
reach out to anyone who may have had some connection to the school,
whether as a student, graduate, faculty, staff, attendee of our Continuing
Education offerings or as a guest.
I invite you to contribute. Send in your stories, your experiences, your
viewpoints. Tell us about a great massage you’ve received, ask questions,
pose dilemmas, let us know of your successes.
And don’t forget. Send a photo, one that tells us a bit about you. Stay
connected.
Kenn Howard, editor
FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK
Welcome to the expanded Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy
community newsletter! Our intention is to reach out to and strengthen all
members of the PSMT family – students, faculty, staff, graduates and
continuing education attendees. We hope to keep you connected and
informed, and to bring our community together during these challenging
times.
Since we closed the school building in March, we have been planning and
preparing for the return of operations to the building. In August, we
resumed our first classes and our main focus since then has been getting
current students through the program. We have also focused on testing our
new COVID-19 protocols.
Our first new students will start their program in January. We are gradually
bringing all aspects of our operations back to life as safely and as carefully
as possible.
We thank you for being a part of the PSMT family and are doing our best to
support the Massage Therapy community – both present and
future. Together we will be successful, together we will be strong, together
we will excel!
David Briggs, Director
UPCOMING EVENTS
BECOME SERENE WITH TIMOTHY’S MEDITATIONS
These meditation sessions will be every Friday morning through December 18. All will be at 9
a.m.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88406629347?pwd=OFlEcStBNjI0UG9RNW0wT3BmWEFVUT09
Meeting ID: 884 0662 9347
Passcode: 984045
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CONTINUING EDUCATION
Following is a list of upcoming Continuing Education workshops that are available to
you. You can still renew your license with credits in on-line workshops.
First, these are the live, on-line workshops. (Following these are the in-class workshops.)
• Tuesday, October 13, 6 - 10 p.m.
Ethics for the Massage Professional
Kenn Howard
• Wednesday, October 14, 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Ground your Massage with the Roots of Reiki
Timothy Kocher-Hillmer
• Saturday, October 17, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- repeat presentation
Ground your Massage with the Roots of Reiki
Timothy Kocher-Hillmer
• Saturday, November 7, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Ayurveda for Massage Therapists: An Introduction
Timothy Kocher-Hillmer
• Saturday, November 14, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Ethics for the Massage Professional
Kenn Howard
• Saturday, December 5, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Anatomy of Breath: Deepening your Massage Practice
Timothy Kocher-Hillmer
• Saturday, December 12, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Ethics for the Massage Professional
Kenn Howard
• Thursday, January 7, 6 - 10 p.m.
Ethics for the Massage Professional
Kenn Howard
Now the live, in-class workshops.
• Friday, October 16, 6 - 9 p.m.
AHA Heartsaver Adult CPR/AED
Dave Briggs
• Friday, November 20, 6 - 9 p.m.
AHA Heartsaver Adult CPR/AED
Dave Briggs
• Saturday, December 19, 2 - 5 p.m.
AHA Heartsaver Adult CPR/AED
Dave Briggs
• Sunday, January 10, 2 - 5 p.m.
AHA Heartsaver Adult CPR/AED
Dave Briggs
Please note: Due to the coronavirus, our in-person CPR classes will be offered with strict
Coronavirus Protocols in place. Registration will be limited to 10 people per class and no one
will be admitted to the building without a mask.
All registrations must be done using the links on the school website:
https://www.massageschoolpittsburgh.com
Click on Continuing Education and then click on the particular workshop you want. This will
take you to a description of the course. Click on CLICK HERE TO REGISTER and this will
take you to PayPal.
(The only exception will be if you have a credit due to a cancelled class. In this case send an
email to [email protected] to register.)
See you soon!
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WHAT’S OPEN?
Competent as they are, our staff is limited for now.
Telephone calls are likely to get answered by the staff on Mondays through Thursdays from 9
a.m. until 5 p.m.
The store is open on Mondays and Wednesdays from noon until 6 p.m.. To be safe, call first to
verify.
We will announce changes as they are made.
CONTACTS
You may have questions about your schedule, about your payments, about school protocol, or
a million other things. These people can answer 99% of your questions.
Dave Briggs, director — [email protected]
Stacey Briggs, accounting — [email protected]
Mara Adams, records — [email protected]
Kenn Howard, newsletter — [email protected]
WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION
Dr Susan Salvo is a hotshot in our field of massage therapy. She has been in practice for 40
years, she’s written two best-selling textbooks (which we use in our program,) and has
contributed to many other professional publications. She teaches at the Louisiana Institute
of Massage Therapy and posts instructional videos on YouTube. Her list of credentials goes
on.
Susan is currently one of a team of therapists who, through the Alliance for Massage
Therapy Education (AFMTE,) offers a mentorship program: a “mentor-mentee pair
bringing together unique skills and challenges to a relationship of learning and sharing.”
Our instructor, Timothy Kocher-Hillmer, became a mentee of Susan’s and views his
participation in this program as a journey of “self exploration, confidence and more
presence.”
Timothy tells it like this. “Did you ever stop and look around and wonder how the heck you
got to wherever it was you happened to be? Well, this is what happened to me this past
summer. All of a sudden I found myself in the middle of a world I didn't recognize. And to
top it off, I applied to the Mentorship Program of the AFMTE.
[I was able to] “get up close and personal with Susan Salvo, my mentor.”
