If you don’t want to book a massage in Islington right now, but you’re interested in learning more about sports and remedial massage, perhaps you’ll be interested in reading our FAQS page, or one of the many blog articles on how massage can help reduce pain and stress? Whether you’re studying for a sports massage course, looking for a sports massage job, or suffering from pain, injury or stress, we hope Islington massage specialists City Sports Massage can help!

But how does anxiety and depression fit into that pattern? Is it any different?

When we become depressed we might be lethargic, sad, anxious, worried and fearful of the future. We can find ourselves in a repeat loop – a seeming endless cycle of frustration and melancholy.

At the bottom of this pit of despair can lie basic assumptions that we are making about our past and our future. The present might seem like a painful place as we agonise about what has been, and what is to come.

Our muscular reactions are no different than in the flight, fight or freeze response – we are, in effect reacting to an internal stimulus that is telling us we have reason to be fearful. And like the sabre tooth tiger in the aforementioned post, it can hurt us – so we freeze, or panic in order to try to combat that fear.

This leads to deep muscle tension, muscle stiffness, chronic back pain, shoulder pain, frozen shoulders and back spasms.

But how can deep tissue massage help?

By using gentle breathing techniques, and giving our clients a sense of body awareness, we can help reduce anxiety and decrease tension. By focusing on the present moment we can facilitate the easing of tensions in both the mind and the body. All City Sports massage therapists can facilitate this inquiry. City Sports Massage principal therapist Jon Gee also uses counselling skills to work through what has led to the present situation of pain and dysfunction – and offers gentle guidance in how to challenge assumptions, and rise above the daily grind of incessant, negative thought patterns. The same thought patterns that keep us locked in a cycle of pain and dysfunction.

A journey of discovery should be an enriching process, and taken at a comfortable speed. But if we are brave enough to meet our pain, then awareness, breathing and bodywork can help us eradicate it.

© Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

City Sports Massage offer massage therapy in Islington, Mayfair, Holborn and London Bridge.

City Sports Massage regularly attract referrals from across the globe – North and South America, all across Europe, even China recently! We are well known because we’re friendly, approachable, and have a very high standard of work.

CSM run a Graduate Training Scheme for appropriately qualified freelance sports massage therapists. If you’ve done a sports massage course, but feel like you need help in developing your confidence and building a practice, we might be just the right people to speak to.

Our training includes a full program of intensive workshops, training sessions developed individually around specific needs, and close mentoring and support. Teaching ratios are often three teachers to one student, and never less than one teacher to two students! After an initial series of workshops, those undertaking our training program are considered fully-fledged members of our team, and are promoted through our marketing channels and large, ever-growing database of clients. As graduate trainees thus begin working and earning as CSM Therapists, they receive continuous feedback via our extensive support network, which greatly assists in the fast-track learning process.

Entry is limited to a very small number of applicants per year. Applicants are expected to continue working freelance for us post-completion of all training.

If you are interested in working in a supportive atmosphere, and being part of the best, most widely known sports massage team in London, please read more here to find out how to apply.

Please note that you must be a graduate of a sports massage course in order to train on our Graduate Training Scheme.

It might seem like a dream come true for women of a certain age, but City Sport’s Becky is off on tour with Take That! – as their personal Deep Tissue and Remedial Sports Massage Therapist! Becky will be taking care of the lad’s aches and pains as they perform on a three month tour across Europe.

You can see occasional updates from Becky via our CSM Twitter.

But don’t worry, Becky’s Thursdays will be covered by Senior Therapist Fuchsia, so you will have an uninterrupted, fine-quality service!

Becky will be back performing massage in London at our Islington location in August…

Becky will be massaging Take That on their current 2011 European Tour. Although this picture is a few years old now, we are assured they are in just as fine a form.

However, relief for our busy team is here, and we are delighted to announce we have finally managed to find a brand new, up-and-coming star of the massage world!

Claire Lydon-Strutt – available Saturdays at London Bridge too!

