Tolerance. Three short syllables. Often a whole heap of energy required! There are some things in life that shouldn't be tolerated: bad relationships, bad jobs, bad political systems. But sometimes knowing what we can tolerate - and what's too much - is vital to keeping going. It's for this reason that Dan Siegel's Window of Tolerance model is such a valuable part of theory - and why it's part of every session, nay every conversation, I hold space for. In brief, the Window of ...

I saw this cartoon online recently and really liked it. The one thing I felt it missed, though, was the fact that love doesn't come in a box. Because Love is a Doing Thing. Saying "I love you" can be a throw away linguistic habit - or it can be an act of great bravery and courage. Acting in a way that shows your love brings a whole new significance and weight to it. That might be love for a friend: giving them a call when you know they're having a hard time. Love for your community: ...

I don't know what it's like with you today, but where I am it is undoubtedly a "book on the sofa by the fire" day. And today the book in question is Gerry's In Celebration of Feet. This is, by far, my favourite of Gerry's trilogy about NO HANDS. Bold statement! Well, The Principles and Practice of NO HANDS Massage is, of course, a classic. It has lots of pictures and breaks down into chunks well - but it's still much more akin to a textbook. In Celebration of Feet, however, is ...

Thirty years ago a therapist arrived at work. He had a busy day ahead: and work-generated injuries to both wrists. His first client of the day was a Russian opera singer by the name of Anton*. Think classic, rather rotund opera singer: that was Anton. Anton liked DEEP Massage. Anton would not be satisfied with the gentle stroking work that the therapist could offer without pains shooting up his arms. And just as the therapist realised this, and panic struck in, his body wisdom took over and NO ...

Yesterday I talked about the wonders of the EARTH treatment for resting. Today I'm talking rest AGAIN - this time, something you can do from the comfort of your home or even your favourite "getaway" spot: READING. Forgive me if I sound like an enthusiastic librarian at this point, but books - I mean, how awesome are books? Yes, e-readers are convenient, but for me, nothing beats getting your hands on a physical item, something that has been lovingly crafted, printed and dispatched direct ...

Every regular NO HANDS client knows exactly the type of Touch that will help them best, but there are certain patterns that occur again and again. So when a new client arrives in need of rest and recuperation two treatments are my absolute "Go to": the first is the EARTH treatment. This treatment is SLOW. This treatment is DEEP. During the session your tissues will be powerfully compressed - without any pain. They will be given space to expand and realign. The ...

Sunday is traditionally known as a "day of rest". But are there really any days of rest any more? Being busy seems to have become the thing to aspire to - "resting" a weakness rather than a necessity for living. This time of year in particular, with preparations for festivities and the closing of the year, rest often gets shoved to the bottom of the "to do" list. If we look to nature at this time of year all its energies are focused towards resting. Recuperation. Gathering energies. Minimising ...

The Chair. Oh, the Chair! My own relationship with Chair-based Massage has been a varied one but, I confess, right now it's an absolute love affair. The humble Chair is SO EASY. Other than the face cradle cover, there are no towels or coverings to worry about. It can be sanitised in less than a minute. The client doesn't need to undress. The practitioner can work from standing or from a stool. There's loads of space to move around (even in a room which would feel a bit "tight" for ...

We all need some nurturance in our life. A bit of TLC. And Touch is a MASSIVE part of this. A hug. A cuddle with a pet. Gently touching someone's arm. A Massage. Of all the different treatments NO HANDS therapists offer, the NO HANDS NURTURE treatment is very often their "favourite" or "go to". Because, by their nature, Massage therapists tend to be carers and nurturers, wanting to look after those around them (and then some!) The NO HANDS NURTURE treatment is a treatment that ...

