The body speaks. If we quiet our mind, we can hear its wisdom.
Grace Ku, OneBody Massage
The other night, Sarah and I were watching a film by John Turturro called Fading Gigolo. I was falling asleep, but at one point the Turturro character strokes the back of the widow of a Hasidic rabbi, a haunting character played by Vanessa Paradis (pictured above). He’s giving her a massage (and only a massage), and for her the experience counts as a seismic event. She is crying, she explains in a sultry, throaty voice, because no one has touched her for so long.
Touch with intention – that’s really all massage is.
Massage is a scary topic for some of us. We feel awkward getting massage – it’s too personal – or we’re worried about giving massage in a way that feels good and doesn’t do any harm. That’s a good worry to have! A lot of people have ideas about massage that are off-kilter and potentially harmful, starting with the notion that more vigorous is always better. Your partner’s back does not need to feel like raw hamburger after you’ve had a go at her.
The main things are to have a sense of fun and to listen – both to your partner’s body and to her words. Never just assume that pushing hard must be best; always ask regularly how a given level of pressure feels. And try not to fall into a trap I know all too well from personal experience, which is to react badly to a little gentle feedback about pressure level and be, as we say in German, an insulted liver sausage (es klingt besser auf Deutsch, beleidigte Leberwurst).
The fun part can’t be stressed enough. If you have a sense that you’re giving your partner a massage out of duty – you’re tired, it was a long day, you have a big deadline looming in your work life – well then: Get over yourself! Throw that all out the window. The most impotant message Grace Ku conveys in her excellent book OneBody Massage, which we’re about to publish through our Wellstone Books imprint, is that to give a good massage you first have to get in the right state of mind yourself. We’re not talking about a higher state of enlightenment; it’s as simple as taking a few deep breaths yourself, relaxing into each exhale, and sloughing away the concerns of the day as much as you can. If some of those worries are still hovering in the background, let them hover; that’s OK. You don’t want to get caught up in a struggle with yourself to try to will yourself into being relaxed; better to take that effort as a work in progress.
Once you’ve done that, you’re in a much better position to feel, intuitively, where to go with your hands during a massage and what to do. Having a sense of fun is a great way to avoid sinking into an overly mental approach to massage; your body should be in touch with the body of your partner.
A great example of fun comes in foot massage. When you have a pregnant wife, you do a lot of foot massage! I was reading through Grace’s book one more time recently and found myself laughing out loud at a passage that caught me off-guard: “All the little piggies deserve equal attention, whether it’s the one that went to market, stayed home, had roast beef, had none, or went ‘Wee wee wee’ all the way home.”
I found myself chuckling over Grace’s gentle playfulness that evening as I was working on Sarah’s feet. The words stayed with me and instead of my usual quick tug on each toe in succession, I lavished attention on each of Sarah’s toes for many seconds at a time. She loved it.
Grace urges couples to see massage more as an ongoing philosophy than a single, fixed event. Why not? Why not look for opportunities throughout the day to offer a comforting touch, a small back rub, gentle stroking of the hand or feet or leg? Think of it this way: Every moment in which you are sharing gentle touch with another is doing good for you and good for your partner. Who doesn’t want more moments like that in their days?
If you’re reading this blog the last week of August, and live in the Bay Area or nearby, we urge you to come out this weekend to the book party we’re having for Grace and OneBody Massage, Saturday August 30 starting at 4 p.m. We just ask that you RSVP. We’ll have books on hand for sale – and also a special guest, a genuine Google celebrity.
– Steve Kettmann, co-founder, WCR
Steve’s earlier blogs:
Thanks to a Bank Teller for Being Human
Remembering Those We’ve Loved and Lost
Were You Kind to Someone Today?