MTWB: We All Need Each Other

This episode originally aired in October 2020 on the "Massage Therapy Without Borders" podcast

Cal and Cathy talk with Meghan Mari and Rachel Fairweather of Jing Advanced Massage Training Schools of Brighton, UK.

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About Our Guests:

www.jingmassage.com

Rachel Fairweather & Meghan Mari are the dynamic co-founders and directors of Jing Advanced Massage Training (www.jingmassage.com), a UK based company providing degree level hands on and online training for all who are passionate about massage. Jing is unique in being the only school to offer degree level training in massage, soft tissue therapy and research skills in the UK and successful graduates of our 3 year programme have carried out research into all areas of soft tissue therapy.

Both Rachel and Meghan have degrees in Psychology and have trained extensively in Eastern and Western bodywork. Rachel holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work. an AOS in Massage Therapy and is an licensed massage therapist. Meghan is a New York Licensed massage therapist, Certified Holistic Health Educator, and holds a Masters in International Law.

Rachel and Meghan are also authors of “Massage Fusion: The Jing method for the treatment of chronic pain” published by Handspring in 2015.

Rachel and Meghan have over 30 years combined experience in the industry working as advanced therapists and

Jane App is a clinic management software and EMR that offers flexible scheduling, user-friendly online booking, customizable documentation, a secure payment solution, and more.

To learn more about Jane’s full suite of features, head to jane.app/massage to book a 1-on-1 demo.

Healwell Homecoming; Sept 20-21, Arlington, VA

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Come for the classes and stay for the party!

Transcript

Cal Cates: 0:53

We know that you want more Healwell in your life. So I'm here with some good news. If you want more Healwell in your life, I've got two options for you. The first is to join our new interdisciplinary online, so far from Facebook, I can't even talk about it, group. It is the Healwell community and it is all kinds of practitioners from all different disciplines talking about a lot of the same stuff and what it's like to be a caregiver, and how to do that more kindly, more sustainably. We're talking about racism, we're talking about research, we're talking about science, COVID, you name it. So come join the Healwell community in Mighty Networks by going to community.healwell.org. It is a subscription based group $9.99 a month or $99.99 for the year. Come and see what we're posting, see what we're talking about and share some stuff that's important to you and become part of the conversation. Also, you can totally get on board with the Healwell love run. It's our first annual virtual 10k we've already got some people signed up who are collecting pledges, you can pledge one of those people or you can set up your very own page. Two great things. You don't have to run. You can do anything you want. You can walk, you can hop, you can skip, you can swim, you can scoot, any other way that you want to locomote yourself and you have a whole week to do that 10k. Which 10k, by the way, is barely more than six miles. Not much. If you do like a mile a day, a little more than that. You're good to go. You've got October 25 to October 30 to actually log your 10k and you can put it out there in the world. Ask your friends, ask your family, they can pledge you by the K. And all that money goes to help Healwell do amazing things that make a better world for massage therapists and humans all over the planet. Thanks for the Healwell love, we love you right back.

Cathy Ryan: 2:42

And I am Kathy Ryan here in beautiful wet salts in Hi, I am Cal Cates, Executive Director of Healwell where we traditional territory northern British Columbia, Canada major make massage therapy matter. major Healwell fan girl and this is Massage Therapy Without Borders, the podcast where we discuss the big and sticky issues in the massage profession through the lens of Canadian and American practice regulation and education. We bring on super fancy informed guests to not only discuss these issues, but to formulate and share some possible solutions to move us forward.

Cal Cates: 3:23

If you like the podcast, go to Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and tell other people that you like us, we're still very interested in you inviting your pets, having your pets enter their reviews, throw some stars at us. Use the social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, whatever people are using these days, it seems to change all the time, but spread the word and come and check us out and check out our increasing library of episodes about all of those sticky, uncomfortable issues and get your weekly dose of discomfort and reality. And as always, we like to start the show with a little pun of some sort lately, our bent has been physiologically inspired pickup lines. I think you guys are gonna like this one. Are you ready? Yeah, you probably should use this at a bar, like near a medical school, because I think some people might not get it. But I know our listeners are totally up to the task. So you could sort of sidle up at the bar. And you could say, Are you a pulmonary embolism? Because you took my breath away? Wow. Wow. Deep. That's right. So Kathy, yeah, I'm really waiting for you to come on and say we figured it out in Canada, there's no more COVID. Here's how we did it. Is that what's happening this week?

Cathy Ryan: 4:44

No.

Cal Cates: 4:45

Curses. What is happening?

Cathy Ryan: 4:48

Well, you know, I sound like a, you know, on repeat here the last few weeks. But we are we are officially in the second wave here with numbers back to pretty much where we were in the spring. Not not exactly but pretty close to where we were in the spring at the at the height of all of this. And the only difference being is a Democrat, the demographic is different. So the age group of infection is different than where it was. Which means that the the death rate is a little bit lower. Well, actually quite a bit lower than where it was back in the spring. So that's where we are.

Cal Cates: 5:26

Yeah, we, uh I was on a call this morning with a bunch of nerdy folks. And we were talking about there seems to be this weird thing happening in the States. I mean, I think that's just our motto now. There's a weird thing happening in the states.

Cathy Ryan: 5:41

Oh, yeah. And Tuesday was really weird.