Deep Tissue and Remedial Sports Massage therapist Claire will be working on Mondays and Fridays in Holborn, Saturdays at London Bridge, and Sundays in Highbury and Islington. Click on Claire‘s picture to view her profile!

City Sports Massage Therapist Claire

JM: Running has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, growing up I lived next to the beach and used to find myself running through the dunes for hours on end. At school I played rugby, and being out on the wing, and then later playing at fullback, I found I had to combine speed, agility and stamina to survive. Once out in the big, bad world, I needed a sport that I could pick up and take with me anywhere, and running perfectly fits that bill!


JG: What led you to enter such a challenging race?

JM: Good question, and one I ask myself before every run!

I subscribe to a podcast Marathon Talk, where they interviewed the famous South African runner Bruce Fordyce. I find Bruce really inspiring, he has won the 56 mile race 9 times, with 8 of them being consecutive wins! I was planning to run a race for the charity ARC, and my wife Lis and I thought that Comrades was a big enough challenge, and one that people would engage with and support.


JG: You have a full-time job – How have you managed to fit training and nutrition into your life?

JM: Taking the training first, running should be a part of your everyday routine and needs to be scheduled in where possible. Longer runs are on Saturday and Sunday, this involves early starts and a lot of bartering / chore trading with the missus! However, when you run along the canal on a sunny morning and watch the world wake up it is a wonderful feeling, even after 20 miles! On nutrition for longer runs over 13 miles your body will tell you when it needs fuel, and it is best to eat often and sparingly. I take a sports drink make up from powder `High 5’, `9bar’ snacks and bananas. Everyone is different so the best advice is to just to find what you like and stick with it.


JG: You’ve been a long-term client of City Sports Massage in London, and I know you’ve approached training methodically, carefully even. Do you think that has been part of your success so far?

JM: Definitely, long distance training needs to be carefully planned with routes, mileage and times all prepared and monitored. There are plenty of plans out there for half, marathon and ultra-distances; find one and stick to it. Don’t be tempted to exceed, or beat the plan, it’s far better to build gradually and progressively. For Comrades I have used a remote coach Ian Corless of www.runwildrunfree.co.uk.


JG: What would be your ‘Top five tips’ for would-be, long-distance runners?

JM:
1. Find, stick to and monitor progress against your plan.
2. Try and buddy up with someone to run with every so often, it helps improve pace and the time flies by.
3. Factor in time for rest and recuperation, its ok to have an off day.
4. Incorporate regular massage sessions into your training, a massage therapist can really help flush the muscles out, making them feel lighter and faster. It also heals and prevents injury and helps prepare you for the next challenge.
5. Celebrate the success of finishing, and live to fight another day!


JG: Thank you for your time Jon, we know our readers will be happy to be privy to your experience and advice. We look forward to catching up with you when you get back from South Africa, and you can tell us what it’s like to experience 56 miles of the Comrades ultra-marathon! Good luck from all of us at City Sports Massage!

Jon McGowan is running for the charity ARC. Find out more about his story here.

I recently spent a weekend on an intensive 2 day workshop entitled ‘Group Dynamics’, led by Tamara Alferoff at the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education. It forms part of a 1 year Foundation in Counselling and Psychotherapy, taking place in a large, peaceful, Victorian building overlooking Little Venice in London.

During the weekend, in which cynical financial traders, airy-yummy mummies, and muscular tree surgeons all rubbed shoulders, there were tears, dramas and a bonding that was natural, deep, and very unforced in this disparate group.

What roles do we play in a group, and why?

We began by examining the typical roles that make up a group. What roles could we identify in our group? ‘The Prankster?’, ‘The Sceptic?’, or ‘The Mother’ perhaps? We looked at what roles we each felt that we filled in a group setting. We examined what motivates this behaviour when we are part of a group, and we looked at our own personal history to see how that role might have developed.

How do we view our group?

