It’s hard to believe, but I’ve just finished my 600-hour massage training at the San Francisco School of Massage. Six intense months went by in a flash, and somehow, miraculously, it all came together. I am, all of a sudden, ready to be a professional in this new vocation — a radical experiential evolution to go through in such a short time!

In this writing piece I’ll try to sum up the educational journey I just completed, share some of my harvests and learnings, and paint a picture of where I am in my bodywork journey now that school is over. It’s something of a public journal entry, hopefully interesting to friends, family, potential clients, and current or potential future students of massage.

I’m especially interested in working with people who are physically active, movement-curious, or spend long hours in cognitively demanding work environments and want help reconnecting with their bodies. So if that’s you, I hope this writing piece resonates with you and that you feel compelled to reach out!

Background – Why Did I Return To Massage School After So Many Years?

The first time I went to massage school was in 2017, at the former World School of Massage in San Francisco. Back then I was exploring a genuine, deeply felt interest, but wasn’t yet ready or able to fully claim that path as my own. I was fairly fresh out of both my technical undergraduate studies, as well as my long-distance thru-hike of the PCT. I did part of the program, and then got swept along elsewhere in the flow of my life – namely, into a committed romantic partnership journey as well as into explorations of putting my Computer Science degree to work in the tech world.

I always meant to go back to massage, and the time has come. The romance of my college days ended. My career in technology kept feeling wrong to me. And a long soul-searching adventure eventually brought me back to the dormant spark of life within me about massage and bodywork.

Massage School at this point in my life has been more than just pursuing an interest… it’s part of a real attempt at a big career transition arc. I left a great position at a tech company two years ago, and this is where my soul searching has ultimately landed me (so far 🙂). I’ve written about that journey in a longer form here.

All to say – I went all-in and took this program very seriously. It felt a little bit like the weight of my whole life rested on this thing. At the same time, it felt so naturally and fully to be my correct next step in life… so there was something very satisfying about fully dedicating myself to this program at a time when I’m really ready for it.

My Experience of the SFSM Program Structure

Nuts and bolts: what even happened at massage school?? In six months we went through four modules of material.

Modules 1 and 2: Fundamentals

The first half of the program was dedicated to straight-up Western massage fundamentals: first Swedish style, then the basics that lead into Deep Tissue work. That, and anatomy! Lots and lots of anatomy! At the end of both of these modules I felt fairly confident at giving basic relaxation massage on classmates and friends, and was even branching off into my own experimentation into myofascial release work, which felt really exciting and meaningful to me. I also had gained at least the beginnings of a working knowledge in human musculoskeletal anatomy, something that I’ll need to keep working at if I want to be truly literate.

Module 3: Deep Tissue & Internal Scramble

Then began an internal confusion that didn’t let up until the very end of the program. The complexity of our main task – to be able to give a good massage session – grew very quickly as other modalities and mindsets were introduced to us. Truly diving into even just Deep Tissue work, let alone an array of other specific therapeutic modalities, forced me to completely disassemble and reconsider the structure of the full-body relaxation massage I’d learned in Mod 1.

Here was where I began to see the depth of what I’d gotten myself into – the sheer vastness of the possibility space, of how to meet a person in a helpful way with the different tools that exist in the bodywork and massage spheres… it’s no wonder that every therapist ends up being unique. Bodywork is truly is as much an art as it a science, if not more. We can all study maps and learn how to drive, but ultimately in the case of human bodies, the map is not the territory! And I seriously doubt that we humans will ever truly conceptually understand what happens with bodies, why they do what they do, and what the best support is for a given person!

Mod 4: Bringing it all Together

Thankfully, Mod 4 did bring me a feeling of integration. Though we continued to learn more bodywork modalities (lymphatic massage, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, Ortho-Bionomy), it became more obvious to me how each could stand on its own OR work in harmony with other modalities.

All of these lessons had to be integrated in an ongoing way through practicing full-length bodywork sessions, which I did with great vigor through practicums on friends and family, trades with classmates, and 18 full shifts at the student massage clinic. There’s just no substitute for the hands-on working time, and I’m extremely grateful to the school for facilitating that for us.

