Less is More. So. Much. More.

I’ve been utterly spoiled when it comes to Massage. After a brief dalliance with classic Swedish Massage, I got injured, found NO HANDS and never looked back. Which means I’ve also received hundreds, if not thousands, of exquisite NO HANDS treatments, both on courses and as a client.

That said, I remain curious as to what’s going on in the rest of the Massage world. Every now and then I book in for a non-NO HANDS treatment – and, I confess, usually leave wound up and angry.

Not at the practitioner (well, not usually!), but at the bulk of the Massage profession’s “Powers That Be” for sustaining ideas which, from my own experience (and that of thousands of NO HANDS clients) are Just. Plain. Wrong.

That pushing and digging in with fingers and thumbs is the way to an effective treatment. That the more different strokes you can squeeze in to a treatment, the better. And, most of all, that the therapeutic power of Massage is in technique, rather than the Touch.

If you’ve ever met me that any one of those would get my back up: but being reminded of all three together really pushes my buttons…and not in a good way!

Each of those simple statements is a book, if not a library in its own right. But the one which is speaking to me today, nay shouting for attention, is the second one. That “more is better”. It isn’t. Not in my book. Not by a country mile. Not at all. Because I believe and practice something very different:

Less is More

What this means in the treatment room is that I let myself settle deeply into each stroke I’m giving and whenever my busy-busy brain wants to move on I challenge it: Really? What will you gain from rushing on? What would happen if you stayed here a bit longer? Don’t get me wrong – there are times it is right to move on. But I’d say 9 times out of 10 staying where I am, hypnotising myself and the client while I pour the exquisite medicine of Touch into the client’s tissues is the most effective thing I can do.

Within NO HANDS we have the classic “Three Stroke Treatment”. Yes, a full body treatment delivered with just three strokes. At our most advanced levels we even challenge practitioners to deliver a One Stroke Treatment.

One Stroke. For the whole session. It’s a discipline, that’s for sure!

But the power: seeing the clients walk after a One Stroke Treatment, seeing the grounded, centred, (and often totally blissed out!) practitioners as they observe the final stages of the treatment they’ve just facilitated. This is the power of pure Touch in action. No fiddle. No fuss. Just pure Touch. And it’s immense.

Less is more works. In the treatment room but also in the world.
As with virtually every philosophical underpinning of NO HANDS Massage, what works in the treatment room works in the world, too.

We have been fed the lie that More Is Best: more money, more possessions, more activity, more status. And it’s just a lie. But one that has become endemic throughout our society and culture.

So today I invite you to do less. It’s not easy. And perhaps today you may feel it’s not even possible. But even if it’s just one thing less – I really invite you to give it a try. I’d love to hear how you get on.