| So when I heard about a local massage therapist who's now offering Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy, I had to give it a try. Inna Mazur, whose new business -- The Massage Factory -- opens this week in Appleton, is the first Fox Cities masseuse to offer this ancient form of barefoot massage.
Walking into her treatment room, the first thing I noticed was a contraption that looked like monkey bars hanging over the top of the massage table.Once I was comfortably lying face down on the massage table, Mazur applied lotion to my skin, enabling her feet to glide across my body. After cleansing her feet, the session started.
For my upper back and shoulder, Mazur sat on a stool at the head of the table so she could apply the proper amount of pressure to those areas. The extra weight applied to my muscles was certainly noticeable, as was the added body surface covered with each stroke. At times, I asked her to ease off on the pressure.When it came time to do my lower back and hamstrings, Mazur hung from the bars, with one foot on the table, the other on my body -- careful not to put her entire weight on my body. She certainly knew how to find the kinks and knots in my muscles even the ones I wasn't aware of.
"This type of work requires a very high level of physical fitness on my part," says Mazur. "I really feel that I owe it to my clients to be fit so I can do the session safely. So I can do it effectively. I want people to feel safe when they're on my table."Mazur, a Ukrainian native, received her certification training from the Fox Valley School of Massage. After two years of offering Swedish and deep-tissue massage, Mazur began experiencing wrist pain.
She when happened upon an advertisement for a class instructing certified massage therapists on the art off Ashiatsu massage, she was intrigued. She received the additional training and certification last December."It's really nice for people who like deep-tissue massage," she said. "It goes very deep but it doesn't hurt as much as a regular hand deep-tissue massage.
"I usually use my elbow and it's really sharp. With my foot being much bigger, it covers a larger area so the pressure is spread evenly."Carrie Richter, a chiropractor with Neenah Family Chiropractic, is a fan of Ashiatsu massage.
"This is a massage that gives you more consistent and a deeper pressure, a more consistent stroke," said Richter. "It's great for people that have deep-tissue pain and have a lot of trigger points that they need worked out that maybe didn't get the results from a regular massage that they thought they were going to."(It's good for) athletes or people that maybe work their muscles more and don't necessarily get as much relief from a regular massage as they would from this," she added.
My hour-long massage had a few intense moments. When Mazur worked on my shoulder blades, it was a challenge to take in a full breath of air with the extra weight on top of me.After the footwork, Mazur finished up my session with a neck and shoulder massage while I lay face up. I was practically incoherent by the end I was so relaxed.
With a little more upper body strength training and some advanced Ashiatsu training, Mazur is planning on incorporating both feet into her massages later this year.------------------------------
The Massage Factory, owned by Inna Mazur, is holding its grand opening Saturday at the new Artistic and Wellness Center of Appleton, 1204 N. Mayflower Drive. For more information, call 920-450-2142, or visit www.themassagefactory.com. |
