As a male massage therapist, it can be very difficult establishing yourself in the massage industry. When I first started my massage career, I was afraid that I would not be able to survive and support myself. This was due to the fact that I could not find any massage job openings being a male massage therapist.

I recently came across a blog posting by fingertips called, “Keeping contact with the client” she states in her blog posting how important it is to keeping contact with your client during your massage sessions.

“As long as your hands are in contact with the client, they know where you are. This gets into the issue of trust, which, when your client knows where your hands are, facilitates relaxation”.

I firmly believe this as well, once I was able to find a massage job I made sure that my clients especially the females knew exactly where my hands were during their massage sessions. I often felt from the female clientele that frequent the Spa that I worked at, that there was a certain apprehension about them getting a massage from a male therapist.

Once I got that client on the table, I made sure that my hands never broke contact with their bodies. I intuitively knew that if my hands never left their bodies that they would be able to relax. My best guess is that the first five or ten minutes of the massage the female clients that I had, knew exactly where my hands were and paid specific attention to it. But once I built up that trust they were able to relax.

When I massaged areas of their body that did not require two hands; i.e. elbow work and trigger point therapy, just as fingertips mentioned in her blog post I would also put my free hands somewhere on their back, leg or arm just to let my female clients know that I was still there with them.

I also believe that my specialty, doing deep tissue massage has helped me to be successful as a male massage therapist. Deep tissue massage requires that you deliver precise intentional and direct pressure, to your clients. This kind of deliberate pressure felt like muscle work for my clients, not touchy-feely. So there was no mistake with what my intentions were, even when working sensitive areas like the glutes. Build trust through your massage and bodywork and be successful.

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