MASSAGE COMPETITION: LEARNINGS
My first experience of the international massage competition in May was challenging. For 14 years, I have massaged people, leveraging different skills and techniques - some picked up through classes and some self-taught. It was scary to display my skills publicly when I usually do this in my private studio. Welcomed with open arms amongst the incredible therapists, teachers, judges, and patrons, I was excited to experience what it was all about.
The competition was well organized, and booths from schools to classes to new therapies were available for people to familiarize themselves with the different modalities in the bodywork industry. This was a first for many. Having so many people curious and passionate about bodywork, touch, and alternative modalities of holistic therapies was eye-opening, inspiring, encouraging, and empowering.
As the first International massage summit in Canada, this event, organized by Institut Axis and Liane Dufresne in collaboration with The International Massage Association - World Championship Massage 2024, provided a unique platform for sharing and growth. It was a humbling experience that allowed me to discover new approaches, network with like-minded individuals, and connect with esteemed judges. I even had the privilege of experiencing a sample massage from the International massage judge Tracey Windmill, the founder of Sarga skills.
TRANSFORMATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Following the experience, I felt a deep sense of being seen and heard, held and witnessed, an essential process to any evolution, an encompassing wave of nurture and care mixed with flow and lightness. Skills ranged from stretching, sarga, thai, myofascial, mobility, and so much more. I would refer to this as somatic bodywork, as it allowed me to surrender myself in the moment and be cradled and taken for a gentle ride through the body's sensations. Losing the concept and perception of space and time, instead connecting and feeling those parts often in the background of our experience, yet so rich in sensation and valuable in connecting the pieces of our inner puzzles.
WHAT IS SOMA
From extensive research, we know that the body holds all our experiences in our tissues, consciously, unconsciously, and subconsciously, through the different layers of our Soma (Body): physical, energetic, emotional, mind-body, intuitive body, and state of bliss. This experience felt like I was traveling through sections connecting everything — nothing as I've ever experienced before.
According to the ancient Greek origin, Soma means body. "All somatic approaches emphasize the profound connection between the mind and the body. They view the body not just as a physical entity but as an integral component of our emotional, psychological, and spiritual experiences."
A bodily experience that touched my heart and soul. It allowed me to discover and unravel emotions stuck through my hips and back while listening to the limitations of my existing injuries. Tracey Windmill executed her multidimensional approach with professionalism, attentive listening, techniques, and skills implemented tactfully and with compassion within a concise time frame.
The encounter was truly transformative. I felt bursts of heat, flow, release, and tingling, deepening my breath to immerse myself in the sensations fully. Glimmers of colors and memories of stories reveal themselves for a fleeting moment, just enough for me to acknowledge them and let them go. These experiences might bring up dormant or stuck emotions, allowing people to trust and be held in confidence and intimacy, even for just a moment, to find that within themselves. It is truly transformational.
Even after several months, I'm still inspired by the learnings, insights, and profound impact it has had on my ever-evolving practice. This workshop can reveal hidden aspects of ourselves that we were previously unaware of. The process of self-discovery it provides is genuinely transformative, and I am eager for you to partake in it. It allows learning from and through the body to unpack and repattern.
It took me a while to fully integrate and navigate all the information I had gained through my interactions and experiences. Something profound shifted in me, and I welcomed the time to understand and appreciate the experience's depth fully.
SOMATIC EXPERIENCE
The whole experience of going to this massage summit and competition was a little uncomfortable, as one modality is not better than another but somewhat different.
Touch is powerful and the first sense we experience in our mothers' womb, exploring the uterine walls before birth. Yet our interactions have expanded to more social online interactions and striving for the next big thing, and our person-to-person touch and senses have taken a back seat.
The world we live in today tackles so much information overload that people keep to themselves, preoccupied and enthralled with what is on their phones, the past thing or the next thing rather than opening their curiosity to the people, places, and moments in the present. Our presence has become scattered as a society, hence the surge of mental health management tools and resources, the nervous system regulation frenzy, the bio-hacking world, and the thousands of bodywork modalities that offer different promises and releases helping us come back to balance, alignment, functionality, regulated and in connection to our SELF. That scattered sense often tricks us into loneliness and disconnection from the connecting healing experiences that are sometimes just a curious step ahead (with ourselves and with others). Learning to lean into these experiences can have surprising results.