To capture this experience, Timothy wrote a blog. It’s in three parts. Here are the links.
https://www.afmte.org/experiences-of-an-afmte-mentee-part-1/
https://www.afmte.org/experiences-of-an-afmte-mentee-part-2/
https://www.afmte.org/experiences-of-an-afmte-mentee-part-3/
COVID CORNER
As we all know by opening our eyes and looking around, there is a lot of information, and
misinformation, concerning COVID-19. As massage therapists, it has been a challenge to sort
through this information to see how we might continue to practice our profession while
keeping our clients, and ourselves, safe. As members of society, we also want to do our best in
our practices, to reduce any risk to the general public.
Elizabeth M Erbrecht, LMT, BA, EOLD, is our primary Pathology instructor and has been
diligent in tracking the movement of COVID-19. Here is her first contribution to Covid
Corner, reminders of what to do not to spread any COVID germs.
Make sure you are wiping down everything you and your client touches after each
session. Use 70% alcohol or a disinfecting spray or wipe.
Some of those items include:
door knobs
table
bolster
face rest cover, pad and frame
pen
clipboard
stool
dressing area including where your clients put their clothing and jewelry
Yes, it seems like a lot of surfaces to clean, because it is. So make sure you leave a minimum
of 30 minutes between each client, to make sure you don't miss any possible germs. It also
gives your room a chance to air out
WHAT DO YOU TEACH?
I have to admit, I don’t remember everything I was taught in the classroom. My brain is not
big enough. So I decided to ask our instructors to give us a bite-size description of their
class. Hopefully I can then be as smart as I once was. So can you.
Sharon Parisi - Swedish Massage
Or as I like to think of it, the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy’s Fun Fantastic
Foundational Swedish Massage Class.
If you were to tell someone from another massage program that our curriculum spends a solid
six months on Swedish Massage, they may look at you like you were crazy. If you then told
them we spend nine weeks doing nothing but effleurage and petrissage, they might
scoff: “What a waste of time.”
They would be so so wrong.
At open house events, I hear teachers of our third- and fourth-term hands-on classes describe
the effective specificity of Neuromuscular Therapy or the beautiful unwinding of Myofascial
Touch. These advanced modalities are best performed when the practitioner has a solid
familiarity with touch. That is what six months of Swedish Massage provides: the unique
blending of the tangible and the intuitive that enables the practitioner’s hands to have a
conversation with the client’s tissues. It is much more than strokes and routines; it becomes
the way to confidently learn and enact the art of touch.
Long-time instructor Kim Beadling puts it this way. “Swedish Massage is the basis of all other
types of massage. It is the learning to walk before you run. There is repetition. For weeks and
weeks, students observe demonstrations and receive instruction while practicing hands-on
techniques with classmates.
“Hands-on skills and body mechanics continually foster self-confidence. This work gives
students, while working with classmates, an understanding of adjusting pressure in order to
accommodate the desires and needs of future clients.”
Swedish instructor Jan Dreher draws an excellent parallel. “A home may look sturdy and
beautiful, but if it does not have a solid foundation the home will lose value. The same can be
said for a career in massage therapy. You must start with a solid foundation and continue to
build upon that to have a successful career.”
Jan continues. “By far the best part of teaching the hands-on Swedish Massage class is
actually what I have learned from the students over the years! Upon graduating from the
program and beginning my work, I added to my tool box through continuing education. But
while I learned more advanced techniques, I realized that I had forgotten some of the
basics. Teaching brings me back to the start and reminds me of the little things — little, but
important — that take an average massage to the next level. The flow, the dance, the massage
of every appropriate body part, the overlapping of joints, etc.
“I am gratified to observe a novice progress from being shy and tentative about touching a
stranger, or to receive touch from a stranger, to a more confident student who creates new
stroke patterns and routines, to become the practitioner excited to work on the next clinic
client. This is the joy I receive as an instructor."
IMAGES OF US
MUSINGS FROM KENN
Thursday, The 1st of Change
10 01 20
October 1st.
Nine days into Autumn. No longer warm but not quite cold. The time when things begin to
die, but not die eternally because, as you know, life fills them up again in six months when
they begin to re-emerge.
Or as my friend Henry Ward Beecher said…
“October is nature’s funeral month. Nature glories in death more than in life. The month of
departure is more beautiful than the month of coming… Everything green…loves to die in
bright colors.”
George Eliot presented this point of view…
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the
earth seeking the successive autumns.”
This particular October 1st presents the first of two full moons for the month. Tonight is the
Harvest moon, the one on the 31st is the Hunter’s moon. This Halloween moon is also known
as the blue moon, the second full moon of the calendar month. You’ll get one of these roughly
every two or three years.
We all know there is magic in the full moon. This is the day of the month when some people
get a little crazy, the tides rise, or fall, dung beetles become very active and if you are bedded
down in the wilderness, the light may keep you awake. It’s the time you are most likely to
meet a werewolf.
The turning of the calendar, December 31st to January 1st, is usually a time when people go
for big change. It’s such a convenient starting point. Some go with the solstice.
But what about now? Why not choose October 1st to turn things over. If things are going to
die, as we’ve said earlier, why not let bad habits be among those who expire. Choosing your
own time rather than a convenient date on the calendar that everyone else uses, could be the
start of you taking control of whatever it is you. You can be in charge.
Behold October 1st. Time for change.
Our Mission
The Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy is a student-centered organization
committed to promoting the art, science and profession of Massage Therapy through
excellence in education and training.
(800) 860-1114 | www.pghschmass.com
3600 Laketon Rd | Pittsburgh | PA 15235