Our focus was then drawn to how we viewed our group as an entity. Furnished with coloured pens, glitter and paper, we were asked to draw a picture of ‘the group’ as we perceived it. We then formed small teams, and shared the results of our creative endeavours with each other.

What we didn’t know was, this was a clever trick played by our teacher, Tamara. When we arrived the next morning we had to explain the picture in the first person. In short, we were being asked to describe the picture as representing ourselves, rather than the group. This led to stumbling responses, and one point-blank refusal. But what we learnt (apart from that we had walked into a cunning trap), was that we had all, quite accurately, summed up a deep part of ourselves, and then projected this image onto how we viewed the group.

This revealing bombshell introduced us to the idea of how powerfully we can ‘project’ our feelings, thoughts, fears and hopes onto others, without even being conscious of it.

Our ‘Family Tableaux’.

The next stage of our journey involved hand picking colleagues from our large group to play the roles of our family members. The family member could be dead or alive, young or old. They were asked to stand on an impromptu ‘stage’, and placed in a position that represented the position they hold in our mind’s eye. So if a Father was domineering, he might have been placed standing on a chair, looming over the proceedings. If a Mother was distant, she might have been asked to stare out of the window. This tableaux was added to until all of the relevant family was present.

All of the ‘actors’ were then asked to vocalise how they felt in these positions, purely from their perspective.

I remember watching ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, and Gregory Peck, playing the part of ‘Atticus Finch’, tells his young son “If you just learn a single trick, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

This basic truism is demonstrated in this exercise. As members of our group set up their Family Tableaux, they heard the points of view that each of their family members might have had. In addition, their own feelings were validated, as they heard the actor playing them on stage, expressing emotions, unprompted, that they themselves had often felt when in that position.

The combination of insight into their family members perspective, as well as validation of their own experience and emotion, led to some profoundly deep, personal realisations.

Now to the nitty gritty – how can all this help us?

It sounds like a cliche to say that people reminding us of our family members can provoke such intense behaviour and responses, but it does.

This wasn’t a scientific study, rather an experiential one. As individuals in a group we found that we were both attracted, and repelled by characteristics that reminded us of the behaviour of family members that had played important parts of our early lives.

It appears that our behaviour, as well as being heavily influenced by our genes and socialisation, is also inherently driven by our family backgrounds.

For myself, I was drawn to pick ‘family members’ from my group that were two people in the group who had antagonised me on earlier workshops. It was only then I realised why I had become so easily affected by these folk. They had stirred emotion in me that went back many years. And despite my supposed ‘emotional intelligence and awareness’, I hadn’t even seen it.

What that allowed me to do was to put the antagonism, and therefore the relationship, in perspective. Rather than personalising it, I was able to create a buffer zone, which de-intensified the emotions, and allowed me to see that perhaps I also reminded my colleagues of someone they had had difficulties with in their past, and they too were clouded by unexpectedly irascible feelings.

Perhaps though, I was just downright irritating to them. I guess I’ll never know!

Using the lessons of our past.

It’s easy to say that simple ‘personal chemistry’ is responsible for not getting along with others, and of course there’s much truth in that. But it’s certainly not the whole truth, and without acknowledging the full picture we can never understand, develop and maximise our opportunities and potential.

Yes, we should live in the present moment, but by neglecting to put our personal landscapes into a historical perspective, we miss the chance of learning from the patterns of our past, and therefore compromise our chance of a peaceful future.

©Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

Discovering the space in one minute.

Find somewhere you wont be disturbed for 60 seconds or so. Close the door. Turn your devices to silent. Set a timer for 60 seconds. A vibrate alert on a phone is ideal.

Now get in a comfortable, seated position. You can do this anywhere. Even the toilet!

Close your eyes, and breath slowly in through your nostrils, and slowly out through your nostrils. Slowly.

Slower.

That’s one breath.

Continue in this slow, measured manner, really noticing the breath, and counting each one.

Continue until the alert on your timer goes off.

What did you discover?

At the end of the minute – how many breaths did you count?

What happened to time? Did it feel like a long time? Did it pass quickly? What did you notice?

