The ability to hang out is arguably the most useful skill there is in massage. Find a good spot and hang out there with the right amount of pressure for the right amount of time.
As it is exquisitely simple and extremely sophisticated, we must practice practice practice!
Let’s delve deeper by asking some questions.
Q1. What exactly is a good spot?
Q2. How much is the right amount of pressure?
Q3. How long is the right amount of time?
Q4. What does it mean to ‘hang out’?
A good spot
A good spot is a place where the client feels something significant or useful. There are a number of ways you might discover them. The client might give an ‘ooh’ or an ‘ahhh’, which helps a lot! The tissue may feel harder, denser or tighter to your touch. You could be drawn to a place that feels over full or somewhat empty energetically, or somewhere that just somehow feels ‘interesting’.
The right amount of pressure
The right amount of pressure allows the client to stay positively connected with the sensation / changing sensations. You may both need to embrace your inner Goldilocks to find this level. That’s too much, that’s too little, ah – just right! The only way to find it is to try. Just to complicate matters, the Goldilocks pressure will constantly change as you work. You must pay attention and be ready to adapt. As we are not mind-readers, we must empower the client to let us know how it feels. There is no need to get stuck guessing and imagining, we can always ask.
The right amount of time
The right amount of time creates a satisfying change and lets the client feel it’s okay to move on. You may feel their body signal completion in some way. An example would be a palpable shift in the tissue tension, perhaps combined with a significant tummy gurgle. You might get a tangible sense of a shift having occurred some other way. This might be a sigh or deeper breath. Alternatively, the client might tell you it’s changed.
It can be very helpful to ask your client how they are feeling. This is not a sign of weakness, it is very professional and takes confidence. Staying quiet and guessing is the problematic thing to do. You could say something like, ‘I felt that something shifted – did you feel that too?’ or ‘Should I stay here longer, or are you ready for me to move on?’
The Magic of Hanging out
Hanging out requires you to be truly present in the moment. To maintain a touch-based connection with what is there takes focus and attention and allows a tremendously important process to happen. Your client receives new awareness of their body through your touch and this awareness invites change. Using enough stillness and enough gentle movement to stay engaged with the tissues as they respond – sinking in as they yield, lifting away slightly as they resist, you are shifting almost imperceptibly to remain comfortably connected.
Hanging out can be magical. I see it as giving your client space and time to get inside their experience, to immerse themselves in it. To experience change from the inside out.
In my experience, hanging out is profoundly enhanced by working within a love-field, using breath awareness, letting go of expectation and by embracing the mystery. These four topics fascinate me and I will write more about them all. Watch this space!
Thanks for reading 🙂 For more about the power of massage read this next…
