It’s unusual, I know. Most massage therapists have a list of the treatments they offer - back, neck and shoulder, full-body, head, neck and face, Indian head, foot, foot and leg etc.
If you look at my website, you’ll usually find just two options - 60 minutes and 90 minutes. At the moment I am also offering 30-minute massage sessions for charity, but that’s time-limited. Will I only ever offer massage by time? Maybe not. At some point I might feel the need to highlight some specific options, but if I do it is unlikely to be ‘back, neck and shoulders, or ‘full body’.
Why?
One reason is people can book two, three, four weeks in advance. If someone books in for a back, neck and shoulder massage then develops a pain in their knee before their session, the back, neck and shoulder massage they booked won’t be what they need. Booking by time means that they can tell me what is going on for them on the day, and the massage can be tailored to what they need, every single time.
The second reason is that people often don’t know what they need - they just know how they feel. Don’t misunderstand - it’s really important that that every client tells me how they feel - where they feel pain, reduced mobility or tension (if any). What they might not know is that to ease that pain in their upper back, they might need some work on their upper chest, or to help their lower back pain, working the glute muscles will have a profound effect. Selling massage by time gives us (the client and I) the opportunity to work together to develop an effective plan of action. It gives us a chance to work on the problem which gives us better odds of providing significant, lasting improvement, rather than short-term relief.
The third reason is that 60 minutes for a full body massage isn’t enough time when the client presents with pain and tension that they want to focus on. It’s entirely possible to do a great relaxation-focused full-body massage in sixty minutes. It is harder to provide a balanced session in that time, when the client needs a significant amount of the time spent on the upper body. The feet and legs don’t get the time they deserve.
Don’t misunderstand - I don’t have any beef with back, neck and shoulder massage, or with a 60-minute full-body massage. If that’s what someone wants, I am perfectly happy to provide that. But sometimes the client needs something more tailored to their needs in order to get the best results - and it’s my job to help figure out what that is.
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