Monthly Archives: September 2010

The MISP instructor’s training was held in on January 29th and 30th 2011 in Vancouver BC at the Utopia Academy of Massage Therapy. The course was a success and everyone who took part had a great time. A big thank you to all of those who participated and especially to Sylvie Hetu for flying out from Quebec to share her enthusiasm about the progam with us. The next training will be held May 28th and 29th in Kamloops.

Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Have you ever stopped to think about your lungs? Air passages branching off, once below your throat, again in each lung, two in the right, three in the left and again and again and again. Smaller and smaller until the air spaces look like a million little leaves. Turn this upside down and you have a tree, a head of cauliflower. When nature finds a good design she tends to reuse it.

Feel the rhythm of your heart beat. This pulse so intimately linked with your breath. Blood traveling from body to heart to lungs, back to the heart and then out into the body to begin again. These tiny cells picking up vital oxygen and taking it just where you need it, clearing out the waste and taking that to be exhaled, released, let go of. With every exhale you let go of what you no longer need.

Your muscles and bones, the structure that makes you who you are. The definition of your physical self. The face you see in the mirror, your ability to move, to dance – to sit quietly, nobly upright, stable as a mountain. The good sore you feel after you’ve pushed yourself to your limit and maybe just beyond as your muscles re-grow, stronger than before, more able to take what comes.

Miles of electrical wiring, more intricate than the most advanced computer. You breathe with no thought, you stand and walk and talk with utmost simplicity because of this miraculous design. Motor output, sensory input and an ever-changing and incessant feedback system to make it all just so.

This is your body. Your beautiful, miraculous, one-in-a-million body. The only one you get. Give thanks and take care of it.

Published in the Yoga Tree Magazine September-October 2010 edition

I was recently informed of an exciting new book that’s been written and published by Mia Elmsäter and Sylvie Hétu, the women who created the Massage In Schools Programme (MISP), entitled “Touch in Schools: a revolutionary strategy for replacing bullying with respect and for reducing violence”.

When I was going to massage therapy school I got a chance to work with a massage therapist in Vernon who was running a Massage In Schools Program. We went into one of the local school and visited a grade one, grade two/three and grade four/five class and spent about 20 mintues to a half hour in each class walking the children through a simple chair massage routine. Chairs were neatly organized into rows, the children paired up and decided who would go first and the receiver took his or her seat sideways on the chair, the massager standing behind. My mentor would go through the strokes while all the children followed along on their partners’ backs.

It was beautiful to see the determined looks on their faces as they tried to get the moves just right, or to see the ones receiving close thier eyes and quietly sink into the relaxation of thier classmates touch while minutes before they had been bouncing off the walls. Massage In Schools has been shown to decrease stress levels in the children who participate, leading to better concentration at school and better sleep. It’s an amazing and powerful idea and I’m so glad that Mia and Sylvie have written this book so that word can be spread. This will be a must read for all of those who work in education, for parents with a child in elementary school or for anyone who loves children. To learn more about MISP click here. To learn more about the Touch In School book click here.

I’m also very excited to be involved now with MISP in bringing a course to BC. I will be helping to organize a two-day MISP course in Vancouver sometime in the new year. If you or anyone you know might be interested in taking the course, please let me know and I will keep you informed as the planning progresses.