Good Neighbor Podcast: Fort Collins

Aquatic Bodywork In Fort Collins: Malama’s Path To Calm Nerves And Better Movement

• Nick George • Season 1 • Episode 123

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Warm water changes how the body listens. We sit down with Gina Michelle of Malama Massage and Bodywork to explore aquatic bodywork inside a purpose‑built, 22‑foot therapy pool in Fort Collins—and why buoyancy, heat, and gentle movement can calm an overworked nervous system faster than a traditional table session.

Gina traces her arc from the high‑pressure music industry to decades of massage therapy and a dozen years practicing in water. She explains how three‑dimensional access in the pool lets her work the spine and hips without triggering guarding, why warm immersion increases range of motion, and how expectant parents can use aquatic sessions to improve comfort and support optimal fetal positioning. We dig into accessibility too: ADA lift access, supportive floats for head and legs, and a consent‑led approach that meets clients where they are, whether they’re rehabbing injuries, managing chronic pain, or simply seeking real rest.

Then we add sound. Monthly sound baths featuring gongs, Tibetan bowls, and crystal bowls use water’s natural conductivity to carry vibration through the body, stacking benefits with heat and buoyancy. The result? Slower breath, deeper relaxation, and the kind of sleep that lingers long after you’ve toweled off. Along the way, Gina opens up about what it takes to build a community wellness hub—welcoming allied practitioners under one roof while protecting the boundaries that keep care sustainable and genuine.

If you’ve wondered whether aquatic bodywork is right for you, this conversation offers clear answers and real‑world examples: stress regulation, pain relief, pregnancy support, athletic recovery, and more. Join us to learn how environment shapes healing, why “Malama” means to care and nurture, and where to experience this in Fort Collins. Enjoy the episode, share it with a friend who needs calm, and leave a quick review to help neighbors discover the show.

SPEAKER_00:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Nick George.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of amazing massage and bodywork here in Fort Collins? Well, get ready. We found it. I'm have the great pleasure today of introducing Gina Michelle of Malama Massage and Bodywork. Gina, how's it going today?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm doing great. I'm talking to you in my therapy pool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I can see that. It it took me a second to realize that I've actually been in that therapy pool with you before. Um right before we started recording, it dawned on me, and that's pretty funny. And small world, and it was an amazing uh experience, like nothing else. Um, by reading the name, uh, there it doesn't really tell people exactly what the experience is. I'm the I can tell people that firsthand. How did you get into this business?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, specifically for the water, um, I have been practicing the um the aquatic body work for about 12 years, but um a massage therapist, um just obtaining skills for the last 25 years. So this has been my career and passion for a long time. Um, and it was it was a career change from being in the music industry, that high stress, um, high ego um type of exposure, and knowing that identifying the creativity and passion of um of changing people's lives through art, but this is healing arts. So um that's that is the main thread, and it was a really easy transition for me. I I am a science person, I love anatomy, kinesiology. So um solving puzzles, solving mysteries, especially around pain and discomfort, is um something that um was very intriguing for me, and so I decided to make a career out of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Can you tell us more about your business? I should have asked that question first before I asked you how to how you got into it.

SPEAKER_02:

Tell us all of the things that different from this percentage. Yeah, it is different. So um, so how I got into um formulating Aqua's Wellness Arts was really about the idea of um finding a place for this therapy pool. It's a 22-foot wide pool. Um, it's warm, it needs a lot of space for the humidity and for um all the activities that I I like to hold here. And so um I landed on trying to find a location specifically for the pool. And Malama is my practice that has been um in existence for for decades, and so it's just um been this natural follow-through as a result of opening this um one location here in town, is that um I get to have other practitioners who uh sublet and rent in the front, and so now it's kind of become more of a uh an access for the community where there's different modalities happening, whether that's other uh styles of massage therapy. I've got a um midwife nurse practitioner who comes in and helps with hormone um support and um other um areas in the birthing community, and and um it's just a really fascinating group. And Aquus means um like a conf, like a many many forms of water. So when we're working with uh different modalities and different approaches to how we can um create wellness, it they do come from different sources, and when I think source, I think water and naturally, you know, I'm and I am in water, so um aquas was the was the word that came to mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Talk to me about the audio verb um aspect vibration. Oh, yes, the audio vibration of of you mean this the sound baths is I I think I experienced a few different a couple of different things at least, including a gong, maybe.

SPEAKER_02:

Um yeah, yeah, so the sound baths, we try to hold those once a month. Um, I have a rotation of uh different sound therapists or practitioners, and sometimes they bring in gongs, they'll bring in um Tibetan bowls or um the quartz crystal bowls, yeah, and um different um other mediums of sound, and you know, sound carries through water pretty easily. So when you're floating and you're relaxing and um receiving these healing frequencies, uh, I mean, what I can't think of a better combination, right? The water and the sound, it really does travel through, and we're we're made of water. Um, our composite is about 70%. So what we're receiving through the this um exposure of the sound uh journey is um really profound. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I felt like I floated out of your building after the greatest sleep and dream experience of my life and left my flip-flops there. And you guys made an effort to make sure I got them back a month later.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's right. You are the flip-flop guy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm the flip-flops guy. And those are some nice ones. You know, you could you could open but uh uh bottles with the the thing on the bottom of them, right? So um thank you for getting this back to me. Very honest people, too. Um so uh wow, Gina. What um what is your target clientele and how are you reaching out to them through the digital media now?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So I've been so lucky so far with on the massage side, largely referral-based. On the aquatic side, it's a whole different modality that people really don't know a lot about unless they go to Hot Springs or maybe have watched that episode on New Girl where they kind of made fun of you know, some that that um older therapist holding the uh one of the cast characters.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

