I am a body work therapist at Neural Pathways, Sports Massage, Pain Management, Stress Management Relaxation and Rehabilitation Centre.
I guess I am not your average massage therapist, so let me give you a bit of information about my history and what led me to want to start my career helping others through remedial massage.
Since a teenager I have always had a passionate interest in exercise, movement and the benefits of being physically active, particularly the chemical changes of ‘feeling good’ after exercise. This led me to study personal training while in my twenties, and I ran successful ‘park-fit’ classes. Unfortunately for me personal training was a non-rewarding career, as I often felt like that guy pushing people to breaking point to satisfy my own ego, and met very few people with the motivation and drive to truly live inside our bodies.
As a young man I felt that a career where I could be rewarded for my own level of physical prowess would be better suited to my aptitude. I then began my career in building and construction as a bricklayer. I found myself quickly progressing through the ranks, as I was exposed to the work tasks of various trades and found myself loving the roles of being an advanced scaffolder, rigger and crane operator. Learning the fundamental basics of physics and structural integrity in building transposes directly into an understanding of the tensegrity model and structural imbalance in the body and how it plays out into compensatory strength patterns which cause weakness, pain, and injury.
After 15 years of this kind of work my body has taken its fair share of knocks and injury, mostly preventable. Every time I would experience pain and the inability to perform at the level of fitness I trained for, I would see it as an opportunity to learn more about bio-dynamics and how our bodies function through movement to help improve myself.
One of the most significant events in my life tragically happened at the age of 21. I suffered several head injuries where my skull was fractured, as was the vertebrae in my neck. My jaw bone was completely broken and my chin sat below my shoulder and hanging to one side. I was rushed to Fremantle hospital, where I was given a 7lt blood transfusion and placed in an induced coma for 8 days. Thank god, and for the modern science for saving my life and giving me the time to recover.
I believe there are three key points that have been my saving grace and allowed me to understand the human experience. All of the hard work, sweat and determination I have put in, has made me understand we really can manage our own conditions. Without the need for further invasive surgery or medications.
1: is exercise. We need to keep moving, despite how hard it may seem.
2: is massage. Massage helps the body in its ability to heal itself.
3. is positive mindset. We create our own reality.
This has led me to desire to further broaden my education and I completed my HLT52015 Diploma of Remedial Massage. With all the knowledge and the treatments, I have learnt, my passion is to help others live a pain free and happy life. I feel this is the beginning of a new chapter in my journey and I am excited for the next opportunity life will present.
