Techtuitive Bodywork

Classes with Niles Szwed

Study With a Master; Become a Master!

About Techtuitive Bodywork:

Techtuitive Bodywork (formerly Intensive Massage) is a true gem of the California Bay Area healing arts renaissance.  A unique and elegant blend of hard and soft, the technical and the intuitive.  Western aesthetics on the outside meet Eastern martial arts & yogic principles on the inside.  

In my long experience, most bodyworkers tend to lean strongly towards  either the intuitive or the technical.  The aim of Techtuitive Bodywork is develop both sides and blend them seamlessly in your therapists’ practice.

Turn your spa staff’s good massage skills into masterful bodywork with a Techchtuitive Bodywork training!

What makes a massage truly great?  These courses develop the highest degree of skill in the shortest time by delving into the root elements of masterful bodywork.  Your staff will deliver consistently high quality bodywork, more easily and efficiently, that yields better results and feels better to both the client and the therapist.  You get higher repeat business, your therapists gain greater finesse and endurance, and have lower rates of burnout and on-the-job injury. 

Techtuitive Bodywork, elements of the style...

I've developed this style of deep-tissue bodywork over the past twenty-four years, incorporating elements of internal style Asian martial arts (Aikido & Shing Yee) and Yoga, along with the distillation of two decades of intuitive practice and pragmatic experimentation. There is a strong focus on connective tissue work, which clears out stress especially well, as that is often where stress resides in the body. There is also a range of softer, subtle aesthetic/ sensory elements which let the client drop into their inner experience more directly and deeply than they normally might in a massage.  This allows the client's physical and mental tension to be unlocked from the inside... a far more efficient and pleasant way to get results than by simply pushing through layers of resistance.

Truly great bodywork is done with full presence of mind and spirit. I believe that a bodyworker should be able to meet their client exactly where they're at, adapting their technique to be effective while staying within the client's comfort zone. Techtuitive Bodywork does address issues of general pain and specific injuries directly.  But what matters at least as much is that a feeling of radiant wholeness that should stay with the client after every session.

Veteran connoisseurs of deep-tissue work, and more cautious, delicate clients will be equally at ease with this style. The key is a combination of sensitivity and inventiveness, to discover how any given client is most likely to open up and let go.

Techtuitive… a cross-genre approach to teaching...

These are master classes, emphasizing the underlying principles of great bodywork, making your spa staff more effective at whatever bodywork style they practice. 

Normally, individual massage therapists tend to lean strongly towards the intuitive side or to the technical side in their practice.   The ability to use the right & left brain in equal measure does not just rely on the innate talent of the therapist. This is a skill that can be developed with the right coaching.  Rarely do you find a teacher who masters the art from both sides. Whichever innate tendency your massage therapists have relied upon til now, I help them to develop the technical and intuitive aspects of their work, and to weave them together seamlessly.

My goal in teaching Techtuitive Bodywork is to support your staff in delivering a fabulous, effective, fine-tuned massage every time. For best results, I make use of each student's natural learning style to awaken their own insights, so that they can continue to make sense of what they've learned and expand upon it long after the class is over.

Basic underlying principles and their connection to specific techniques are demonstrated in a variety of ways. Students will walk away at the end of the class with a deepened sense of the living wholeness of people, and not simply another set of techniques.

Strong emphasis is given to impeccable body mechanics while working, proper handling of patterns of resistance, and other forms of burn-out prevention to insure the therapist's longevity in their practice. Even seasoned members of your staff will be surprised at how much more effective, flowing and aligned they feel in their work.

In short, I want your therapists to take the good massage skill that they already possess and turn it into masterful bodywork.