Cal Cates: 5:43

Oh, man. I'll tell you what. Yeah. So in addition to that weird thing that happened on Tuesday, the wildly televised weirdness, there was sort of this just the lifting of restrictions like not not official, but sort of functionally speaking, you know, we had Rick DeSantis in Florida basically say, like, we're just going to lift them, and we'll trust businesses to do what's safe. And, you know, that hasn't happened officially in other states in the same way. But here in Virginia, you know, I got an email from my primary care provider that said, we're open come on in. And we're seeing lots of other places that are just sort of saying, Yep, we're open for, you know, dine in, our movie theaters are starting to open. And there's no, there's no real evidence that that's a good idea that we're sort of ready for that. And I know that you guys, Cathy, that you guys went back to phase two, right? Like sort of officially or

Cathy Ryan: 6:36

Well, not not officially, we went back to some Definitely. Yeah, I mean, I think if you want to eat out you elements of phase two. So what they've done here in BC, is should just get a PEG tube. You can wear your mask, you could they've taken a look at where the risk of infection seems to be most significant. So they've put they've reinstated some of the restrictions around people in indoor spaces. So for example, large gatherings at bars and clubs and those types of things or other events where people are going to be in close contact, and they weren't wearing masks. I mean, kind of hard to wear a mask when you're at a restaurant trying to your your dinner or Yeah, so there have been some they seem to be looking at where the risk is the greatest and bringing the restrictions there first, rather than just the broad shut everything down like they did in the spring, which I think is, you know, prudent that they're doing it that way. I mean, they're still getting a lot of pushback for what they're doing. But I think it's great that they're kind of looking at the looking at the data and making some decisions from there. still eat out, it would be awesome. If we all had peg tubes, it wouldn't be weird. Camelback like, yes, exactly. That's just sort of stick it on your mask. Yeah.

Unknown: 7:55

I'm really going for Camelback while I'm teaching which we can.

Cal Cates: 7:59

Excellent. Well, so this is a great a great chance for our guests to

Unknown: 8:05

Our oh so fancy guests. And in the beginning, I said to the Canadian and American lens, but now we have to broaden it to across the pond.

Cal Cates: 8:12

That's right. Yeah. And Cathy, you know, these guys a lot better than I do. So you should do the non intro intro.

Cathy Ryan: 8:18

Well, I had the great pleasure of meeting Rachel virtually a while back, we're where we have that connection of Handspring Publishing. And I mean, I know of Megan for sure, but have not had the actual pleasure of meeting Megan or either of them in person yet. But I'm hoping that someday that will happen. But I'm going to turn it over to Rachel and Megan to tell us all about their fancy selves.

Unknown: 8:47

We're fine. We're fine and fancy. So I'm Meghan. And I'm Rachel. And we are the directors of Jing Advanced Massage and Training, which is located in the sunny quadrant of the UK called Brighton By The Seaside. And although it's important, especially on this podcast to say that my vote, you know, my accent is not from this side of the pond. I'm a jumper. So I'm originally from New York, which is where Rachel and I met when almost 20 years ago, and fell in love, you know, with all of the same things of massage therapy of making a difference in people's lives, that touches a powerful medium of change. And sort of in our 20 year old, older selves, like ourselves are 20 years old. We weren't as articulate as I clearly am now, around how you know, that might manifest. And so we were working at the time I was working in a spa, I'd gone to massage school in California, which I was scared to death as a New York snobby intellectual that maybe they were going to make me touch crystals and all that good stuff. But I kind of got pulled into this revolution of stone massage, which also felt ridiculous at the time. But little did we know that therapies could take, like many, many different directions. And actually, it was intuition and intention that could guide us on that. On top of that, and as part of that, that education was at the at the foremost and so when we met Rachel was much more formulated about the idea of creating an educational framework that allowed massage therapists to access high level of education with like lower investment in smaller time than what we had and experienced in New York. And so we brought that over 20 years ago. I would say that I made it more fancy. If we're talking about fancy I'm may seem really fancy, but Rachel made it really, really good. I think that's our kind of synergy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good synergy. So, I mean, my, my story was both Meghan I come from sort of Social Work psychology background. So we both did psychology degrees, I used to be a social worker, and I found massage in the early 90s, in the UK. When I still you can now really you can do you can get qualified for doing quite a short or so it was six weekends, I had lovely teacher who taught me to massage in my heart, which I'm very grateful for. Probably nothing about anatomy or physiology, apart from some, you know, like the model of the skin, which has seemed to happen in great detail. And, and a huge long list of contraindications of things I couldn't teach really. So back in the 90s, Touch, things you couldn't touch. Things I couldn't touch, ya conditions I couldn't, couldn't touch. So this is back in the early 90s, right before the World Wide Web. And I started, I found all the American Massage magazines, somehow, you know, like, you know those magazines that are around and still around massage today. And I started getting sent home from the states and like brown paper envelopes, like it was like, kind of sort of, like secret or naughty, kind of. And, and I found that massage training was much more professionalized in the States. And I loved massage, and I really didn't want to do anything else. So I went over to the states in 1998, and requalified, there in New York. So study both Eastern and Western massage there, which was amazing. And then, because I had to work, after I'd qualified, I wandered into a spas like, Oh, my God, I've got to work in a spa, I got to work on somewhere else. And Meg was managing the spa. So that's kind of how we met. And, yeah, Meg was up for the same dream as me, which was basically bringing a high level of professional massage training to the UK. And when we hit the UK in 2002, we, there was a massive gap in the market, really, because there was a lot of dedicated, but very poorly trained massage therapists who were not able to make a living. And we kind of rocked up and started doing, you know, a two day course and got four people on it, you know, we used to teach out of our front wheel house, our house, so we literally had, you know, we ran courses in the front room with like, a living room for a living room. Yes. And then we had one bed, one bedroom was the office and the other bedroom was a massage room. So we didn't really have a bedroom. So um, you know, that was like, a Moveable Feast kind of thing. And just go from there, really. So we just started teaching this fusion of like trigger points Things that we thought were actually quite basic. And I think what we're doing is expanded, because now we are the largest. So we have to also say that, that was at the time where there was this thing, not called the World Wide Web, and it was and fascial work and stretching and all word of mouth. And we didn't have any great plan on becoming a massive school. You know, it didn't, it wasn't. But we had an incredible vision around make, well engaging with humans like humanity around how people could better themselves, or how you could support people to find their way forward. And I think that's the biggest thing that a good therapist can do is just like, help people find themselves, right. I can't fix anything, I can just sort of ease a pathway maybe. So yeah, so now that. Careful, careful what you wish for. I know. So Jing is the largest, for sure postgraduate education facility institution in the UK, perhaps it could also be within Europe in the idea that we specialize in massage and soft tissue. So and as Rachel said, which is really important, and perhaps really interesting to get your head around for the listeners, it's like, people can still do in the UK a three day five day weekend course and call themselves whatever they want, as massage is unregulated and unstandardized and so we rocked up

