FINDING MY VOICE

I can still remember, like it was only yesterday, standing on one leg in the vestry of St.Leonard's parish church Leigh-On-Sea, going through the scales and arpeggios....

The organist and choirmaster was a patient and kind old man called Mr.Buckley. He seemed ANCIENT to me and his wizened old face reminded of nothing if not a monkey's. He was forever rubbing his bony hands together trying to get the circulation going. He was probably only in his early 70's but to my 8 year old mind this was pretty much like spending an hour with the living dead...

I thought perhaps he just climbed out of his coffin each week to teach me music.

Every week, I would go for these singing lessons with Mr.Buckley and every week he would patiently take me through the scales and arpeggios.

Old school.

I was more often than not balancing on one leg out of sheer boredom. But he was kind and never got angry with me. Just once more. And again. Listen to this note. Sing it again. Stay right on it. Now this note. Now this arpeggio. Over and over again...

Like he had some hidden knowledge or some deep faith in the simple power of THE SCALE...

This went on week after week. For over two years. Every Sunday I would sing in the church choir with my very talented brother, but none of it really made any sense to me. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to do it, I really did. There was something there...something about all this music, but I was just outside of it, not really part of it.

Occasionally I would skive off these singing lessons to play football in the park overlooking the harbour. Do my best to be Gordon Banks in goal for Stoke,  or be Jimmy Greaves for the all powerful Spurs.

And this beautiful, patient old man NEVER once told me off or complained. Just gently, gently nudged me back to those hallowed scales again and again and again, like he KNEW something...

And then one day halfway up a scale

it happened.

I got halfway up the scale and then my voice arrived. It was like this massive and powerful thing coming out of, not just my mouth, but MY WHOLE BODY. I could fly! The sound just kept growing and growing in power and it lifted me and my whole body.

When I got to the end of the scale I didn't want it to stop and I remember just keeping the note going on and on until there was no more breath in me to sustain this beautiful and awesome angel that had flown out of me and travelled around the vestry, knocking on the windows and passing out of the door into the church itself, seeking to explore and caress and then surpass every single human boundary it could find.

This piece of wood here above the door, this stone buttress here in the corner of the room letting me bounce further, this open space here, and up and up to the stained glass windows where they ring when I touch them....

As the sound died away and I stood there in shock with my mouth wide open, Mr Buckley quietly shut the piano keyboard cover and looked at me smiling.

"Now, we can begin!" he said.

And begin we did. The repertoire came tumbling in, song after song grappled with, each one starting off like an unscaleable mountain, but soon climbed and re-climbed and learned by heart to become an old and famiiar friend. I couldn't get enough songs inside me.

Arpeggios and scales were just the warm up before we really got going, now. I sang these songs everywhere I went. More, please. next one.

Again, can we do it again, again, again?

I was suddenly so hungry to get my voice around anything that moved! I was no longer the outsider. The music and I were one. The composer of every song, alive or dead, lived again through me. I communed with every composer whose music I sang, heart to heart...

Then came the competitions, and my very first time on stage in front of the judges (the nerves as I walked into the middle before singing!) but as soon as I started singing, the angel would arrive and take me and everyone around me, up and up and up...

To win the very first competition I entered. 

From that moment on, every singing competition was mine, all mine. It came to the stage that parents would ring up my mother to ask if she was entering me for this or that competition, and if I was, not entering their child.

The choir became something I looked forward to, to sing the solos and fill the whole church. The immense POWER and upliftingness of it all, with the whole choir holding me up I found that I could fly even higher...

I had found my voice.

Thanks entirely to the patience of a gentle wise old man who knew that inside every single one of us, lies an angel waiting to fly...

ABOUT GERRY:

Gerry has been a full time Massage therapist and teacher for over 25 years. He also qualified as a UKCP registered Psychotherapist (TA) in 1999.