By Master Tigger MacGregor “Learn as a client” This is one of the core 8 Minds of NO HANDS Massage - and it’s one I take very seriously. I receive treatments from fellow NO HANDS Masters, from NO HANDers who aren’t yet Masters, and from people who haven't even heard of NO HANDS, let alone trained. After every treatment I receive, and I mean every treatment, I have MASSES that I’ve learned. And this learning? It informs and sometimes changes how I interact with the ...

Although it would have been nice to tie in with the official Crohn's and Colitis Awareness week (which finished on December 7th) nothing will stop a NO HANDer getting geeky about the colon! One of the key things about NO HANDS as an approach is the core philosophy of systemic. This is the idea that we're not separate parts (an arm, a leg, a liver...) but we're an interconnected whole - so if there's a problem in one part of our body, it will have a knock on impact ...

Touch is so important. Safe, powerful, consensual Touch. In fact, it's essential to life. Recently, I've found myself sharing an anecdote I heard a long time ago. In these days of fake news and fact checking I wish I had a reference I could supply - but I don't. What I do know is that, even without a specific source, this story really resonates with me - because I absolutely believe it could have happened. When the scandal of the Romanian orphanages broke in the 1990s a whole array of ...

NO HANDS Masters have completed the full journey from zero strain bodywork, through potent and transactional bodywork to being able to offer truly Transformational Touch Therapy. Master Helene Abram became a Master in 2015 and works near Mold, in North Wales. After finishing a part-time secretarial job, a friend suggested that, like her, I should go to college, so over a coffee, we made our choices – I chose French, German….and Massage? Ooh, I’ve always fancied ...

By Sam Beckett, NO HANDS Master The end of one year and beginning of a new is often time for reflection. As I reflect upon 2020, and more specifically the effect of the pandemic upon my business, I feel very positive. At the start of the pandemic when lockdown was announced, I felt truly despondent. To me, it sounded like the death knell to the work I have enjoyed for the last 23 years; I could hardly believe it. I cancelled clients and spent my days walking, homeschooling and ...

The hard truth is that for some people, when they say "Massage" they actually mean "Sex". Euphemisms are funny in that these people will often do anything to avoid actually asking for sexual services - which means there are two people in a conversation talking about totally different things! One of the best ways to approach this is like you would do any interaction: with introductions. The text message that arrives from an unrecognised number: "Do you do Massage?" The phone call: "I'm ...

From her base in Bridport, Dorset, Amanda Jones has been offering NO HANDS for almost a decade. In her own words... After a move to West Dorset from Bath I was quite happy working with my partner on a day tripper boat doing 1 hour mackerel fishing trips around the bay in Lyme Regis. However, I then developed sun damage and was advised to get out of the sun. A friend was learning massage and suggested I gave it a try as a replacement career. What first triggered your interest in NO HANDS?I was ...

By Gerry Pyves, NO HANDS Founder & Creator  In a world of marketing manipulations, is science all we can trust? I recently had an enquiry about whether my work (which I use both clinically and teach to therapists on courses) can be used to treat Transverse Myelitis (TM). As Massage Therapists it is vital we stay within our scope of practice and not claim cure (or, indeed, attempt to diagnose). However, it raised an interesting issue around our society's reliance on ...

By Master Sam Beckett  During my Assessment year, I went for 3 consecutive Master Support Sessions with Master Sophie (Atkinson). Though a little daunting, I relished the opportunity to have constructive feedback from a Master about the strengths and weaknesses of my Massage. Firstly, I wanted to know that I was embodying the Postural Keys. For instance, was I really Falling? Was my work Flowing? Next, I wanted to know that the styles of Massage that I was offering were actually ...

Unless you have pulled a muscle through exertion, had an accident, or are suffering from a medically diagnosed illness or disease, most back and neck pain originates from tight muscles. These tightened muscles simply pull the vertebrae out of their natural alignment. The ensuing misalignment is what causes the pain and inflammation. About 90% of back pain originates from this simple ‘tightening effect’. So what causes our muscles to tighten like this? I often use the analogy of a ...