Cal Cates: 15:24

in UK, there's nowhere in the UK where it's

Unknown: 15:24

Yeah, and think about the UK being the size of New regulated, it's still just cracked. York State. So it's so tiny that the Nationals almost like the state level.

Cal Cates: 15:35

Yeah. Yeah. To be doable. Yeah.

Unknown: 15:41

This this voluntary regulation, but nothing that's standardized or legally enforced really. And they they kind of tried to do it because I've been around a lot I'm time, I'm sort of near the scene. So in the early 90s, there was a kind of explosion of complementary therapies, you know, like Reiki and massage and aromatherapy. And they said, there's lots of like complementary therapists in the UK. But generally, again, the level of training is quite low. And I think when they tried to regulate, it was just too much of a headache for everybody. So they just sort of went for voluntary regulation instead. And that's, that's still the case today, and I don't really see that being changed. So yeah, so our biggest thing was that we actually, we wrote a degree. Yeah, so we wrote a book. But we also wrote a degree which we got accredited at more of a university level, and it's still a real hard, it's a real hard position to be in where everybody feels, of course, a high level education will create change that education is the way forward, we are mostly dealing with women. And I think that that's important to state, it's like women who are making a pathway change, making career change, who want to make a difference, but perhaps aren't 22 with a, you know, a big credit card, you know, it's like, what can they afford, from a time and financial basis with the other things that are going on. And so our degree is taken up very, very tiny few, because you don't have to do a three year degree to become a massage therapist. So why would I have to do that. So we have to really explain over and over again, with great joy and passion and everything, that without education, we cannot have a professional respect. And without a professional respect, we can't expect the public and that is the big thing. And I think Cal you said again, it's about massage therapists being in their own bubbles. It's like we kind of keep talking to each other about how important massage is. But unless we find our way through to the public, to say that massage and touch can make a difference in chronic pain and chronic pain conditions, then no change will really happen. And so our courses are Yeah, really? Yeah.

Cal Cates: 18:05

No, no! Well, and I think that part of the struggle we have, and I imagine this is shared in places in Canada as well is that it can make a difference under the hands of a well trained therapist. And it's not that a poorly trained therapist is necessarily going to injure a person, but you're not going to see the same kind of outcome and someone who doesn't know their psoas from their gastroc, from their, whatever.

Unknown: 18:28

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that's right. And I think the only reason that Jing has been able to, to survive is that we actually teach people to get results. So in the UK is a very different scene, so people can't get student loans, you know, it's not an established thing that you have to pay well. So I mean, our fees are so ridiculously reasonable. I mean, when I went to massage school in the states, like 22 years ago, it was $10,000. A year, right? 40 thousand. What are you talking? Yeah, it was 10 for Anyway, whatever it was, I say$10,000 in our fees, it was a lot of money. But, you know, our fees now for people to do a degree level course, are like two and a half thousand pounds a year. And we have, but people can go to the local further education college and get a qualification for 100 pounds, you know, so they're like, Well, why would I pay seven grand, you know, to become qualified, they can't get student loans was kind of, so we really just have to convince people by the results that they get. So because we teach this kind of, you know, fusion, you know, she's the thing that we wrote the book about, which is what most dedicated practitioners are doing is, you know, excellent consultation that's taken into account by a psychosocial model. It's a fusion of, you know, trigger points, fascial work, you know, acupressure stretching, and, you know, empowerment through, you know, tailored self care suggestions. You know, so really teaching people how to get results within the smallest number of sessions with chronic pain conditions and being incredibly educated. So people don't come in and say, I want to do a three year degree. We get them though, it's ok, we get them. They say, I'm coming in for the three day course. They do it, then they go, and they get clients and they make a difference. And then they come back for more. So, you know, and it's still, you know, I mean, we're so well known, but still 20 years on, it's still it's still a troubled struggle, and I think just a relief to begin with. But that thing he was saying about massage therapists sometimes exiting in their own bubble, because we often hear this thing of oh, it's not fair that the physios people go to a physio and osteopath or a chiropractor first and we're like, well, they spent three years or four years investing in their education. Then, and you know, a lot of money. So actually, you need to be able to do that, too. So, you know, we do take people on and take them up to a degree level, and they do research and they write dissertations. And it's a lot of support, you know, from us, because there isn't a, you know, I kind of and they're amazing people like, so the people who we attract, and like, the people who really want to be the best and uh, yeah

