Here at KateJaclyn Massage KateJaclyn puts her whole heart and soul into every massage. She strives to do her very best for every single client but there are some things she can't do, like read her client’s minds. When a client comes in her goal is to give that client the very best massage experience possible. For the ones who have never had a professional massage before or for the ones who receive massages on a more regular basis.
Everyone has a certain way of how they like things. It is kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Mother bear liked her porridge cold, her bed and chair soft. Papa bear liked his porridge hot, bed and chair hard. Baby bear liked his porridge warm, his bed and chair medium firm, or everything just right.
Everyone one is different. Some like the music loud, soft, or none at all. Even lighting preferences for the room could be different, really dark dim, or more light but dim. Others like to talk during the massage and others want to enjoy the massage time and de-stress. Do they want the table warmer on or off? Does the client want stones or no stones? Are there any smells that they don’t like or ones they prefer? What do they want to get out of the massage? Do they just want to relax or do they want knots worked out? If they want knots worked out is it only just one area of the body or is it a bunch of different areas of the body. Everyone has a different definition of light, medium, and deep pressure. To one the therapist could be giving light pressure to a client it could feel deep. To the therapist they are giving all they got which to them is deep pressure and to the client it could be light or medium pressure. When the client says they like deep pressure, is that just one area of the body or their whole body?
For tight muscles, if the muscles are really tight sometimes it could feel borderline ticklish, for someone else it could be painfully sensitive, or a feel good pain. If they get a ticklish sensation the cause of that sensation could be that the muscle is truly tight, does the client want the therapist to find a way to still loosen up that tight muscle or to move on to some other area of the body? Is the client willing to work through the ticklish feeling? If a muscle is painfully tight (10 being the greatest amount of pain) if the pain is below a 7 within the client’s pain tolerance are they willing to bear a little bit of pain so that the knots can loosen? If the muscles are supper tight it will take more then one session to loosen up the muscles. There is only so much a therapist can do in one session. Also, if there is more then one area that is bothering the client in their body, what area is the most important to address? That is why KateJaclyn wishes she could read minds because there are so many different preferences for one client.
During each massage this is the client’s time. If there is a massage technique that the therapist is doing that the client doesn’t like it is ok for the client to speak up and tell the therapist. The therapist isn’t going to know unless the client tells them. Same with the massage pressure, if it is to light or to deep for a client, it’s ok to speak up and tell the therapist, can you go a little deeper, or can you go a tiny bit lighter. It is easy for a therapist when a client says "your going to deep" or "that sensitive" to drastically back off to light pressure. So did the therapist back off too much? And does the therapist only need to back off the pressure in that one area? Does the pressure need to be deeper in another area of the body? For some talking about the pressure through the whole massage can take away from the enjoyment of the massage. In this case maybe it would be better to have a medium to hard preference in pressure because then when the therapist comes to a sensitive or tight area in the body the pressure will most likely feel just right. That’s just a suggestion. Feel free to tell Kate what your preferences are before, during, and even after the massage is over. She really aims to please each client to the best of her ability.
