The Back Wave Massage Revisited

This exquisite massage was a huge success when I first introduced it.

     At the time, I was handing out printed descriptions of this massage to people in workplaces. The title caught on right away. People told me they were thinking of vacation time…of lying on a beach and feeling a warm breeze blow across their back…or lazily swimming across a pool with wavelets of water sliding over their backs.

     Women took the print outs home for their husbands to read and to try out on them. The men I met said that the massage sounded so good they were going to have their wives do it on them. I think everyone must have had a turn because the next time I saw them, I was met with nothing but huge smiles and a big thumbs up.

     Before I start, here are some suggestions about massage in general –

1.      Relax – you have nothing to prove. And the person who is receiving the massage also has nothing to prove. With massage, there is no good, better, best. Relax – and be yourself!

2.     Always begin with a very light touch. This helps you to establish a connection with the person you are massaging, helps you to familiarize yourself a little with the person beneath your hands. Massaging someone is a lot like reading a story about her or his life. There could be tensions in the muscles beneath your fingers that have existed since childhood. There could be a balance between the joints and muscles that tell you what kind of day the person has had. Your hands are a bridge between two lives, yours and the recipient’s. Massage means opening up to the person you’re massaging; it means “listening” to another’s story!

3.    First, lightly spread warmth into the muscles, then, if you do discover areas of tension, massage around these areas. This creates openings into which the tension can be gently dispersed. Then only should you gently massage away the tension.

   

      Let’s begin –

1.    The person you’re massaging lies down with her or his back to you.

2.   Gently – and slowly - slide both hands along the sides of the spine from the lower back up to the shoulders. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE SPINE. Your hands should sound like two soft waves sliding up a beach as the tide starts coming in. After a while, this sound has a hypnotic effect on both you and the recipient.

3.   At the top of the shoulders, slide your hands in a curve out to both sides. Here the two waves spread across beach. Next, slide the hands down both sides of the torso. Here the waves are returning out to sea!

4.   At the lower part of the torso, let your hands ease gently inward until they return to their place of origin at the sides of the spine. Here the waves are regrouping in the sea, ready to slide back up onto the beach.

     As you can tell, this massage is deeply natural. There is no set time for this massage to end; both of you can enjoy it for as long as you wish. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!