Cal Cates: 21:47

yeah

Cathy Ryan: 21:48

So my head is exploding on so many levels here. First of all, no regulation, no standardization, so we'll just write a degree. Okay. So, I mean, I could like go for days on that, that. That just blows my mind. And you know, and I think, you know, Meghan, I think while both of you touched on something that has kind of been one of my, my things over 30 years of practice is results speak louder than anything.

Unknown: 22:17

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we're very results driven at Jing, and we have to be otherwise we wouldn't have a market because also, you know, they don't have money, they can't get loans there, you know, so they just need the quickest, easiest possible route to getting results with clients. And chronic pain is complicated. So, you know, they need a shortcut to that. And we take that same teacher job is to shorten the journey very seriously. So. And I think in the COVID situation, which is, you know, on everybody's mind, what we have recognized is that this is an opportunity for massage therapists, certainly within the UK, and for sure, abroad, we get lots of people on our social media now and interacting on our zooms, we put out a community zoom three times a week, we did it from the very first day of lockdown in, which was for us in March, around the same time, New York was around St. Patrick's Day where Rachel and I knew we had to close the school with massive tears. And we didn't know any I mean, like, we did some smart stuff previously, like we put some massage courses online, we invested in an education that was something that people could access in other places seven years ago. So it's not like we've never made a foray into technology around massage therapy. But however, we also felt very compromised. How is one gonna teach massage through a screen, right? That that's always been there. So when we closed in March, I'm not saying we were completely naive to technology, but it worked certainly wasn't our strength or the way in which we communicated. On that day, we just said, I have no idea what's going to happen, but we're not leaving. And we showed up for our people three times a week at high noon, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I'm gonna cry. Like, we just did it. We didn't do a podcast, like we didn't know what we're doing. So first we did Facebook Lives, then we understood there was this thing called Zoom. And we've done the race Also we couldn't be together. and we couldn't be together. So we were in lockdown. So we came in separate houses, Which we all know now, you know, but it was kind of there. And we were really able to gather massage therapists who wanted to work and wanted to be a community and wanted to share. And I think that this is the positive part of COVID the concentration of education that if you want to learn you can and through learning, you can make everything available to yourselves and all the patients that want to see you. And so those zooms were tears, or they were how to deal with a frozen shoulder, or how to deal with grief. Because massage therapy for us is not just the muscular skeletal, you know, that's a different discipline. For us, It's like how that chronic pain, or how trauma can manifest within our physical self, how an emotional experience can interlace and interconnect with a physical one, and neither one is more important. And so with COVID we're really trying to support anybody that we can around, saying you have work to do. And if you drop that, then you are doing a disservice not only to yourself, but the public because everybody is lost. And we are so lucky that we figured out our passion 25, 30 years ago Cathy like we're so lucky, even if we feel we don't know how to do it. We know what we want to do. And loads of people don't and they're like, I've been doing this shit job and I don't want to do it and it's like, nobody's making me do what I want to do. I love what I want what I do, and so that is like this quintessential sweet spot of COVID that we we really have to hold on to it.

Cal Cates: 26:22

Yeah, so. Go ahead Rachel. So to say the same thing.

Unknown: 26:29

It won't be anything, it should just be like, she's just putting it out there, you should ask a question. She's got lots to say. But it's because I was gonna talk about self care. And the other thing that we really tried to promote in lockdown, because the massage therapy community was in despair, as I'm sure yours was, as well. And, you know, people were just turning up for the zooms, and they were crying, and then getting money. I mean, none of the grants kicked in for months. And, you know, it was all terrible. And we just kept saying to people, you still have skills, you still have knowledge, you can still connect with your clients, you know, you can reach out, you can offer self care online, you know, to all your clients empowering, not in a tele rehab way like a physio would do, but the things that we do, you know, teach them a short meditation, you know, because teaching has always been a big part of the big chapter in the book about it. And it's like, and it's, I think it's often the one that gets a bit brushed over, you know, it's like always a couple of stretches and drink some water, you know, actually, it's, it's massive, you know, there's a lot of research behind it, there's a whole psychology around self care. So we really started trying to support people to offer that to their clients, over various platforms, you know, telephone, and also doing group sessions as well. So quite a lot for therapists actually picked up group sessions with offices who had now gone into doing remote work. So they were, you know, working with them doing bit of stretching, bit of breathing, exercise, they can self triggerpoint. And it was like, you can still work, there's still stuff that you know, there's stuff, the stuff that you can you can offer. So we kind of just held each other's hands and just sort of got the two hands together my thing, but I mean, all those zooms are still on the website. Do not look at them! It's like some awful kind of historical archive of a community in distress because, you know, three times a week, and Meg was doing like massage massage with Meg on a Friday. So we get like, 300 therapists come in with their children, massageing and everyone's crying, you know, we've got like, a playlist on the DJ. So, you know, it was it was a thing, but it is a thing it's everybody has. So yeah, we all had to diversify. We had to diversify a gene, we took a lot of stuff online. And there are that without a doubt positive things that have come out of that, because now everybody knows how to use Zoom, right, which nobody did.