The self is where we can truly hear the intuitive, heart, and mind whispers align, guiding us with grace (and sometimes not so much) toward our vocation and calling or living more truly according to our values and beliefs. Sometimes getting there can be challenging, and a helping hand, ear, touch, or smile can make a world of difference.
These practices can build an excellent complementary bridge to bring you to your desired ideal state of balance. Find the ones that speak to you and consistently commit to them—one step at a time, practicing focus and patience.
CONNECTING THROUGH TOUCH
For me, touch is fascinating as it can bring awareness to the minor sensations that flow through, yet it can have a profound surge of energy and expression that goes unseen but felt and changed. This is how I understand the world, through touch and all my senses. Imagine the touch of a friend on your arm to show support; that touch conveys much more than just pressure. It conveys understanding, care, comfort, connection, emotion, affection, recognition, sympathy, and gratitude, to name a few. Awareness of all these unexplored unaware sensations can help build a better mindfulness practice where we stand with deep inner knowing not only in our bodies but also in the seasons of our lives with all the ebbs and flows it has to offer.
Touch is the first point of communication, contact, and connection; skin is the largest organ in the body, transfers myriads of data to your brain, and sends back information to your body. This helps you perceive enteroception (the sensations of the inner workings of your body and the 8th sensory system), proprioception (where you are in time and space and how your brain registers that information), and nociception (pain sensation).
Many don't fully understand the implications of staying isolated, thinking touch needs to be in sexual intimacy. But this is the furthest from the truth.
Intimacy comes in many forms, and often, the lack of touch, even just a friendly pat on the back, can have a lasting effect of encouragement, recognition, feeling cared for, valued, and seen, perhaps even changing someone's day or week. It helps co-regulate our body's rhythm and nervous system to one another. Hence, 20-second hugs should be the norm as the benefits outweigh the perceived oddness it has come to.
In Harlow's classic study on chimpanzees, which studied the importance of maternal contact and connection, they determined the extent of mothers' touch and care on the baby's cognitive development. "In social isolation, the monkeys showed disturbed behavior, staring blankly, circling their cages, and engaging in self-mutilation. When the isolated infants were re-introduced to the group, they were unsure of how to interact — many stayed separate from the group, and some even died after refusing to eat."
Touch is crucial for our survival, immune system, and mental and physical well-being. Awareness is the gateway to a realm of untapped knowledge stored within our body, mind, and spirit. Healing occurs through connection, when we are seen and fully experience sensations to the completion of the message received. Combining embodied and conceptual self-awareness leads to significant inner shifts and insights.
WHAT'S NEXT
My purpose and vocation are to help raise awareness of the intricate connection of body, mind, and spirit (this is not religion) and to give people safety, space, and a place to allow themselves to feel the richness of the human experience. Self-awareness does not imply only the good sensations but all sensations, physical, emotional, and mindset, through all senses, stories, ideals, cultures, beliefs, and generational baggage we might be carrying, holding, or supporting without knowing it. These might be holding us back unknowingly.
The beauty of the curiosity we bring to our presence and interaction in an unknown territory often brings us closer to the things that vibrate and guide our evolution, connect us to those that unknowingly fan the amber of our hearts by the embodiment they convey with their art.
Having been in the field for over a decade, this little piece of life has propelled me to act. Collaborating with Tracey and Setsuko School, we have the privilege of hosting her workshop in Montreal, the first in Canada. Woohoo, how exciting.
Each person we meet offers a new window to peek through and explore; our choice and free will determine where that curiosity and exploration guide us.
This class will change how we experience bodywork in Montreal in an encompassing, holistic manner. Candidates should have a minimum of certified knowledge in massage therapy. If I were to estimate quantitatively, 600 hours and a few years of experience would be a plus for those wanting to attend. The multidimensional transformational approach created by world-renowned international massage judge Tracey Windmill is not just a massage; it's an experience that can help connect the mind and body so that the heart can open to its process. It allows somatic exploration, expression, and expansion. Bodywork is not solely a massage; it's a psychosomatic experience that helps process unexpressed and sometimes ignored stored emotions or experiences in a safe space of surrender. The body often knows best, and the mind usually gets in the way, but we frequently resist listening to one or the other to our detriment.
Here is a little overview of Tracey Windmill, the workshop teacher.
