Bodywork Therapy
What is the difference between massage and bodywork?
Bodywork includes massage techniques but with additional manipulative skills such as passive stretching, structural alignment and joint mobilization to restore musculoskeletal function. Due to our body’s somato-visceral (body-organ) relationship, bodywork can also improve organ system disorders.
In Oriental medicine, emphasis is on applying massage and stretching techniques to acupuncture points and energy pathways to remove blockages that are impeding musculoskeletal function.
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A special type of tendino-muscular pathway is accessed in bodywork therapy that is different from the Qi-energy pathways used in acupuncture therapy.
River Clinic provides Tuina and Shiatsu bodywork therapies.
TuiNa (pronounced tway-nah) means to push and grasp, which are hand techniques in this Chinese form of bodywork.
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This therapy uses traditional massage techniques such as kneading, rubbing, rolling with special passive joint mobilization techniques to help improve the range of motion of injured muscles, ligaments and joints. Children respond especially well to TuiNa therapy, making it the preferred form of therapy to treat organ disorders by pediatricians in China.
Shiatsu (pronounced Shi-atsu) means finger pressure. This Japanese therapy begins with an abdominal massage diagnosis to determine energetic imbalances in the body’s energetic pathways. Through applying pressure with the thumb, elbow and knees, as well as passive stretching techniques on sinew pathways, muscular and organ system imbalances are restored.
These bodywork therapies do not merely treat musculoskeletal and somato-visceral disorders but they are highly effective in stress-reduction that has proven to be the key in preventative medicine.
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