Cal Cates: 29:09

Well, and I wonder where you guys are now. And I just realized that in my brain, I no longer call him Boris, I just call him Bedhead Johnson. But Boris has come out in the last like just even 24 hours and said, like, we're at a critical juncture. And you have to follow the rules. And like, I mean, the rates are looked to be skyrocketing if you can.

Unknown: 29:29

I mean, I was just looking at the Canadian rates. And it's like England's like, trip. I mean, I mean, they're not giving us enough per capita, but I would say, you know, Canada versus England, I mean, we are probably in the worst position in the world and we have 40,000 in the first wave we have 7000 cases like last three days ago wave we have the worst number of deaths in the whole of Europe. And, you know, it was inexcusable, you know, because the rest of Europe were actually I mean, anybody with a with a phone and a May in Spain could see what was happening. It wasn't like we have different antibodies, you know, say nothing happened, you know, lockdown came came too late. So most of those infections and deaths actually happened, you know, a couple of weeks into lockdown, people were already infected. And now we're in this like, horrible kind of halfway house. You know, again, most people felt that restrictions were lifted too early, but there was a lot of pressure almost for people to go back to work again urge to go back to work by the government, and people were urged to eat out we had like a government scheme eat out to help out Did you read about that? Did you read it's quite an extraordinary piece of government work people are like, oh I don't realy fancy going to the restaurant but I'm getting you know as cheap deal from the government. So I will So they gave this amazing you can imagine the heart you know, I have to go back to New York, but imagine the length, the size of New York, that's the UK country. What we're going to do is for the month of August, we're going to support any restaurant who wants to sign up to this government project but we will pay 50% of any food bill that comes into your restaurant. 50%. So the

Cal Cates: 31:12

We won't pay your COVID bill when you go to the hospital but

Unknown: 31:20

but we will Um, we should say actually NHS, that, that is amazing. So the NHS here has been extraordinary. So the the national national health

Cal Cates: 31:33

That's the national health system? Yeah

Unknown: 31:35

So we've, my parents were stuck in lockdown in New York for a while, but they're in Spain. So I really went through that. So access to healthcare, once you sick is very available, and is not a financial burden within the UK. And that is extraordinary. The talk about Boris he and his conservative fellows have been chipping away at the National Health Care surface since, well since Thatcher right. So what we are also hoping is that there will be a reinvestment within the national health care service. And if we can give any advice to our UK from our American Canadian, it's like, you know, a privatization of healthcare is nothing but bad news. And so that's happened and people have supported the NHS and got out and did the claps or you know, immediately and that kind of thing. But this eat out thing was crazy. It was like, so people just went out and they ate and they sat anywhere, and they you know, there was and pubs were open so England is crazy, if you can't drink the world is ending. So it's true. You know, pubs are a thing.

Cal Cates: 32:42

No, but you guys mentioned when we were talking right before we started today that you are teaching live courses. I mean, that my my question is, how, how is that happening? And how are you seeing clients? Are our therapists in the UK seeing clients? Yeah, very careful. So.

Unknown: 32:59

So we massage therapists were able to go back from middle of July, July. So we weren't closed down from March, end of March, depending. And then yeah,

Cal Cates: 33:09

and I don't want to interrupt you guys. But I'm going to interrupt you. In talking with other friends and colleagues from the UK, you guys had a weird sort of you didn't know when you were going to hear kind of a thing. I mean, for an unregulated profession, it sounded like there was still a lot of meddling with what you guys were doing. Can you talk a bit about

