I was in Calistoga California recently. Calistoga is known for its mineral springs so there are quite a few places offering mud baths, soaks, and massages in a spa setting. A good time to try something new!
The mud bath is a completely new experience for me. It's a trough of thick black mud in which I reclined for about 15 minutes. Hot and smelling ever-so-faintly of sulphur, it was more relaxing than I expected, though rinsing the mud out of all the nooks and crannies it had found on me took a little while! It was followed by a soak in a jacuzzi (I do love a good jacuzzi!) and 10 minutes wrapped in a warm burrito-like ensemble in a darkened room.
Which is all to say that by the time I got to the massage room, I was a shambling pile of warm readiness. My MT asked a few questions; I mentioned the lingering soreness in my biceps and elbows and asked for a little extra attention there.
He did a good one-hour massage. When he got to my upper arms, I could tell he was trying to address my soreness but it wasn't very effective. He didn't seem to be able to focus on specific tissue. I got the sense that he couldn't “talk” / “listen” to the tissue. He felt....fatigued. But he did give it a little extra time and I give him full points for that.
He mentioned afterwards that he 'd wanted to go over the hour a little bit so he could do more work on my arms but he was booked back-to-back and he couldn't. I certainly understand. I had that same challenge just last night with a new client. But I know I wasn't his first appointment of the day and I know I wasn't the last. I wonder if the number of clients he had that day affected his ability to connect with my sore arms.
There comes a point in the day when I just can't give my full focus to one more body. I can keep moving, keep rubbing, but I can't give them my creative focus. There's none left. For me, I've learned that my limit is between 4 and 5 hours. Your limit may be different.
We sometimes convince ourselves we can keep going, seeing as many clients as we can physically accommodate to be financially successful. What we shouldn't do is try to convince ourselves that our clients won't notice when we've gone past our attention-limit. They may not know why but they may well notice that the session wasn't as good as they've received from us before or that they've received somewhere else.
We sometimes convince ourselves we can keep going, seeing as many clients as we can physically accommodate to be financially successful. What we shouldn't do is try to convince ourselves that our clients won't notice when we've gone past our attention-limit. They may not know why but they may well notice that the session wasn't as good as they've received from us before or that they've received somewhere else.
That's one of my biggest complaints about the national chains, like Massage Envy. They are frequently owned and run by people who don't get these subtleties of good service. For them, one massage is as good as another and if you are physically able, you should keep going. Their pay scale also tempts MTs to try to make up the difference in volume. It's not true of every large spa or national massage chain but it is far more likely to happen there than with an individual therapist.
You want to be able to deliver a high-quality service as often as you reasonably can. Going past your natural limit will not allow you to do that.
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