He is the creator of The NO HANDS Massage Therapy System, which is now one of the most popular Massage approaches in the UK. He has also recently launched the PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE, a unique new approach to making lasting change within your life. To learn more about these courses go to www.nohandsmassage.com

THE TIME HAS COME, THE WALRUS SAID

I am just back from our fourth MASTERY weekend of the year at the wonderful Burton Manor in the Wirral. This is such a delightful course to teach as it has so many Massage therapists - all at different levels of experience, knowledge and talent. We really do learn from each other...


At the closing session, I really wanted to start with this excerpt from Lewis Carroll

The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

(From Alice through the looking Glass   1872)

And then I realised that one of our therapists had promised to memorise this...


You see, the reason for this was twofold:


Firstly, every time I wanted to recite this awesome poem, I would sit down defeated because I HADN'T BOTHERED TO LEARN IT BY HEART SINCE THE LAST TIME I HAD WANTED TO RENDER IT.... Lazybones!


Secondly, this therapist was on a real mission this year TO STOP HIDING AWAY IN GROUPS. So without any warning - and in front of over 50 therapists - I said to this therapist:


"The time has come, the Walrus said - for you to declaim your poem"


There was a look of shock in her face - that startled rabbit look - but then it had been 6 months since she had said that she would re-learn this poem for us all. Then, I saw her close her eyes and take a deep breath and BOLD AS BRASS, walk straight to the front of the group.


Now, I had only expected the stanza above (my favourite bit) but with a shaking voice and nerves of steel she began right at the beginning:


"The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night."


and proceeded (without any hesitation, repetition or deviation!) to recite the whole damn thing. Right to the final stanza:


"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one."

Of course she got her (well deserved) standing ovation - and her outcome for this year of mastery - to be seen and heard. But something else about it stayed with me - almost as much as the poem; and it was this:


She had MEANT WHAT SHE SAID when she had promised to learn this poem for the group. And she had DONE WHAT SHE SAID SHE WOULD DO. And this is at the core of what I believe constitutes MASTERY of both Massage and life:

To mean what we say, to say what we mean, and to do what we say and mean.

To my shame, I am aware that if I had not just had that urge to declaim these archetypal lines at that particular moment, her immense integrity would have been missed by me and the whole group and remained invisible to the world.


It led me to wonder, just how much of what we do - and what others do - remains invisible? And just whose fault is that? The sad truth is that what we see is just the tip of the iceberg of other people's lives and their immense beauty. Well, today, here's my mission:


The time has come, with the next person I talk to, to really look and really listen to see if they have an invisible Jabberwocky poem inside of them - something they have done that I would never know about if I did not stop long enough to really listen and look.....


I hope you have a really GREAT DAY


Gerry

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If you want to, you can re-read the whole poem RIGHT NOW

ABOUT GERRY:

Gerry has been a full time Massage therapist and teacher for over 25 years. He also qualified as a UKCP registered Psychotherapist (TA) in 1999.

He is the creator of The NO HANDS Massage Therapy System, which is now one of the most popular Massage approaches in the UK. He has also recently launched the PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE, a unique new approach to making lasting change within your life. To learn more about these courses go to www.nohandsmassage.com

YOUTHFUL REBELLION

I have been astounded by the delights of FACEBOOK...Thanks to Zuckerman I am reconnecting with some old mates from my chorister days at Hereford Cathedral School. This is for them and anyone else who wants to know...

I was just speaking to my (76 yr old) Mum about the people I am reconnecting with from that time and she reminded me of this incident:

Richard Lloyd, the organist (see photo), had been on at me to get my hair cut for a while and finally told me not to return to the choir until it was chopped. So, far from smoothing the way for her young son to integrate with the establishment, my firebrand mother marched into Lloyd's rooms in the cloister and insisted on my human rights being honoured "it's his hair and only a European court will make my son cut his hair!". Of course Lloyd hated me ever after, for allowing himself to be bullied by this formidable lady...

Epilogue - the day after I left the choir, I went and had my hair cut for the first time in three years and made a point of walking past said organist in the close with a cheery "Hello, Sir!"

I can still remember the look of confusion I caught on his face as he watched me disappearing into school house...

