Why I Will Never Teach This Style of Massage

“We’re coming to your live couples massage course this weekend. We were hoping you could include some tips on lymphatic drainage massage for us?”

Every now and then I receive questions like this from a couple, asking for specialised tuition on how to treat their partner at home.

It’s important that we understand the roles that we play with our partner when massaging. The most important distinction to make is that your partner is not your massage therapist, nor should you be theirs.

Your partner is your lover, your best friend, your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. They are not there to fix your high level muscular issues.

Registered massage therapists, even at entry-level, spend many, many, many hours over months and years learning their craft.

And massage school isn’t even the important part. What makes a good practitioner is the hours of practice they put in after their schooling is over.

When I finished massage school back in the year 2000, I took every chance to get my hands on everyone I knew. When I wasn’t treating at the clinic, I was giving away free massages to anyone who i could get my hands on. The complicated the presenting condition was, the higher I would jump to get a chance to see if I could rectify the issue.

My girlfriend (back then), who was also a massage therapist, and I would spend hours every day, month after month working on each other’s muscles, going through the process of clinical assessments, mapping out muscles and perfecting our techniques.

Do you see what I’m trying to say? Massage for me was not a hobby – I took it very seriously. If you want to treat your partner as a massage therapist, you need to do the education first and then most importantly spend the hours practicing, preferably on as many different people as possible to build your experience!

A two-hour workshop with me will never get you to this level. I do not teach people how to become massage therapists. I teach couples how to massage each other.

My goal is to teach couples how to give a massage, within their existing relationship. I teach people to massage the way they would at home for closeness, intimacy and a deeper connection. This is a world away from the way a massage therapist treats you on a massage table. They are two separate concepts.

It works both ways. There is no way I would ever treat a random patient using the system I’ve created in MELT: Massage for Couples – its far too intimate and personal, by design.

My techniques are not designed to teach you to “fix” your partner or treat specific problems; they are created to make your partner fall in love with your hands, to have them say “mmm” and “ahh” and so you can give them an experience unlike any you’ve had before. Most importantly, Melt is for healthy bodies.

When my wife Emma first massaged me using the techniques I had written, I was blown away. In all my years of professional massaging, I’d never had a massage like that before. It wasn’t about the techniques, or having her be perfect at the massage she was giving me… it was about a shared experience, a deeper connection.

Don’t try to be something that you’re not, and don’t expect your partner to suddenly be a massage guru. It will only result in disappointment. If your partner has a specific muscular complaint that you don’t know how to deal with, or a recent injury, or chronic pain, or wants a lymphatic drainage massage, I recommend you book them in to see a reputable, registered massage therapist. This simple act of kindness will be enough to blow your partner away.