Joint Case Study & Client Case Study: Two Meaningful Projects

In Mod 3 and 4, in addition to assigned reading for classes, we took on a couple big projects.

First was the Joint Case Study. I studied the Metatarsophalangeal Joint and made a foot model to solidify and showcase some of my learnings to my class. As a bonus, I researched massage techniques for a specific extrinsic foot muscle (the Flexor Hallucis Longus), which I now use on a lot of people to wonderful effect.

This assignment got me to deepen my understanding of foot anatomy, and to enthusiastically develop some extra effective manual therapy strategies. I’m very glad I did it!

The final and most meaningful assignment of the program was the Client Case Study, where we each were tasked with finding a client to perform a series of 5 massage sessions on.

I chose a friend from my movement community, who I’ll call N. He is a mixed movement practitioner and also a personal trainer, who has had a lot of experience with other kinds of specifically therapeutic bodywork, but not much massage.

I chose N out of curiosity to explore working with different kinds of movement practitioners and athletes. It turned out he had a pretty complex body story (as do many of us!), which forced me into some pretty specific learning around one of my main body areas of personal interest: the sacrum.

I would love to give everyone in my life some sacral work. I often found myself doing some kind of sacral myofascial release work on my clients at the student clinic. I can’t really explain what makes it so heavenly-feeling to have someone melt their hand into the fascia behind the sacrum and to move it in a way that helps it “unwind”. As a practitioner, I love doing it because it feels like I’m entering some kind of oceanic, weightless state where time slows down and senses get heightened. Clients describe this work as deeply settling — like their nervous system finally got permission to slow down.

I didn’t spend a ton of time doing that with N – maybe I should have spent more time there in the shallow myofascial layer! (Warning – here comes some jargon) Instead I ended up going into deeper layers of tissue around the sacrum, namely the sacro-iliac and sacro-tuberous ligaments, as well as deep hip flexors (psoas & iliacus) and rotators (mostly piriformus). One of the ligament release sessions left him feeling off-balanced – a learning process for both of us – but another one made him feel better and well-settled. His favorite experience was the psoas release. My favorite was probably also that, because I really like giving work that feels meaningful to my client.

By the end of 5 sessions, I had become so absorbed and invested in the project that I wasn’t ready to be done! I gifted N a 6th extra session to practice Ortho-Bionomy, the modality that we worked with at the very end of the program that turned all our Deep Tissues strategies upside-down. (Perhaps a topic for another blog post.)

Something about this assignment brought me to a place of feeling ready to be a professional. Once I experienced working consistently with one person over several sessions, it became clear that I’d love to work in this way with others!

Speaking of which — if you’re curious about experiencing the benefits of this kind of work yourself, I’ll be taking private clients in San Francisco soon and would love to hear from you. 🙂

Strategies That Helped Me Get The Most Out of Massage School

Full time massage school was an intense journey, and I went all-in. I feel really proud of how I showed up, and I got a huge return on my investment in terms of actual learning and building a solid foundation for a new career. Here were some of my strategies:

• Not working a part-time job was rough financially, but a blessing in disguise because I had extra time and energy to give to the program, and I did. I did my reading and homework. I showed up on time. I took good care of myself outside of class.
• I stayed devoted to my personal movement, meditation, and nature-connection practices (currently: group Movement classes in the style of Ido Portal, kundalini yoga, rotating hiking/jogging/biking/swimming), which for me all feed back into what I want to bring into my bodywork practice: refined inner awareness, good physical health and vigor, mind-body connection, and spiritual aliveness.
• I gave LOTS of extra practicum massages, and had all my practice-clients fill out a basic feedback form so that I’d be able to grow and learn, as well as keep a paper record of those sessions.
• I asked LOTS of questions and engaged very deeply with the material in class, most of the time. Class time was sacred to me. Of course I lapsed in my focus at times, and on different days my fatigue got the better of me, but by far the best strategy for getting the most out of class was rolling up my sleeves and plunging into the work with as much enthusiasm as I could.
• I engaged deeply with my teachers. In addition to bringing my questions in class and on breaks, I occasionally volunteered to be a demo person in class, feeling the work of my teachers directly. I also gave full-length massages to two of my teachers on my own time. They were both very grateful as well as generous in giving me honest feedback.