Founder Art of Transformational Touch
2024 Gold Medalist Western Freestyle 4 handed American Massage Championships
2024 Bronze Overall Winner American Massage Championships
2023 Silver Medalist Colorado/Rocky Mountain Massage Championships
2018 Silver Medalist World Massage Championships
Dynamic Flow Massage and Multidimensional Bodywork Instructor
Creator Sarga Silks
International Massage Association Approved Teacher
Certified Phenomenal Touch Master Practitioner®
International Massage Competition judge
TAKE ACTION
Suppose you are a massage therapist in the Montreal area. In that case, this 4-day class will help you elevate the art of combining different skills and techniques to help clients surrender confidently to their experience. Connecting mind, body, and soul with massage, movement, and flow, creating circulation through the different systems, is a privilege. The results differ for each body, but they can be transformational on many levels. An encompassing unique mix of deep tissue massage, mobility, dynamic stretching, Sarga skills, Thai, and so much more catering to the client's needs and helping massage therapists use the client's weight and energy and save unnecessary physical strain to both parties—a big thank you to @ecolesetsuko for hosting this exciting event.
Who?
This four-day workshop is for advanced massage therapists with a good background and base understanding of the body who are ready to dive deep into creating their signature massage, combining five client positions and the body's seven hinges with fluidity and grace.
The workshop Teacher is Tracey Windmill, and you can find more details about her and her work at About — Dynamic Flow Massage (artoftransformationaltouch.com)
What?
A 4-day workshop learning a multidimensional approach to bodywork from world-renowned International massage winner and judge Tracey Windmill.
Where?
Setsuko School has graciously offered to host the workshop at one of their 2 locations. TBD
When?
From Thursday, September 19th to Sunday, September 22nd for the four-day workshop
Thursday and Friday, September 19th and 20th, for the 2-day workshop.
Why?
This is the 1st time Tracey is coming to Canada, so take your chance.
How?
You can sign up at this link,
Art of Transformational Touch - Booking (bookeo.com)
The Promo Code is Unravel-Quebec, which gives 10% off when Registering
Prices?
888$ US for a four-day workshop and 444$ US for a 2-day workshop; make sure to use the Promo code above for an extra 10% discount.
Prerequisites: Bodywork, Somatic or Massage Therapist
ABOUT TRACEY WINDMILL
In Unraveling the Body, A Multidimensional Approach Course, you will be introduced to the fundamentals of this Transformational work, where "Multidimensional Techniques" will help you use the least effort possible for your work to be elegant and graceful.
You will learn the art of Deep Listening to the body, which allows for an organic unfolding using all five client positions, Supine, Prone, Seated, Side Lying, and Fetal, combined with the seven hinges of the body; this creates movement in a flow that allows expansion to occur within the
client's body. This course will help you work with your client using deep tissue techniques and dynamic stretching.
It will give you a new understanding of what your client's bodies are capable of. It will also create lasting neurological changes that allow your client to identify and release stored-up tensions and emotional blockages powerfully and more effectively.
This is more than just learning a new massage technique. This course will show you how to create your signature style that is more than just a massage. It will allow you to create a profound journey for your clients and relaxation for the body, mind, and soul.
Tracey Windmill believes that exceptional massage is within the realm of every massage therapist. She loves to include movement and stretching in all her massage sessions with clients for a Multidimensional Experience.
Tracey's path started in the Healing arts in her homeland of Australia, where she studied Naturopathic Medicine. This path led to continual learning and a deep desire to serve her clients and provide transformational Massage and Bodywork.
In 2018, Tracey traveled to Denmark, where she was awarded the Silver Medal in Freestyle Massage at the World Massage Championships. Tracey now judges for the International Massage Association at this annual event and teaches a masterclass.
Tracey offers continuing Education to other Licensed Massage Therapists in North America and Europe. After more than two decades of giving Massages, the journey has landed her right where she needs to be. She hopes to provide an exceptional Learning Opportunity and experience for all her students. She recently won Gold for Western freestyle and Bronze for overall American Championships and has been honored to the Massage Therapy Hall of Fame at the World Massage Festival for her incredible contribution towards the most beautiful work in the world: connecting people back to the wisdom of their bodies through bodywork.
2024 Gold Medalist Western Freestyle 4 handed American Massage Championships
2024 Bronze Overall Winner American Massage Championships
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