The Heart of a Massage Therapist

A big debate is quietly raging on Anitra Brown's blog about.com/spa regarding necessary qualifications for being a good massage therapist. This one started because a spa bigwig was quoted in a Luxury Spa Finder saying something along these lines: “good therapists have to have the heart of a servant.” This seems to be the call to action among spa professionals these days—especially because it’s becoming harder to find and keep good therapists.

That fact kept coming up at the Wellness Summit because apparently the level of talented healing hands entering the industry is not sufficient to keep up with the demand. Good technicians, on the other hand, are easy to find. You go to school, you study your anatomy, you learn the skills necessary to set up shop and you get a job. But when you have the heart of a technician apparently your heart may not in the right place. Your heart is probably in your head, which is more focused on your bank account. And burnout is a big issue in the spa industry these days.

In this country, of course, peddling flagrant descriptions of employees as servants is like issuing a battle call. The politically correct contingency will rear its head and Western therapists—some, not all—cannot, will not, wrap their heads around the word. Here, someone making minimum wage in a retail setting is called an “associate,” not a clerk. We’re big on titles, small on customer care. So people latch onto their title, the fancier the title the bigger the head. I’m not promoting classism; I just think that we put too much emphasis on impressive-sounding titles and not as much on putting in the work to fulfill the title.


After experiencing Asian massage therapists, I think it comes down to attitudes. I really believe there is a cultural precedent in the argument for the superiority of Asian practitioners. I mentioned how the staff at Mandala Spa greets visitors: right hand to heart and a slight bow. At another spa, which I’ll talk about another time named Nurture Spa, I was greeted by a man who put his hands, palms up, out in front of him and then brought them both back to his heart as he said, “Welcome home.” The gestures felt so genuine it nearly took my breath away.

Chinggay, my massage therapist and Mandala Spa told me that the massage therapists start each day with a Sivananda yoga class. In fact, I read on the spa’s website that even the kitchen staff and gardeners must attend a yoga class once a week. I hope they like it. I know Chinggay does. She told me that as a result of taking yoga classes she’s decided that she wants to spend time on an ashram. I credit Mo-Ching Yip, a yoga instructor, spa consultant and wife of Dieter Schrottmann, Mandala’s co-owner with Karen Villarica-Reina (see personalities on website). I believe that together they are creating an environment that is not just a pretty construct but a living breathing thing.