Unknown: 33:29

Yeah. And also, nobody understands the unregulation, least of all massage therapists. There's about 20 different professional associations. So we're all giving our slightly different advice, because that's the other thing we did, we just had to keep running because people were like, dude, when we kind of knew was coming, and then for three months, do we have to wear gloves? What kind of gloves? I don't want to wear gloves? Do I have to wear gloves? My God? It's like, yes, well, the professional associations are given that slightly different information. And it was just like consoling so if we can kind of give you that kind of horizon scan. So it's like, I'm a massage therapist, all I need in the UK is to find an insurer who will insure me to work, end of, that's all I need. What has grown up over the last 30 years? Or is it Rachel said professional association. So we could all today on this great zoom say actually, we're going to create our own professional association. Maybe we should? Seriously? Yeah, many people have asked Jing to do it for the for many, many years. We don't do that. But it's like it because it comes a club. Well, you know, and it just becomes a club. So we get together, we put our standards together, we write it out, we put it to another voluntary choice of people who also have a nice, fancy name and say, will you accredit us, but it's just between us. And then we say, well, we're gonna run this school, and everybody who graduates can then become a member of this association, and then that sort of grows. And that's what we have. So we have something like 15 to 20 different professional associations, they're pretty much based on what kind of school you went to. So without getting into too much detail, because massage is not a qualification over a long period of time. You can choose to perhaps qualify in aromatherapy or sports massage. You're not allowed to do medical massage, though, so don't even. Remedial massage. We, our courses are called advanced clinical massage. Or you could do reflexology. So those are all very small qualifications. Whereas when I went to massage school, I learned all those things right pregnancy massage, how to work with people living HIV, like it just sort of all within my qualification in the UK, it's all very separate. So then you have an association for each one of those things. So if you had chosen over your lifetime, which of course you would, to engage with a myofascial course, and an aromatherapy course and a sports course you then have three professional associations who would then telling you how you should behave, but none of it is required or regulated by any serious body. But the other thing is the massage therapist themselves don't even understand it. So they think they're professional associations and the law is like, because everything's, it's just it's a real mess and nobody understands. And there's just loads of things, you know, with lots of kind of acronyms to it. So everybody's basically really confused. But we've done a good job at clearing the past. Yeah, so so Jing has really just done our best to kind of, we're not neutral, for sure, we have very strong opinions, but like to try to steer people into common sense. And as you said, like the guidelines are very confusing. So what happened for us and what is continuing to happen is guidelines come out that come out every couple of weeks, they engage around different work practices. So anybody within close contact, who's not within a medical has a certain amount of guidelines from the government, and that is for sure a government guideline. And then our professional associations will interpret that and then advise. And so we have, of course, have taken the most, I mean, the strictest line at Jing. And again, it's been a bit of a backlash in the sense that we require everyone who comes here, obviously to declare their COVID. You know, we do a COVID check. But also no one in our classroom which is even kind of above what people even do in their clinics, you know, there's a change, there's anti back of the door, there's a one way system, there's one meter distance or more, there's high levels of ventilation, then in full masks all the time, no messing about, you can get your Camelback to drink if you want to through your mask. And not the highest medical rate but a pretty serious kind of mask. And then a visor on top of that. And gloves, and a mini, like an apron, like another barrier on your clothes. And that all has to be changed between clinic clients and you know, all sheets and towels and stuff all have to be boiled before they arrive and everything has to leave the building overnight and everything has to be aired out. And you know, just in time we've And we've also massively reduced capacity. We will teach up to 30 because we have two rooms now it's down to a team. I mean, and we're also seeing, you know, we've changed our cancellation policy because you know, you'll have 16 on the class and then suddenly you'll have 10 the next day because people are a, big thing that's happening in the UK at the moment. It's local lockdowns are very short notice. So when local lockdowns happen, people are not allowed to do any non essential travel. So, people are booked on courses they've been wanting to do for a year, and then they you know, then they can't do them. Or they might, you know, they might have symptoms, or they might have a son who's got symptoms, or, you know, I mean, it's just endless, or they've been to a country where they have to quarantine There's a lot of quarantine going on. So, you know, it's the big thing is challenging, and we have to teach in a very different very different way. You know, it's kind of, you know, I always say Jing is kind of like, it's like a Swiss watch. It's like a collection of finely tuned parts, you know, sort of like a little song here, or these little interactive thing. And now I will get up and you know, do Tai Chi and feed each other and I will do a bit of research wherever. And now it's sort of like onto a sundial now it's like, alright, here you go. So I'm gonna go. In case you're live, Rachel and I are like, I mean, as everyone is, I heard a beautiful theater director talk the other day about how she spent three months like blocking the stage and not even thinking about what was going to be delivered. And I think that that's where we were in August. So we opened our first classes in the middle of August, it was a real choice that the first course we offered was actually a beginners course. So it was about helping people who through lockdown had lost their jobs, musicians, and artists, people who were really in high despair, who always had an affinity for touch massage and wanted to often like not only did they want a career, but they also wanted to help people within their educate, you know, in their career circles, right in their communities. And that was really challenging. In fact, we had a doctor on the course and we continue to laugh that she was the worst with her maths, which was like the app. They call they're called GP's in the UK general practitioners like generally you're in a corner doctor. And Jing does do that sort of serves every man like, you know, every level of previous education is always welcome here. So we did that and we're doing it and you know, it's hot from a business perspective. Is it hard? Financially, maybe. Emotionally? Absolutely not. As far as feeling that there is there are people to serve and and we're educating. Is it sometimes despairing when there is a squeaky wheel that sort of wants to lash it, like people are angry, and they don't really know who to be angry at. And sometimes it's the person your best beloved. And so sometimes it's a bit of like, mumble, but we're alright. And we've put together lots of different ways. So we have a family group called the Jing hub, which anybody listening to is more than welcome to join. It's called The Jing Hub. It's up on Facebook, it was always only offered to people who have done Jing education because we believe in cooperation, not. What's that word? I don't know. Competition. So you know, people could cross refer and talk to each other. But through lockdown, we open that up to everybody. And so people could share things. As they said, ironically, we also have these zoom norms called massage matters. No so different than our fellow friends here. And that went from three days a week is now once a week, and that's just free and anybody can pop in, they're all recorded. They're all free on the website. There's hundreds of blogs. And there's also an archive of something called Jing TV, which we've been running for about 12 years, which is talking about bad puns. Lots of bad. So as I was saying, was my best line ever. Like I just I'm, and so those are like seven minute episodes where we talk about anything around how to make money as massage therapists, how to have a vacation as a massage therapist, how to deal with scar tissue, you know, from academics to kind of art tissue. I know Do you know anything about

Cal Cates: 43:11

You have to push really hard. That's what I heard. Yeah.