Implications of Finishing Massage School: This Radically Changes My Life Experience

A friend reminded me this past weekend on a hike that some things are worth pausing to acknowledge.

Graduating from massage school is one of those moments for me! This is a life-changing milestone, and I want to acknowledge some of the implications of arriving at this transition point.

1. I’m capable of meeting real milestones on this alternative path… and the path keeps going.

It’s been a long journey to get here. Back in 2017 when I first walked in the door to a different massage school, at a different time and place, I didn’t have what was required to see that process through. Though I LOVED everything about it even then, I didn’t yet have the courage – or real grounding – to trust the path that was rooted in love rather than logic.

I’ve spoken to friends who are unhappy in tech, and curious about other paths – yet also understandably afraid and uncertain. In some ways, that was me, all those years ago… willing to put my toe in the water but not willing to step all the way in. I’m grateful to my past self for even having the bravery to do just that! It was something, and something is better than nothing on the path of embodying inner truth!

Now, having acquired the wisdom of my own experience, I can say that making a clear commitment to some amount of a new path (like committing to actually completing massage school) — and following through — was completely game-changing. It’s one thing to dabble in exploring an interest, and another thing entirely to devote a chunk of your life to it. Obviously, the more we give of ourselves to a righteous path, the more we get back.

Something has changed in me as a result of completing this part of my education on Earth. I can respect myself on a deeper level. I can exist in the world as a professional in this field of massage and bodywork. I’ve earned my way into colleagueship with people whose values and footprints on Earth resonate with who I want to be. I may still just be a beginner, but I’ve made a real tangible step forward, and I truly feel proud of it.

2. The world is a lot bigger than massage school…

Surrendering to the schooling process was an agreement to go into a contained, protected environment and community for the sake of learning a new skill and preparing for a new vocational path. I was so focused on that experience that for a while, I kind of forgot about the world-at-large. I didn’t have space for the broader world in my daily awareness, and a lot of things slipped out of view.

Transitioning out of school again was at first a major challenge for me, because it felt like moving out of a protected pond into the entire ocean. And, most of the fish out in the ocean have NOT been through the learning journey I just went on. They have their own ideas about what massage is. And now I get to swim in a sea of mixed ideas, holding a title that means radically different things to different people.

I used to exist in this same place – same apartment, same city, some of the same recreational communities – as a corporate tech worker. That didn’t make sense to me internally, but externally it was harmonious with the norms of San Francisco. People around me spoke that language, for the most part.

Re-emerging into San Francisco life post-massage-school, I’m certainly still surrounded by the tech world, and I’m kind of excited to work with people in tech through my evolving therapeutic art of massage and bodywork. It’s going to be a radically different way of relating to people here, and I’m only just getting a sense of what that work might entail.

Perhaps I’ll be able to cultivate a specific offering for people in Tech? Perhaps old colleagues will become clients? Perhaps I’ll try working at tech offices? I’m falling away from the tech world more and more intellectually (AI was only just beginning to be integrated into the software development process via Github CoPilot when I was last a software engineer) but I still speak some of the essential language of that world, and might be able to help today’s tech knowledge-workers build and maintain a healthier mind-body connection and balance despite the stresses of that ecosystem.

What Comes Next

While I am sad that my initial school journey is over, and dipped into a feeling of overwhelm about the path ahead, I’m now happily chipping away at it a day at a time.

My basic plan is to both work on building a private practice, AND to start working locally at a spa, wellness center, health clinic, or gym. I’m excited to get my feet wet in the professional world, to build on the foundation I’ve established in developing my own craft, to keep growing. I hope to start my own business… possibly this year! If you’re local and interested in being a client or being informed about opportunities to work with me, I’d love to hear from you! Please reach out via my contact form on the blog!

I also am so in love with my school that I plan to go back to school as a TA potentially as early as April, and have already signed up for a few continued education workshops in the next month.

My hope and intention is to keep up with posting writings about my bodywork working journey on a monthly-ish basis. If there’s a topic you’d like to hear more about, please let me know!