Mum reports that I said to her that night as I sat down to tea: "What a relief to get rid of all that ruddy hair!"

I think my rebelliousness was probably my only sanity in those days...

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ABOUT GERRY:

Gerry has been a full time Massage therapist and teacher for over 25 years. He also qualified as a UKCP registered Psychotherapist (TA) in 1999.

He is the creator of The NO HANDS Massage Therapy System, which is now one of the most popular Massage approaches in the UK. He has also recently launched the PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE, a unique new approach to making lasting change within your life. To learn more about these courses go to www.nohandsmassage.com

MASSAGE AND MEDITATION

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I recently watched a great clip by John Hagelin on Meditation and World Peace. It shows some remarkable evidence that correlates the amount of meditation related to the amount of violence going on…It shows that when a group of people get together and become still, violence decreases. Go see it – truly inspiring.

It led me to thinking about prayer and stillness and how much stillness there often is in the Massage room. It also led me to thinking about the effects of a group coming together – and the amazing power of that.

I think if the mind is 'still' whether we call it prayer or yoga or meditation, then something beautiful always happens both internally and externally. The stillness is something that descends. I know we have to work at it – sometimes more than others!

In the Christian tradition we talk about the holy spirit descending “like a Dove” – the very symbol of peace. Other traditions talk about stilling, or emptying the mind.

Often on courses I find myself comparing the mental discipline of NO HANDS with meditation training. Focusing our minds on the breath, on the contact and on the manner of our movement is tantamount to emptying the mind of everything else. It is in that emptiness that I find the true joy of all creation.

I suppose it is a paradox…

When I empty my mind of all the things I put in there (desperately trying to find joy?), what I discover is that the whole of creation is joy. It’s like I am frantically mending a broken down car in the middle of, say, the beautiful Serengeti national Park. I am so busy trying to get out’ that I don’t stop long enough to ask the question “Why leave?” And when I do stop long enough to look around, I discover I am surrounded by sheer and utter beauty.

So the challenge then, is to be still. Oh boy, what a challenge! All the enticements of activity, interaction, drama and pleasure are calling me away from this stillness…

Yet when I do actually empty my mind, I find I have no need of these things that entice me away. Because the landscape of silence is beautiful.

What I am trying to say is simply this:

Not all meditation and not all prayer is actually still. I believe Massage is a very powerful moving meditation. At these times we act totally in service of another, delivering the one thing that can never lie – touch. This movement and this focus on ‘the other’ actually clears the mind of ‘self’.

One therapist summarised it for me the other day:

“Gerry, I have discovered why you are always smiling in your live treatments”

I asked her what she meant.

“Well, I can’t stop myself from smiling these days and I worked out what has changed – I have gotten so used to simply focusing my mind on my breath, my contact with the client and the manner of my movements, that the whole issue of ‘me’ has gone out the window. And all there is, is the sheer joy of touch…And I can’t stop smiling – just like you do!”

I have also witnessed so many groups (in churches, in cathedrals and yes, in Massage training rooms!) share this stillness communally that I am convinced it is a thousand times more powerful when humans come together to do this stuff – stuff  that is about so much more than just the ‘self’.

Prayer is about the other

Massage is about the other

Meditation is about the loss of self

Is it too much to suggest that whenever two or more are gathered together, something powerful can happen? The lovely thing about Massage is that it takes two to tango – just like a prayer. And the goodness, the healing that is created actually vibrates outwards from the two like music travelling out of a room through a window?

And is it too much to suggest that when a whole group of Massage therapists – all driven by the desire to help others better – are focusing on the breath and the touch, that something even more powerful travels out of that training room?

I have always thought that our courses send out a powerful vibration for healing and peace. Just the same as a church. Or a meditation room. Or a Yoga class.

People everywhere, like musicians, sending out vibrations of stillness, peace and healing into the world…

Have a truly vibrational day!

Namaste

Gerry

ABOUT GERRY:

Gerry has been a full time Massage therapist and teacher for over 25 years. He also qualified as a UKCP registered Psychotherapist (TA) in 1999.