Unknown: 43:18

Break it up. Yeah. The best book ever. I haven't read here. It's called traumatic scar tissue management.

Cal Cates: 43:28

And I thought that was the second best book because isn't there some other book that you guys wrote Yeah, yeah. Fusion

Unknown: 43:39

25 years of Rachel's brain, but I know that brain really well. So I don't have to read that book so much.

Cal Cates: 43:45

Excellent.

Cathy Ryan: 43:49

Oh, Cal, are you kind of getting the feeling that you, you have a, Healwell has a twin? Total! Like, I mean, I'm, I'm listening to them speak. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, where have I heard?

Cal Cates: 44:02

A twin with a way cooler accent

Unknown: 44:08

little Liverpudlian in the behind the Yes. Well, Your massage you massage therapy without frontiers? Because for age also like same brain for ages. So it'd be really great to have some international organizations called massage therapy without borders, which is like the same thing. Right? Yeah, it's just like, you know, I think there's there's so much to gain from international collaboration. And I do feel that that if we can take something from COVID, it has to be the ease with which we can do this right time is permitting but it opens up a whole new field of intellect, international collaboration and international teaching. Well, and we also did a couple of those, which I'm sure you guys have done but how have you been doing with the conferences? Like we've been doing loads of conferences. How's that going?

Cathy Ryan: 45:00

Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think, if you I think it's important for us to be mindful that COVID has been horrific. On the other side of that it really has pushed us into, I think, more of a international online kind of experience, you know, where I probably would have never attended a conference online, you know, doing those kinds of things now, and this weekend, I'm actually virtually in Poland, presenting at the Polish fascia symposium. So you know, all these incredible experiences, you know, and opportunities are coming out of this really horrific kind of event that's happening in the world.

Unknown: 45:44

Yeah, as well. I mean, we talked about doing an online conference for years, but ours is really complicated, and then this that and the other and then we were like, we had the idea on Monday and we run it on Wednesdays. Because everybody was home! Everyone was home the ringing up all these like national lecturers, and like Yeah, I'm free you know, it was like, we just run it as one long zoom meeting and everyone just pitch pitch does great, super fun.

Cal Cates: 46:07

You know, when when you guys were talking about sort of the silver lining or whatever you want to call it? You know, we in our Healwell group, we've been talking a lot about Sonia Renee Taylor's stuff about radical self love and she has a really amazing thing sort of about she has a lot of amazing things but her her main thrust is that we are not good at being kind to ourselves and, and that's sort of what she talks about. But there's this great quote floating around where she says, "We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre Corona existence was not normal, other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return my friends, we are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment, one that fits all of humanity and nature."

Cathy Ryan: 47:01

Beautiful, now, I'm gonna cry. Yeah.

Unknown: 47:03

And resonates and we can grab them. What we are having here is we had that time of lockdown, which I can only you know, it was definitely a global experience for all of us who are lucky enough to have you know, loving family, we have to get into that, right. This is a place of privilege. Yes. The lock down and saying, Okay, this is really hard. My job might not be you know, all these other things. And I have a beautiful person in my house, I have a beautiful home, that I can cultivate more, there are spaces in which I can invest that I've never had time for, which is that, you know, child, that tree that whatever that is, and we can then move forward with with creative ideas. And isn't that crazy that some of us are also yearning again, for lock down, it feels like, there was this moment where it was a crash. And then we came out of it. Like we came together, we felt strong. And now what we're having in the UK, as Rachel said, we're having local lockdown. We're also having a lot of indecision, and a lot of people feeling not sure, like, untethered ground, like nobody knows which step to take forward or back. And there's also a sense of really, like, unfairness that, that the pub can be wildly open, or the 27 year old who I saw on the beach yesterday in their open DJ raise can happen. But my poor massage therapists who are working in their garden, seeing two people a day, can't put food on the table. So you're just in this situ, who are helping people. I'm not saying that DJ is not changing my life, DJ save my life. It's just about kind of where I've never felt that feeling ever. Because as I said earlier, I love my life. But I feel like, I remember that first feeling of seeing the takeaway shop and how people were acting online. And feeling like, Whoo, I'm not so sure I'm okay with it. And who do I, who do I fight and I can't fight anybody. I can just say, massage therapists unite. Massage Therapists be professional, massage therapists stay focused, and grounded, and have a great belief in ourselves and that of kindness, and lovable above all else. And I think that that message is something that we will continue to resonate with, throughout the next year stronger and stronger.

Cathy Ryan: 49:51

Yay.

Cal Cates: 49:54

I think that's true. And now I realize, of course, now that we are going to have to have you guys back because I have like a whole list of questions about your curriculum and how it happens and all that stuff. But we can't talk about that today. Because now we have to, like, you know, wrap it up and and make people want more for the future.

Unknown: 50:13

Well, let's carry on the conversation. I feel like we could talk for the next six months, probably.

Cal Cates: 50:20

And then tell us again. So the Jing hub, people can just come and hub it up with you guys.

