Cranial Massage Asheville | Cranial Massage Therapy NC
Here’s a surprise: our muscles are not usually the problem! Hydration is. Usage is. And, the connective wrapping of our muscles and the underlying support structure are the issues. We can melt and separate these tissues, freeing up the muscles to do all they do: turn on, and turn off! I can help you with muscle “tightness.”
Therapeutic Massage
AS OF JANUARY 2024, I WILL NO LONGER BE OFFERING FULL MASSAGE SESSIONS. Specifically, this means I will still incorporate massage elements and techniques into bodywork sessions, as appropriate, but there will no longer be full sessions devoted to providing this modality. I am directing my focus to my ongoing CranioSacral Practice. If you require full massage sessions, I am happy to refer you out to skilled practitioners whose work I personally know. Thank you!
Muscles work by being turned on and off--exactly like a light bulb is turned on and off by an electric current. They aren't any more complicated than this.
We pay a great deal of attention, in our culture, to developing and managing our muscle function and appearance, seemingly believing that muscles are the cause of so many body problems. In actuality, muscle tissue is quite soft and innocent of most wrong-doing in our bodies. It is the wrapping of the muscle tissue--the connective tissue--that causes most of what we think of as muscular pain and discomfort. And between the muscles themselves is the “perifascia”, a cottony tissue that can inhibit muscle movement and general range of motion. Excellent therapeutic massage seeks to enhance the ability of the body to release tension between the muscles, rather than by focusing on softening muscle fibers that are already soft. In other words, we must differentiate the tissues from each other (In some cases, we need to try to help turn off the muscles by working with structures called spindle fibers, but I find the frequency of needing to do this--to ask the muscles to stop overworking--to be insignificant compared with simply softening their wrappings).
The therapeutic massage I offer is a version of Connective Tissue Therapy, meaning that this work is designed to help people get further into both the muscular and its connective tissue overlay, to help resolve musculoskeletal adhesions, traumas, ischemia (tightness) and other tensions and restrictions. I call this style of working Perifascial Massage. I find it more effective and gentle than what is often called "Deep Tissue" massage. I often perform this therapy while seated.
By keeping a low table height with my hydraulic lift table, I am able to maximize the use my own body weight to "sink into" the client's tissues at the pace his or her body is willing to work with me. This means that I do not push or insist or make the muscles submit to treatment. My work is designed to go no further or deeper than the client is willing to go, yet it can be quite deep.
*Note: Though I am well-trained in Swedish Massage, it is not a modality I consistently offer, nor one my clients often ask for. If you would like a relaxing massage that consists of conventional Spa-like treatment offerings, or modalities such as lomilomi, shiatsu, Thai massage or hot-stone treatments, I am happy to refer you to healers I trust. Please see the Resources page for contacts.
**I do NOT offer "sensual massage." Everyone will be draped at least over their bathing suit areas.
Healing Work
“It’s hard to do justice to Brian’s work, and calling it massage counts as reductio ad absurdum in the extreme. Brian is a healer, and if you are brave and/or open, his holistic approach will extend past massage to an array of techniques to uncover what’s bothering you and how it’s playing out in your body. He will then become your partner in remedying those issues whether the source is the mind or the body. It was crushing to find Brian in San Francisco so close to his move to Sebastopol [CA], but my loss is West Marin’s gain.”