He is the creator of The NO HANDS Massage Therapy System, which is now one of the most popular Massage approaches in the UK. He has also recently launched the PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE, a unique new approach to making lasting change within your life. To learn more about these courses go to www.nohandsmassage.com

 

THINKING ABOUT TOUCH, BABIES AND PAPOOSES (Baby Slings)

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When we are born, we are expelled from a total touch environment. For the last 9 months we have been in constant contact with the walls of the womb and bathed in warm nurturing amniotic fluid.

A bit of a shock, when we come out! No wonder we scream and cry…

But for most of us, after birth, we are cuddled and cooed and touched. We get touched to eat, to dress to move, even. Pretty much a ‘touch rich’ environment. If we were to draw it on a graph it would probably look like this for the first year of life:

That would be true if we saw babies being carried around everywhere in papooses, pretty much strapped to Mum or dad’s body.

I remember vividly going to see my friends when my first son was just 2 weeks old. I proudly strapped him onto our papoose on my chest and took the tube through London. As a man I must say I have never been made such a fuss of by women (before or since!) as on the day when I turned up to that particular summer’s tea party!

I have no idea what difference it made to my son, but the sheer warmth and joy of having such a small totally vulnerable living soul so close, strapped right next to my heart gave me a contentment I have rarely been able to match. Talk about bonding – my son and I were literally bound together through the miraculous papoose….

Another vivid memory is me walking the 7 miles across the moors to Howarth – right across the wild fells of Bronte country - in driving wind and rain. Only this time I had my 3 week old daughter strapped to my chest in a papoose. It was a freezing April day. But my kagoul was zipped up all around her and though we were buffeted by the wind and rain we were both as warm as toast.

It was such an adventure. Something primal was involved, being the only protection for her against elements that could kill such a vulnerable small thing…

All of which goes to show that touch is not only powerful for one person – there are always two beneficiaries….

Unless of course a baby is put, instead, into that abomination – the portable car seat.

Stuffed in the portable car seat, the poor little baby does not have to be touched or cuddled at all as he is moved from the car to the pram. There is not even any physical contact when lifting out of the pram, these days. These specially designed baby seats now mean that babies can be moved seamlessly without touch from car to pram to house. In which case for many babies these days the graph probably looks more like this:

Either way, I think we can conclude that the total touch of a Massage treatment probably reminds us of the times when we were totally touched in the womb and immediately afterwards.

All of which could explain why, receiving massage for a whole hour, is so damned powerful. It takes us right back to a golden age of innocence, of oneness with the whole of the universe and life. To a time when our breath, our food and touch was all one great big ONE.

A time before separation.

A time before fragmentation.

A time when the whole universe was just one great big cuddle….

Which means that it is most definitely time for me to go and book my next NO HANDS Massage!

Have a great day

Gerry

ABOUT GERRY:

Gerry has been a full time Massage therapist and teacher for over 25 years. He also qualified as a UKCP registered Psychotherapist (TA) in 1999.

He is the creator of The NO HANDS Massage Therapy System, which is now one of the most popular Massage approaches in the UK. He has also recently launched the PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE, a unique new approach to making lasting change within your life. To learn more about these courses go to www.nohandsmassage.com

REPLETION MASSAGE…

Exhaustion.

Client after client gets on the couch and says something like:

“I feel bone weary” or “I am running on empty”

These statements are often followed by a request for "more energy, please!". What they are really asking for (but don't know it) is repletion.

My acupuncturist, Sam, says that it is because we don't stop and rest enough in winter - when the rest of nature is smart enough to go into hibernation.

A Repletion Massage is a style of Massage that enables the client to literally ‘refill’ their fuel tanks and leave the session feeling ‘full’ again. With NO HANDS I have identified that there are six basic ‘umbrella’ styles of Massage. This took me about 15 years of full time clinical practice to actually work out for myself.

It started because all the books and all the teachers that were doing the rounds of advanced courses in my day seemed only to focus on what I would loosely term structural Massage. This is largely the domain of the Sports Massage therapist and involves the business of basically lengthening short muscles and loosening tight and held joints.

