Just back from an amazing 9 day work shop with Art Riggs, a leading figure in the world of therapeutic massage and fascial work. The first 3 days focused on the basics of client positioning, checking your own body mechanics and working at different levels from the superficial fascia to deep muscles, tendons and bones.
We then had 3 days working on the lower body with detailed demonstrations of working on everything from the feet up. Some of the work around the pelvis was quite challenging and included treating quite intimate muscles such as obturator internus.
The final 3 days of the workshop focused on the upper body and included some great work around the ribs, vertebrae, neck and my personal favourite, Psoas. I say that ironically as I have been shown how to locate and treat psoas twice before but still lacked the confidence to treat this muscle – always preferring to use a side lying hip flexor stretch. But thanks to Art I think I’ve cracked it! I have since returning to Brighton treated two clients and with both located this deep muscle very quickly using ‘soft’ fingers so that the clients reported it was intense BUT pain free.
The workshops took place at the Sue Lincoln School in Filey – a sleepy seaside town in North Yorkshire. It’s the perfect venue for intense study as there are few distractions and the location by the sea is invigorating. That said, this part of Yorkshire is stunning and I’d love to go back as a tourist at some point and visit the coast, North Yorkshire moors and York properly.