Were you paying attention to the breath? Or was your mind naturally wondering?

Consider all these questions, and ask yourself how you are feeling – paying special attention to any differences in breathing rates. Note any sensations in your muscles.

Taking it further.

This is going to sound crazy, but in order to get the most out of the time you set aside for this activity, you will need to forget about trying to achieve a goal.

Simply observe your breathing. Try not to be judgmental. Be curious.

Explore.

Imagine you don’t know exactly where you’re going, and you’ve got plenty of time get there.

Why not set the timer, and try it again?

FAQs.

Q. I tried it, and I just kept thinking about what I was having for dinner, about a current project, or about my kids. What went wrong?

A. Nothing. That’s normal. Don’t get annoyed with your thoughts, that’s all they are – thoughts. The trick is to notice them, and just gently push them to one side. Thoughts, like sheep, aren’t always the brightest things, they go running about, bumping into each other and getting confused. So like sheep, gently herd them away, so you can get along with just counting the breath…one…two…

Q. Wow. That was cool! It went really slowly and felt like ages. I breathed slowly, and I feel calmer. What’s next?

A. Great! That’s the first stage of reclaiming your body. Every time we breath into to our lungs we stretch our ribs. This in turn creates movement that eases pain and promotes a healthy, functioning torso. Our shoulders are perched on top of our ribs, so guess what? Yep, it can even stretch our shoulders too. We have also began to develop our proprioception. But more about that soon – in the meantime; enjoy a minute out during your day.

Q. Is this meditation, or mindfulness as it’s often known?

A. Yes! It’s practices like this that are well established in more than 250 hospitals in the USA, teaching natural, pain and stress relief techniques.

Conclusion.

By giving yourself this space – just a minute – you can reconnect with the breath. One minute is not generally considered a long time, yet it can make all the difference to a stressed-out day. And this is the foundation of pain-free living.

Try it!

Pro Tips.

Watch your breath entering and leaving your body. If it helps, imagine you are breathing in white, positive, energising light, and breathing out black, negative smoke. Or make up your own colours – be creative, and enjoy focusing on just the breath.

Notice how it feels. Do your muscles feel soft, or hard? Try to release the muscles on the ‘out’ breath.

Enjoy any feelings of calm. You created them!

© Jon Gee 2011

To read more about the way we combine deep-tissue massage with mindfulness – Stay tuned!

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

The role of the breath.

From the first breath we took as a baby, our bodies stay alive by using our breathing to provide oxygen to our brains, organs and muscles.

But the role of the breath goes much deeper than that. It directly affects the mobility of many of our muscles. It is inherently intertwined with our body’s emotional responses and stress levels.

When we understand the functionality of the breath, we can form a connection with our bodies and our emotions, and begin an excitingly empowering path to self-healing.

Fight, flight or freeze – an easy explanation.

The breath forms an intrinsic part of a chain of events that occur during the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response. In this article, it is the activity of the breath during the ‘freeze’ response that we are most interested, as is directly responsible for stress-related muscular pain.

Let’s just imagine you are sitting in your cave, eating your dinner, and minding your own business. A Sabre tooth tiger strolls past the mouth of the cave, and you have 3 choices;

1. Run up, and punch him on the nose (fight)
2. Try to run past him and escape (flight)
3. Or sit very, very still, and hope he doesn’t notice you (freeze)

Now there has been much talked about the fight, or flight responses – blood flowing to the limbs and heart racing, as you get ready to meet a potential grisly death. But what is less talked about is the freeze response. Which, ironically, is the most common one experienced in the modern day workplace.

The freeze response

Let’s imagine it’s late afternoon on a Friday. You’ve only got a couple of hours left to work, before you’re due to head out for pre-planned, romantic date. Without warning your boss comes along, dumps a huge file on your desk, and asks for it to be dealt with before you leave.

What do you do?

