Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68016
IS SWEDISH MASSAGE DEAD? At first, I didn't believe what he'd said, but then I thought back to the last massage I received at a clinic. The therapist used the smallest amount of effleurage to warm up my tissue and then dug in with detailed treatment work. In fact, all of the massages I'd received in the last few months, even the two I received at a spa, could not be called classic Swedish massage.1 This started my journey. During the next six months, I set out on a mission to discover if Swedish massage is alive or dead in my town—Boulder, Colorado, a town of 100,000. I went to a total of 15 different massage therapists and asked for a classic Swedish massage. MY DATA My husband, who is a scientist, would say my data is flawed, because all of the therapists are working in the same region. (I did ask where therapists went to massage school and, while all of them are now practicing in the same town, only three were trained at the same institution; the majority are transplants from other states.) Yes, my data is flawed, but the findings should give us all something to consider. • 14 of 15 therapists used effleurage. • 2 of 15 therapists used petrissage. • 15 of 15 therapists used friction strokes. • 0 of 15 therapists used tapotement. • 1 of 15 therapists used vibration. • 3 of 15 therapists used joint movements. • 0 of 15 therapists applied strokes in a classic Swedish progression. • 15 of 15 therapists incorporated techniques from other massage systems into the massage. I should point out that I enjoyed the majority of the 15 massages I received, but I marveled at how integrated massage has become. With the exception of one massage that seemed to consist almost entirely of shiatsu point work, none of them was easy to label as X or Y massage modality. Instead, massages were highly eclectic with both Eastern and Western techniques mixed in dynamic ways, based on the personality and interests of the therapists. Still, after these first 15 massages, I had to admit that maybe Swedish massage, in a classic sense, is dead. THE DEMISE OF SWEDISH I shared my results with many of my massage friends, and we speculated about the apparent demise of Swedish. One friend suggested that Swedish is "fluff and buff" and that it died because clients are more informed consumers and want more treatment- oriented work. Another friend hotly defended Swedish as the original physical therapy that's still viable as treatment work. They went back and forth on the issue, but I have to agree that the roots Swedish as a medically-based health care system, have been forgotten. I also looked in a number of foundational massage textbooks; authors regularly wrote that Swedish massage is also known as relaxation or wellness massage. One friend pointed to the change in massage curriculum that occurred when states began to adopt the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork (NCTMB) exam as a credentialing exam. This friend said that massage school curriculum tended to be more foundational and science-based before the NCBTMB exam was adopted, and that massage students had previously received more hours dedicated to core techniques like Swedish massage. The NCBTMB test caused a reaction in schools, because they wanted to ensure their students could pass the exam. I was a massage instructor when Washington State adopted the NCBTMB exam as the credentialing exam, and I vividly remember how we cut hours in anatomy and physiology, kinesiology, Swedish massage, and the treatment material in later quarters to teach introductory materials on a number of modalities that were tested 38 massage & bodywork november/december 2009 by the exam. I doubt it was ever the NCBTMB's intent to cause massage school curriculum to become less deep and more broad, but this does seem like it could be a contributing factor in the decline of Swedish massage. Massage therapists tend to like lots of tools in their toolboxes. They often seek different ways of accomplishing massage-related treatment goals for the sheer joy of learning methods and techniques. Massage instructors are usually also massage therapists. Perhaps as they learn new modalities they share their enthusiasm with students who start to view Swedish massage as just a jumping-off point and not as a stand-alone system. The school where I worked as director of education taught Swedish in the first two quarters and other treatment methods in the last two quarters of the year-long program. In our student clinic, I was hard-pressed to find a student who could remember how to give a basic Swedish massage. Their heads were full of techniques like active isolated stretching, muscle- energy technique, post-isometric relaxation, myofascial release, and neuromuscular technique. I was more likely to get a thorough posture and gait analysis than decent petrissage. Looking back, we should have built a Swedish review into the third- and fourth-term curriculum to ensure that students didn't forget these skills as graduation neared. I wonder how many schools leave Swedish behind in early course work and never revisit it? TIME FOR A REVIVAL The conversations with my friends left me feeling uneasy. I was more determined than ever to find that classic Swedish is alive and well in my town. I scheduled more massage sessions (I got rather addicted to the abundance of bodywork I received), but this time I explained to therapists that I was working on a magazine article about Swedish massage. I