Appalachian Medical Massage Associates

by Paul Vachon

If you’ve had any conversations with me in the past about shoes or lack there of, you already know how I feel about running shoes, hard soled shoes, and high heels versus minimally designed shoes or going barefoot. The design of most shoes today encourage heel strike, which sends a shockwave through the body. Barefoot running (by someone who has always run barefoot, or has changed their old heel strike to mid or forefoot strike) looks amazingly different. Explaining this in words can be difficult to understand. But seeing - and experiencing - is believing.

In my continual search for research and articles referring to barefoot running, I recently came across one of the most powerful videos I’ve seen yet. It truly shows the difference that I have experienced. Watch and you’ll most likely become a convert. See the whole story here.

Listen to the story. Read the article. Watch the video. Be converted.

A Look At Running With and Without Shoes

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123031997

2009 is almost over. . . . Are you wondering how to best use the money in your Flex Account? A brief workshop will be held discussing how Flex Spending Accounts and HSAs can be used to pay for certain kinds of massage therapy treatments. This 30-minute workshop will be held at 6:00pm on Thursday, November 19th at our office at 317 Cherokee Street in downtown Kingsport. Massage and other manual therapies can play an important role in helping you attain short and long term goals of better health and performance. This workshop is perfect for human resources personnel of large or small corporations, or for individuals with key health challenges they’d like to address.

This short workshop will also provide in depth and often surprising ways in which massage and other manual therapies can help with a variety of health challenges. Some conditions that respond particularly well to treatment include chronic and acute pain, neck and back pain, generalized joint pain, headaches, migraines, TMJD/jaw pain, postural problems, pregnancy, carpal tunnel syndrome, and sciatica. It is also great for detoxification. Join us for an evening of education and discussion.

Amber and Paul Vachon are Nationally Certified Massage Therapists, with advanced training in several forms of bodywork as well as medical massage. To reserve a seat, please send an email to paul@ammatn.com or call us at 423-288-2662.

Here’s something we ran across on the www.irolfing.com website.  Who better to explain the subject that Dr. Rolf herself?

THE VERTICAL-EXPERIENTIAL SIDE TO HUMAN POTENTIAL
An essay by Ida P. Rolf, founder of Rolfing^® Structural Integration, dated March 1977

Like so many teachers, some of them very close to home, I complain that people do not seem to understand my basic goals, the fundamental purpose for which Rolfing has been developed. In an effort to lessen this type of frustration, I offer the following summary of Rolfing developments, purposes, and ideas.

First, let me reiterate what I have often said before: I as an individual, am not primarily interested in the relief of symptoms, either physical or mental. To hear Rolfees tell of their “wonderful”, “unbelievable” symptom alleviation, it is hard not to accept this assessment as a goal. However, I am interested in human potential, and human potential per se neither includes nor excludes the palliation of symptoms.

As of today, Rolfing is accepted as being one of the most basic, one of the most reliable means of developing whatever potential is latent in any given human, psychological as well as physical. By what route did Rolfing reach this particular eminence? We assume that human beings are, as a species, evolving toward verticality. What are the intellectual considerations which can speed us on our way toward understanding the value of this verticality?

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