Everywhere I looked there was one proponent of structural Massage after another teaching me ‘smart techniques’ I should learn in order to ‘fix’ that tight muscle. Many of them were not even Massage therapists, but osteopaths or physiotherapists.

The only trouble was this….

In my actual clinical practice, structural tightness was only one of six different reasons why clients came for a Massage. Another one of those six reasons was exhaustion. Whilst I was busy trying to ‘fix’ their problems and utilise my deft structural techniques, I sometimes thought I could hear my client’s body whispering the immortal words of TS Elliot’s Alfred J Prufrock:

“That is not what I meant.

That is not what I meant, at all.”

What I was missing was this:

Depletion…

And a depleted client needs a Repletion Massage. This involves a lot of stillness and gentleness – as if we are nudging the body to fill itself up again. The analogy would be money.

Depleted clients often have depleted bank accounts. Not always, but often. Depletion is the result of giving out more than you have and not paying due diligence to the need to ‘gather in’ (save money) and rest. Financially this is known as bankruptcy. Energetically it is known as depletion.

If someone went to a financial advisor with only a hundred pounds in the bank account, what would we think of the advice to invest it all in a risky venture?

Not a lot.

Yet when a depleted client goes for a Massage, what they often get is precisely that. Misguided therapists trying to ‘give’ the client lots of energy by massaging them furiously and vigorously in the mistaken belief that giving a very energetic Massage will in some way impart ‘energy’ to the client!

That was me I am talking about, by the way….

Yet what I discovered was that the exhausted clients left the session even more tired than they arrived.

I was so busy trying to ‘invest’ their reduced energy that I actually ‘spent it’ by dispersing it all around the body.

So I began to think about saving. I introduced more stillness into the Massage treatment and began to witness the body’s own amazing ability to simply ‘recharge itself’. I started to go slow and give myself time to feel for the really ‘cold’ places in the client’s body. Where there is depletion there is coldness. Chronically exhausted people often feel the cold.

Then, when I had located this cold area,  I would let my hands rest there and just breathe… Gently pressing in and out – but not too fast and not too much.

Gentle palpation really…

The stuff that the structuralists taught me to do before the ‘real’ treatment really got under way. The diagnostic stuff that preceded all those flashy and impressively named ‘smart techniques’.

Yet when I stopped, when I really listened, I didn’t want to ‘get busy’. If I dealt with my own fear of stillness – and did it anyway – I could feel this cold area of the client’s body warming up underneath my hands. It was as if the body knew how to heal itself all on its own with only the gentlest of touches, the tiniest of support.

It dawned on me that this was not diagnosis at all.

It was the whole treatment….

What I had discovered was Repletion Massage.

Just stopping and being still. Trusting the client’s own body to know how to heal itself. All I needed to do was simply provide the touch.

Strange. Everywhere I turn, all I see is the same view:

The unending landscape of touch….

I shall be writing about the other 5 reasons why clients come for a Massage shortly - right here!

Gerry

ABOUT GERRY:

Gerry has been a full time Massage therapist and teacher for over 25 years. He also qualified as a UKCP registered Psychotherapist (TA) in 1999.

He is the creator of The NO HANDS Massage Therapy System, which is now one of the most popular Massage approaches in the UK. He has also recently launched the PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE, a unique new approach to making lasting change within your life. To learn more about these courses go to www.nohandsmassage.com

DECOMPRESSION THERAPY

 I wanted to share with anyone interested how we can get ourselves ‘back in line’ ‘back in touch’ and ‘back in balance’. I wanted to do this by focusing on decompressing the spine.

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I have been working in the fields of MASSAGE, PSYCHOTHERAPY, BODY CONNECTION, and HEALING TOUCH for over 25 years.

