Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68174
THE TABLE AND THE MAT Heather Heintz, owner of Balancing Monkey Yoga Center in Hilo, Hawaii, says there can absolutely be a complementary relationship between yoga and bodywork. "Massage rakes out the residual tension from yoga," she says. The deep layers that get stirred and rise to the surface in authentic yoga practice may need additional encouragement from a hands-on therapy for release. Two teachers from Heintz's yoga center are licensed massage therapists who, as a result of their grounding in both massage and yoga, see the value of the two arts working in tandem. Heintz says these instructors have daily, if not hourly, evidence of the dynamic interaction between the two arms of their careers. Elisha Starr Sevareid has been a massage therapist for 12 years. As she went through the yoga teacher training mentorship at Balancing Monkey in 2009, she carefully observed students in their yoga practice. After years spent studying the body in passive and receptive states, she now witnessed it seeking its own authentic orientation in the choreography of an ancient movement practice. The passive and dynamic immediately merged. Sevareid began to develop massage strokes that matched yoga poses, or asanas. It was a stunning "ah-ha" moment that has transformed her bodywork practice and allowed her to be of even greater service to her clients, particularly those who practice yoga. Sierra Sugrue graduated with Sevareid from the Balancing Monkey 200-hour teacher training in November 2009. She, too, has found that the two practices are inseparable. Both, she says, "teach a lifestyle of letting go." Yoga has given Sugrue a way to fully release the accumulated stresses in her shoulders, "The human body acts as a spindle or perfect conductor between the earth and the heaven, linking the two forces that form us through their divine marriage." B.K.S Iyengar, yogi neck, elbows, thumbs, and wrists that come from giving multiple massages each day. She no longer carries the toll of her work in her body. Yoga has also inspired Sugrue to explore a wider range of human capability. "There is a euphoric quality in the realization of the body's capacity to extend and express," she says. "If you know the full range of motion in your own body, then you can believe in it for others." RECOVERY GATEWAYS When someone comes to the treatment table with a previous injury or a complaint about limitation in a yoga pose, Sevareid and Sugrue use the restrictions as gateways to recovery. Even more than that, they say these restrictions are openings to maximizing potential. When you feel you just can't elongate or release any more, they say the message is really the opposite. This is where you have to pay attention much more than if things were easy. Restriction is a call to expand. Difficulty, including previous or current injuries, beckons us to be more resilient, more creative, and more inspired. This is true for the therapist and client. Sevareid and Sugrue learned how to relate to expressions of limitation during their Balancing Monkey teacher training. Their teacher's emphasis on individuality and limitless possibility infused their bodywork. Yoga forces people to feel their underlying fascial layers as they move; this can also include their emotional connotations. Sevareid and Sugrue say bodywork does the same. "Let the layers rise to the surface," Heintz declares, making a clarion call to "bring on the awareness!" Sevareid and Sugrue agree, knowing this is what is needed for evolution, whether in a yoga class or a bodywork session. Rather than giving in to limitation, which is a form of collapse, they inquire into it with touch, movement, and the mind. Both Sevareid and Sugrue have simultaneously come upon the approach of putting clients gently and supportively into the positions of their injury or a challenging (even "impossible") asana and tending to the tissue from that point of entry. Sevareid explains this as she describes her work with a yoga student who had 42 massage & bodywork may/june 2010