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A Better Neck Massage
Some of you have seen me write before of a massage therapist in a spa that I go to a few times a year who lets me boss her around. I book an 80-minute full body, and then when we are in the room alone we conspire to work on specific areas. She is very interested in learning SMRT, but has limited funds, so I teach her what I can while she works on me.
Recently I went and had one of these sessions. My arms had been going numb during the night, something that happens to me periodically. I know that I get relief from this by having my neck worked on. I had never had this therapist do my neck before, so this was new territory for her. In the first five minutes, I coached her through SMRT positions to mobilize the cervical vertebrae. Her comment was, “wow, that really moves now and your sub-occipitals are way looser.”
Then we moved to a fantastic move for splenius capitis and splenius cervicis. I had her reach down my back with her fingers on the spinous processes of my upper thoracic vertebrae and move the upper thoracic vertebrae superior and toward the side she was releasing. It was completely wonderful!! After she released the second side and was re-palpating, she said, “that was amazing! The muscles are so much looser. I mean, your scalenes are so much looser…and we weren’t even working on scalenes! Wow!”
We moved to scalenes, SCM, and longus capitis before finally releasing the sub-occipital tissue. As we were doing the final release, she said, “do you know how many times I do neck work and come out with my fingers aching….and the muscles here,” she was in my sub-occipital muscles, “are still so much tighter than yours are now…and my hands don’t even hurt!”
SMRT gives therapists the ability to balance and soften muscle tone without leaving the session in pain. And, as an added benefit, my arms have not gone numb at night since this session. Join us for the SMRT: Head & Neck class in Fayetteville, AR on February 6-7, 2015 (this class is almost full) or Moorhead, MN on April 10-11, 2015. For more information or to register, please go to https://efullcircle.com/spontaneous-muscle-release-technique-head-neck/
