THE KING'S DIAPHRAGM

(Or "Why Massage Therapists should never try and synchronise their strokes with their client's breathing!")

Apart form being one of the best films I have seen in years, 'The King's Speech' will always stick in my mind for one particular scene...

It's the bit where dear old Prince Bertie has finally succumbed to the highly progressive and very cheeky techniques of the antipodean speech therapist, Lionel. I mean fancy treating a prince of the realm like an equal - typical aussie!

So the camera pans down to Bertie lying supine on the floor, with our  current Queen's mother (recently deceased and played brilliantly by Helena Bonham-Carter) sitting on his belly. Apart from the hilarity of the thought of Elizabeth the Queen Mother sitting on Bertie's Tummy, it was also the way Bonham - Carter delivered the phrase "It's rather fun, actually!" that  had me shouting "Yes!" out loud to the whole cinema and unwittingly slapping the thighs of the person sitting next to me...

Luckily it was my adult daughter sitting next to me! Well, she thinks she is adult, anyway! Myself, I don't believe anyone is adult at 19, do you? Anyway, I did sit back rather sheepishly as she glared at me for the assault...

But it was not really the humour of the scene that had me shouting out loud but the simple fact that for the last ten years or so I have been trying to explain to Massage therapists just how POWERFUL the diaphragm muscle really is. 

Teaching Massage therapists to fall onto their clients with their whole body weight is hard enough without having to worry about whether or not the client is breathing in or out. Now don't get me wrong, there are times in a treatment when a certain synchronicity of breath and movement is really powerful, but this always works best when it happens unconscioulsy, in my opinion. I will explain this in a later blog...

The real point for now, is this: so many of us were taught (wrongly, I believe) to only put powerful force into our strokes when the client is breathing out. In fact, the more we try and synchronise our movements with the client's breathing, the more stilted and cerebral our own movements become.

We kill all FLOW in the Massage treatment when we keep pausing to listen and try and discern if the client is breathing in or out. This can have a negative impact on the Massage and it certainly makes life very hard for Massage therapists learning to FALL onto their clients - the hallmark of NO HANDS.

It seems that this erroneous teaching is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the power of the diaphragm. In truth, as a client, it doesn't matter one jot whether we are breathing in or out during this or that particular stroke. My diaphragm, as was so brilliantly demonstrated in this scene from the film, is so strong, it CAN LIFT A WHOLE BODY.

For the last ten years I have been draping my whole body over a 'client' (normally a fellow trainer) during courses  - so my feet are no longer touching the ground - and asking the therapists watching to observe the client's diaphragm literally lifting my body up and down without any discomfort whatsoever.

But seeing the Queen Mother being lifted up and down on George VI's diaphragm showed it so much better. Try it out... Get your 'significant other' to sit on your belly and breathe in and out. EASY!

Happy oiling, whether your client is breathing in or out, fellow oilers!

Gerry

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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