It's uh um it's a um very unique and um different approach. Um, a lot of people don't really know if is the water cold or warm, and the answer is it's warm. Um a lot of people, when it comes down to what is the common need, it's really about people's nervous systems and how we can regulate. Um, I'm sure out there in the world of internet and information and Dr. Google, um, the phrase of regulating your nervous system comes to mind. And that could be through top therapy, that could be through meditation, um, and also through body work. And this one in the water, you have the warmth, you have the ease of relaxing in the water. There's this fluidity, I'm working right with your spine, increasing range of motion, um, the muscles soften a lot quicker than on the table because you're in warm water, it's almost like you're taking a bath, and then you're also getting bodies. That's a really good combination, right? Um, and so then who is this targeted for? Almost everybody. I have a lift for ADA needs, um, so you don't necessarily have to be um climbing a ladder. I have um pregnant women who are having issues um with their comfort level during pregnancy or need help with um optimally positioning their babies in utero uh before labor, which is a very, very big deal. That means that there's less intervention. Um, and in sports injuries, range of motion. Um the warm water helps to prevent people from guarding their body as if they were on land. And so um it's almost like um I don't want to say tricking, but it's just like really working with how the body opens while they're floating. And people do float. Um, by the way, I do I did bring like people wear something like this around their legs, so they're floating, the bottom part of their body is floating, and I'm either holding their hand, their head in my hands, or I'm using you know something like this, it's a head float. So um it makes the body very accessible to work almost in a three-dimensional way, and um the results are really profound.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's all the benefits of like a sensory deprivation chamber, I would imagine, since I haven't been in anything like that other than at your place. Um the sensories that the inputs that you're controlling in that situation are amazing, uh, creates a great environment. Uh, so have you ever thought about doing your own podcast to educate people about this?

SPEAKER_02:

I've done a few a couple of podcasts, and um, yeah, I I I haven't really thought about doing my own, like heading it up. I would love to uh collaborate and learn from somebody who's who knows it better than I do, though.

SPEAKER_01:

So what do you do for fun?

SPEAKER_02:

I'd be up for I'd be up to here possibilities.

SPEAKER_01:

What do you do for fun when you're not giving people the dream state experience at work?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, um, I I do enjoy a lot of uh solo um or alone time because I am holding space for a lot of people. Um, but a lot of times too, I'm with my family, um, the the people who are close to me and in my heart. And so that might mean that I'm inviting them into my space, uh my home space, or traveling. Uh, and um, you know, it's it's just um I'm I'm like everyone else. I have a family and I have dedicated time for the ones that I love for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Gina, we know every not everybody's had a perfect life, and uh some of us have gone through amazing um adversity and that made us the diamond that we are today. Um what about you? Is there anything you want to share with us that uh was a personal struggle that you overcame and made you stronger?

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, so when I read that question that you um left, I was thinking, does it pertain to business? And so I I had I had an answer pertaining to business, and but I also think it's um related to any kind of uh facet of my life. And so that it it's it's really you know, I'm a I'm a giver by nature, and so um if some if you are a giver and can relate to um the hurdle that it takes to kind of having an edge or you know, working with boundaries, um, you know, making decisions not just from the heart. As a business person, you know, there's it involves a lot more discern, discerning and um a lot more um working with what is supportive and worthy of my time and my energy, right? And so that's everything from if I speak about business, every from collaborating with people, um subletters, um, you know, just working with my own boundaries and and when does work time happen and when does personal time happen, and is there overlap or not, like really choosing and affirming that. Um and I think the um the growth has been um, you know, it's it's always an upgrade, it's not just one and done lesson. There's always some kind of situation that has a variable, right? So um, so it it just each experience helps me affirm what it is that I'm really all about and what is in my integrity, and that I get to attract people within my integrity as well, and that's super important.

SPEAKER_01:

For those of you that are listening to this on audio driving, uh Malama is spelled M A L A M A. Um, what does Malama mean?

SPEAKER_02:

Malama was um a nickname that was given to my Hawaiian teacher or my kumu. Um, when I was studying um Hawaiian temple Lomi Lomi, I would go back and forth to Maui and we would have these retreats and really get into the spiritual aspect of body work, um, which actually translates a lot in the water. So malama means to take to care for or to nurture. And so um it it seemed pretty fitting, I guess, um, my style and approach. Um, there is a a very um held space, a contained space, and I've just I've just I've made it bigger, you know, with this pool space. Yeah, it is a big container for everyone to let go in.

SPEAKER_01:

Gina, what are all of the ways that people can find you online on social media and by phone?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, thankfully, now I have uh this this link with with you, the Good Neighbor Podcast, um, where they can uh click onto my website. Um I'm on Facebook under Malama Massage Therapy. Uh you can Google me as well uh and um find all kinds of pictures. I try to stay up to date. Um I'm not a natural uh media type person, but uh you know you'll find all kinds of pictures, um reviews, um, and um, of course, where I'm located.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice. Yeah. Excuse me. Gina, I really appreciate you being on the show, and we definitely wish you and Malama Massage and Bodywork the very best moving forward.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time, and I'd love to see you back in the pool, okay, Nick?

SPEAKER_01:

I'll be back.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmpfortcollins.com. That's gmpfortcollins.com or call nine seven zero four two zero eight two five.