I have been witness to amazing healing through spinal decompression on a daily basis for the last 25 years. I believe the ‘body wisdom’ that lies at the core of each and every one of us is possibly the most untapped healing resource on the planet and contains within it the healing power of a hundred galaxies and a thousand suns…

 

Decompression Therapy aims at providing you with the tools to access that power whenever you need it to support you on your journey through life.  Making friends with your breath and your body will pay enormous dividends in every area of your life.

The body is not something we can just order around for the whole of our lives. Many of us would not treat our worst enemies as badly as we treat our own bodies. This day is a chance to heal the rift between ‘Body and Mind’, to reconnect with the powerful healing core that lies at the centre of each and every one of us. Spending a day doing this Decompression Therapy should be obligatory for each and every one of us, several times a year. It would save us from so much pain, illness and unhappiness – and probably save the NHS millions of pounds!

Dates:    April 9/10  BRADFORD          April 16/17 LONDON

The most common cause of days lost to businesses through sickness is BACK PROBLEMS. Here is a weekend that will provide you, your friends and your clients with some of the most powerful decompression exercises I have developed to prevent back injury or pain. I started teaching these exercises over 15 years ago and hundreds of Massage therapists now use these exercises to protect their backs daily.

Sadly, almost all spinal exercises available to the public focus mainly on just the physical component of Back injury rehabilitative and mobilisation exercises. Decompression Therapy focuses on all FIVE ASPECTS OF BEING (Physical, Mental, Emotional, Energetic and Spiritual). These exercises are truly holistic, in that they help restore balance and healing in ALL FIVE AREAS of your being.

My clinical experience has taught me that the back often only goes when everything else literally becomes "too much". The spine is often said to represents our ‘back’ or our past. We will be looking at the special breathing techniques and movements that you can use in order to ‘let go’ and decompress your body from any past hurts, tensions or traumas in all five areas of your being.

This is a powerful weekend – and it is open to everyone, not just Massage therapists. In fact many Massage therapists are now bringing their family, friends and clients to this weekend – because it teaches them so much that they can do at home and it also enables them to get even more from their Massage treatments afterwards. It also shows people how they can use touch to help their loved ones and family who are in pain.

The power of DECOMPRESSION THERAPY lies in its utterly ruthless simplicity. Your mind, your breath and your body will be given an opportunity to return to a powerful healing dialogue with each other once again….

I hope I see you there!

Gerry

WHAT PARTICIPANTS WROTE:

I found Decompression Therapy valuable because:

I arrived quite frazzled and tired with too many things going on in my head and in my life, and I leave feeling calm, in my body and with sense of space in my head.  The exercises were easy to follow and will be easy to do at home on my own.  It was a good mix of theory and practical, and a great step towards better self-care.

Sophie Atkinson

I’m really glad that I came to Decompression Therapy.  I feel so relaxed and calm – more able to handle the stress in my life.  My body, mind and spirit feel ‘free’/rejuvenated. Thank You so much, Gerry!

Christine

I’m glad I came (To Decompression Therapy) because it has connected me more to my body and soul.  I now feel relaxed and more energised as a result.  I actually feel like I know myself better, but best of all I have learnt some new techniques that I can now do at home, to de-stress, and help my aches and pains.  I will now remember to give myself some ‘me’ time.  Thank you Gerry.

Larisa Killoran

I found Decompression Therapy valuable because I thought I had been to enough workshops but this was the best workshop I have ever been to.  It showed me there is still always so much to learn and enjoy.  Thank you, Gerry,  for a wonderful experience.                                                                                

Jenny Hartwright

I really enjoyed Decompression Therapy. I enjoyed the mixture of No Handers, other therapists and ‘ordinary’ clients/people.  I found the simple (ha!) exercises very powerful, connecting, and releasing. 

It took me back to the basics of being a bodyworker, and a client.  The ‘simple touch’ exercise in the middle of the day was especially enjoyable, so light and yet so deep.  I am a NO HANDS Master, and yet I still learned loads today.  Thank you Gerry!

Robin Dalglish

I’m glad I came today because I’ve learnt the methods which I can use at home to allow me to trust that my body knows to heal itself.  It was fun and did what it said.