Unknown: 50:25

Come on the Jing hub and just say I want to be a member. I'm a massage therapist. To the Facebook group. Yeah. We're also on Instagram, I'm sure by somebody younger within our team. The school is called Jing Advanced Massage Training, that also has a Facebook page So that the website is doing massage.com Yeah. And probably the easiest way for people to stay connected is there's a sign up to our mailing list at the top of every page. So if they sign up, then they'll get access to when we have our we have a weekly massage matters Zoominar for anybody in the community. We'd love to have more international massage therapists on that I think it'd be amazing because we've got a few European massage therapists and it's, it's been really helpful to see how people are dealing with it in different countries. Sometimes if they're ahead of you, you kind of get a heads up of what's going on. On Yeah, you know, you kind of get different ideas. And those caught those, the the massage matters. And then we also have a prescription subscription course that people can sign up to, which is about 35 bucks, maybe a month, and a mentoring group. And it also has recorded content around how to deliver self care via zoom. So that's sort of one of the things that we supported. But those massage matters things, although they are an emotional connection. They're also very educational, and people can come on them and just ask us anything. So how to deal with frozen shoulder and knee pain, or how are you dealing with trauma within the tissue. And we have some great people like, who stay up in the middle of the night in India and always tuned in. So it's just kind of a lot of frameworks in which to get in touch, you know.

Cal Cates: 52:13

Cool. And all that stuff will be in the show notes to everybody. So you can if you're driving and you can't write these things down or whatever, you can just check them out.

Cathy Ryan: 52:21

And don't write these things down when you're driving.

Cal Cates: 52:25

Or scooting. I saw a guy on one of those lime scooters, the other day, he looked at me, I feel like I'm like grandpa, I saw one of those guys on the lime scooter. And he was texting, and I thought that's a bad idea.

Cathy Ryan: 52:36

No, don't do that. Yeah, don't do that. Yeah.

Unknown: 52:39

Well, thanks, we just want to say thanks for having us. I know, we're kind of like noisy. And I want to say

Cathy Ryan: 52:45

In the best possible way.

Unknown: 52:46

In the best possible way. And I want to say thank you to all of you. And you're, you know, we all need each other. And what you have done today also will probably lift Rachel in like, for real, like much longer than you can think like not even just 10 minutes, like it could even be another 10 to 20, you know, years in the sense. What we all need to know is we're not alone. And I want we want to make everybody's journey shorter. But we also want to be rich, like a richer thing. You know, and you generously share, you know, helps me and I just want to say I really want to say from the bottom my heart. Thank you. You know, thank you for reaching out. And thank you for doing this for your people and our people. It is extraordinary. In an extraordinary time. Yeah. So I'm very American. My dad would be proud. I could take those lemons and make lemonade,

Cal Cates: 53:39

That's right. That's right. No, thank you guys for joining us. You. I'm sure that you've, you've buoyed me and I'm sure you buoyed our listeners as well. And we really do tend to make good on our threats to have people back so we will have you back and get all dirty about curriculum. Cool, Cathy, anything to add?

Cathy Ryan: 54:03

No, I'm just happy. You people make me happy.

Unknown: 54:07

You make us happy too, it's just a great tribe isn't there? We've always said that about massage therapy, it's a great tribe. Now more than ever, we really need to reach out and hold each other's hands, don't we, virtually, because it's challenging waters ahead for the for the industry. You know, I've got no doubt. You know, I've got no doubt that we will get through it because people need touch more than ever, and the kind of compassionate to have each other, you know, massage therapists offer. But yeah, it's it's not going to be straightforward. So we stay together and share ideas and resources and teachings. And, you know, I do truly believe that that's the way forward. And I didn't mention by the way, because we should do that another that we've got loads of research that are be told, yeah, we do like a whole bunch of things. So we've got like, 100 dissertations on like, mathematical research. There's just been sitting in Jing, and we keep saying, Oh, we must do something with that. We must tell people that we've got like, we never get around to it. That's got to be another conversation. Our students did it. Yeah, brilliantly. So on loads of different topics. Really interesting stuff. So.

Cal Cates: 55:18

Excellent. Yeah. All right.

Cathy Ryan: 55:20

We definitely have to have you back like Yeah, a few times.

Cal Cates: 55:24

For sure. Sounds great. Well, I am still Cal Cate's, Executive Director of Healwell, where we make massage therapy matter.

Cathy Ryan: 55:33

And I am still Cathy Ryan. And this has been another episode of Massage Therapy Without Borders, the podcast where we discuss the big and sticky issues in massage profession, through the lens of Canadian and American and across the pond practice regulation and education in order to formulate and share solutions to move us forward.

Cal Cates: 55:52

Make sure you use your MTWB coupon at the online.healwell.org online classroom portal and check out what we've got in there all kinds of things you're not going to find anywhere else. Give us some stars. Give us some reviews. Subscribe if you haven't already subscribed to the podcast so that it just comes to you every Saturday when it gets loaded up. Go ahead and do that and we'll look forward to seeing you again real soon. Take care Massage Therapy Without Borders is produced by Healwell. Our theme music is by Harry Pickens. Send us feedback at info@healwell.org That's info at h e a l w e l l .org. And please check out our classes at Healwell.org. New episodes will be available weekly via your favorite podcast app and on Healwell's Facebook page. Thanks for listening.