About Me: My Journey to Massage Therapy

Hi! My name is Ella, I am a Canadian Registered Massage Therapist currently working and living in the UK. But what does that mean? And how did I get here?

I have always loved sports and exercise, whether it was playing sports, camping or just playing games with my friends. The love of exercise and with it, the fascination in the human body has driven the course of my career.

A Mystery University Degree:

The beginning of my journey started at The University of Toronto receiving an Honours Bachelor of Kinesiology. Many people ask me, What is Kinesiology? and for a long time I had no idea what to tell them, it's always been a hard subject for me to put into one sentence. It is a very broad discipline, that I have discovered changes meaning depending on the country you are in. It focuses on the study of the human body and its relation to sport and exercise.

Kinesiology: The study of the acquisition of motor skills, the

mechanical aspects of movement, and the body's responses to physical activity.

This was a four year degree that incorporated working in a cadaver lab, practical courses on assessing movement patterns, working as a student trainer with one of the university sports teams, assisting in a chiropractic clinic and in depth courses on physiology and biomechanics.

Finding Myself:

As cheesy as that sounds, I, like anyone else graduating university, had no idea how to put what I learned into practice. The obvious solution for me was to have a change of scenery. Travelling for a year sounded like the most enjoyable way to do some soul searching. So I ended up spending time in Europe, South America and SouthEast Asia backpacking and meeting hundreds of new people that I hoped would inspire me to figure out how I wanted to spend my life.

Start of the Inka Trail to Macchu Picchu, Peru. 2017

It turns out that although the experience was incredible, it was at home that I discovered massage therapy. A friend and I were looking for courses that we could do to build up useful skills and we stumbled upon a weekend massage therapy course. I enjoyed it and promptly forgot about it until I came home and decided I needed to do something productive with my life.

Life leading to Massage:

In Ontario, Canada massage therapy is a regulated health profession that abides by the Regulated Health Professions Act and the Massage Therapy Act requiring anyone who practices massage therapy to be regulated with College of Massage Therapists of Ontario (CMTO). Therefore schooling is a two year diploma program in addition to certification examinations.

I completed an accelerated diploma, consisting of 2,200 hours of study, both practical and classroom based. It included extensive study of anatomy and musculoskeletal conditions, with practical courses based on clinical assessment and joint mobilization. Some of skills I acquired include:

• Treatment of neurological conditions

• Incorporating hydrotherapy into a treatment

• Performing joint mobilizations Grades I-IV

• Prenatal and Postnatal massage therapy

• How to modify treatments based on various systemic conditions (i.e. Diabetes, Epilepsy, Cardivascular conditions)

• Basic lymph drainage techniques

• Intraoral massage techniques

• Breast massage techniques

Where I am now:

Currently I am living and working as a sports massage therapist in the UK. After two years of working in various types of clinics and treating a huge variety of people, I have slowly been finding my own style of massage.

I tend towards deep tissue massage, but find huge benefits from relaxation techniques, especially in regards to chronic conditions. I have discovered a love of treating TMJ (jaw) issues and become fascinated by pain research. My approach to massage therapy is to tailor each treatment to the patient, it is important to give self care and give the patient more knowledge of their own bodies so that they can continue healing on their own outside of treatment. I strive to create a holistic treatment for each person that walks into my clinic.

If you have any questions about what I do or whether I could help you, feel free to contact me anytime.