Barbara Selfridge

I’m glad I came on Decompression Therapy because although I am pretty in tune with my body, I do know that when things ‘shift’ and ‘get out of place’ that it can affect my energy flow, breathing, even my digestive system (depending on which part of my spine is out). 

What I have learnt here will help me to unravel and decompress myself much more effectively.  It was just exactly what I came for and wanted. Highly recommend it.

Susan Roberts

This course has brought me access to places I didn’t know had tension, reconnected me to parts of my body I had lost touch with.  As a practitioner it has reminded me that to be ‘present’ is all and – thank you, Gerry - to ‘keep it simple’.

Hilda Harvey

I was very glad I went to Gerry’s Decompression Therapy workshop.  I gained many insights into how to take better care of myself (and my family!). The essence was in its simplicity. 

No complicated moves or theory to learn, just simply learning and experiencing how to move , how to breath and (really exciting for me) the power of touch. 

The live demo at the end by Gerry of a Massage treatment was amazing and an eye-opener for me.  It was nurturing, powerful, gentle and graceful and made me feel that I would love to experience a treatment myself.

Helen Thomas

I’m glad I came to Decompression Therapy because it taught/reinforced simple but very effective exercises and techniques to prevent, identify and/or release aches and pains.  It also promoted a holistic approach that emphasised the interconnectedness of the whole body while acknowledging ‘key’ areas I can still focus on.

John McTague

I am really glad that I came on Gerry’s Decompression Therapy day because:

• I am extremely relaxed.
• My body feels loose.
• I met a lot of nice people.
• I saw an extraordinary massage session.
• I can now relax and help heal my body at home.
• I understand some of the messages my body is telling me.
• Lastly, Gerry is an extremely nice bloke!

Russell Treasure

Dates for 2011:    April 9/10  BRADFORD          April 16/17 LONDON

Gerry

ABOUT GERRY:

Gerry has been a full time Massage therapist and teacher for over 25 years. He also qualified as a UKCP registered Psychotherapist (TA) in 1999.

He is the creator of The NO HANDS Massage Therapy System, which is now one of the most popular Massage approaches in the UK. He has also recently launched the PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE, a unique new approach to making lasting change within your life. To learn more about these courses go to www.nohandsmassage.com

MY SHOULDER…

I was trying to speed up my recovery from a wrenched shoulder after most of the muscles of my right Trapezius, Levator Scapula and Rhomboids had been badly sprained by an over enthusiastic day’s surfing.


My acupuncturist, Sam, is an absolute wizard at sorting out the physical problems – he trained with a Taiwanese master who put together the learning of several different masters into one basic ‘system’ that any acupuncturist can learn. At least that is what Sam says – I think he is too modest and that he probably learned it a bit deeper than most of the rest. So to treat my right shoulder he is sticking needles into my left ankle….


Cool!


Anyway, as I lay there on the acupuncture table, I suddenly found myself connecting with a part of myself that I had left behind over 33 years ago. It was a painful and a very sad part of me. And it certainly needed a bit of company from me after 33 years all alone…


I was reminded of Carl Gustav Jung’s story about travelling across North Africa in a taxi journey. He couldn’t speak the language and taxi was the only way he could cross the distance to meet up with his friend. After about 4 hours, the taxi driver just stopped by a few trees and got out. Jung was convinced that it was a rendezvous with robbers and was coming to terms with his last few moments on Earth….


But no, after about an hour the driver got back in the cab and drove for another few hours. When they arrived, Jung asked his friend to interrogate the driver about why he stopped. The answer?


“I was waiting for my soul to catch up with me…”


And that is what I felt at the end of the acupuncture session. When Sam asked me how my shoulder was, I said “Who cares about my shoulder?” 

You see, I felt whole again. As if part of my soul had caught up with me again. And I felt good – even if there was a part of me still very sad…

And the shoulder?

Loads better…. But that no longer mattered. 

I was me.

Whole…

Again.

And this led to me doing my decompression exercises again the next morning, for the first time in a week….

Have a happy day 

Gerry