1. Stand up, and without a single word, proceed to punch them in the head? (fight)
2. Grab your coat, and run out the door? (flight)
3. Or sit very still, and try to suppress the stress you have just been placed under? (freeze)

If you are the sort of person who took one of the first two options, you’re probably reading this whilst watching Daytime TV, and weighing up your recently-narrowed career options.

Most of us however, would have plumped for the last option. We freeze, and hope that we will survive this incredibly stressful situation.

So what’s happening to our body’s when we ‘freeze’?

Our breathing becomes shallow.
Our ribs barely move.
Muscles become extremely tense.

We are ‘playing dead’ – remember the Sabre tooth tiger? If he doesn’t see us in his peripheral vision we might survive!

When this is repeated day after day in our workplace, our muscles become semi-permanently locked in the same pattern, leading to pain and dysfunction. Typical complaints are tight, sore, frozen shoulders, stiff necks, tight chest and sore backs. Sound familiar?

At the core of this frozen movement is one factor. Its the very thing that is suppressing a basic movement that will give us away as being ‘alive’.

Our breathing.

NEXT

Find pain relief with breathing. Part 2. Exploring the breath; and the how mindfulness and deep tissue massage can work together.

© Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

What sort of massage am I looking for?
In the UK there are two terms – deep tissue and sports massage. A sports massage qualification requires more hours of study and practice than a deep tissue qualification, and the BTEC diploma is currently the highest level of sports massage certification in the UK.

So you really dont need to have a ‘sports injury’? In fact the majority of our clients work in an office and many suffer from stress, tension, anxiety, and all the things that are normal in a modern-day, city-based lifestyle.

At City Sports Massage we have developed a way of working that includes ALL of the factors in your lifestyle. This is largely centred on our ability to encourage COMMUNICATION. There is no reason you can’t find that elsewhere, but you might need to look hard! This article is designed to help you in that search.

Where do I start?
Your first port of call should be your social network-friends, colleagues, loved ones. Have they had a successful treatment locally? If not, then try asking at ballet academies, football and rugby clubs.

There are various sports massage and complementary health associations, and although membership will guarantee a certain minimum level of good quality training, what you are really looking for in a therapist is not just training, but also equal measures of dexterity, communication, empathy, confidence and willingness to listen. Unfortunately there is no existing ‘directory’ that guarantees all these qualities.

Online searches
Search online – ‘sports massage (your area)’, ‘deep tissue massage (your area)’. In the UK you could look at Level 4 or 5 BTEC qualified massage therapists on www.thesma.org and try cross referencing their name to see if you can find any reviews or testimonials online. Check out running and cycling forums where people are often sharing recommendations.

So you’ve found a potential therapist?
So you’ve found a potential therapist. Do they have any customer testimonials or references? A successful therapist should have no end of willing clients pleased to put in a good word. But maybe they’ve just qualified? Don’t be put off by that, they might be naturally fantastic and as-yet-undiscovered. Many newly qualified therapists are happy to offer introductory discounts as they build up their confidence and client base. Why not book in for a short introductory session to see if it feels ‘right’? But do bear in mind that, depending on your temperament, it might take you a little time to relax into the session, so don’t expect any ‘miracles’ from a short session.

Communication is the key
A successful treatment is dependent on your relationship with your therapist. You should try to be direct and straightforward with your requests. A good therapist will be sensitive, but none are ‘mind readers’ – so be prepared to clearly communicate your desired outcome.

Try to go into the session with an open, relaxed state of mind. Remember that the vast majority of working therapists are kind, caring sensitive people who genuinely want to help you. The more relaxed you are the more a therapist can ‘work their magic’ – because your tissues are softer and more pliable.

So to summarise;

Do your research – ask friends, colleagues, family, local sports clubs or dance companies.

Search online – ‘sports massage (your area)’, ‘deep tissue massage (your area)’.

Ask for testimonials/references if you find someone you think might be suitable.

Communicate your wishes – both before the treatment and during. Remember a treatment is a relationship, and trust and communication is the lifeblood of any relationship.

© Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.