“Touch isn’t just good – it’s absolutely essential. Denying it is like denying a child oxygen. I get very exercised about the demonisation of touch. It’s cruel, in my mind. It’s another form of abuse.”  Prof Francis McGlone   In 2017 the British Psychological Society held a conference about the use of physical contact in schools and children’s services. As well as professor McGlone presenting his own findings regarding C-Tactile ...

Anxiety and stress can cause absenteeism and lowered productivity levels. The economic cost of this can be hard to measure. However, one study in America showed that anxiety and stress was costing top companies over 25 billion dollars a year (Palmer, 1990). These stress related costs show that any measures a company can take to reduce the effects of stress on its employees could have a real impact on their company’s overall success. Stress is endemic to the workplace - no surprise ...

If you’re looking for a seriously powerful treatment, look no further: CRYO NO HANDS is it! You may well have already picked up on it, but there's a really big buzz developing around the new CRYO NO HANDS treatments. CRYO NO HANDS combines the powerful therapeutic benefits of both medical-quality cryotherapy with the wonders of “gentle giant” that is NO HANDS Massage.  The cryo exposes specific areas of the body to extremely cold ...

NO HANDS Masters have completed the full journey from zero strain bodywork, through potent and transactional bodywork to being able to offer truly Transformational Touch Therapy. Master Amanda Watson became a Master in 2016 and works in Wakefield.  In her own words…      "Although I originally qualified as a Massage Therapist in 1996, it wasn't until 2013 that I first started training in NO HANDS. I had sustained injury to my wrists, hands, ...

NO HANDS Masters have completed the full journey from zero strain bodywork, through potent and transactional bodywork to being able to offer truly Transformational Touch Therapy. Master Sophie Crutchley became a Master in 2017 and works in Birmingham.  In her own words… My NO HANDS Journey so far… When I was at school trying to decide which career path to follow I had a conversation with my uncle who suggested I go down the holistic route as he was a holistic ...

Since it's inception 13 years ago, the TRANSFORMING TOUCH course has, quite literally, transformed the touch of thousands of therapists in the UK and beyond. How? By challenging these therapists to try doing things differently - across pretty much every area of their work. As with any course, it's up to each individual student to decide what to use in their own clinical practice after the course but the stories of the NO HANDS Masters are testament to what a difference "going the ...

By Gerry Pyves There are many different explanations for Massage being such a powerful experience. They range from mental stillness and psychological calm to the stretching of specific muscles; from emotional soothing to the balancing of meridians and chakras; from structural re-alignment to spiritual re-connection. The different benefits of Massage are, in fact, legion. Even Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, believed that Massage had many facets to it and that it was so important ...

By Gerry Pyves, NO HANDS Founder & Creator You could be forgiven for thinking that NO HANDS® Massage practitioners do not use their hands - after all, it's there in the name. However, this is actually a myth: in fact we are the only members of the profession protecting our hands for those moments when we really need them.  Because we use other parts of the body and  because we use the therapeutic philosophy of WEIGHT which involves tissue compression and decompression on a ...

By Gerry Pyves, NO HANDS Founder & Creator My definition of clinical success is twofold: What brings clients back again and again. This means you need only a handful of clients to build a successful and stable business. What helps clients find ease and success in their lives. This means that we must address more therapeutic issues than just muscle length. It is natural when we begin our Massage career to want “more techniques”. However, if you look around the Massage ...

NO HANDS Masters have completed the full journey from zero strain bodywork, through potent and transactional bodywork to being able to offer truly Transformational Touch Therapy. Master Sam Beckett became a Master in 2014 and works in Walton on Thames.  In her own words… I first went to a Massage Therapist when I was around 24 and experiencing terrible shoulder pain. I was miserable in my job as an Advertising Sales Executive, work which was increasingly making me ...

Many a time you may have heard that lactic acid is what causes the aching in your muscles after exercise (known as DOMS: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) and that Massage can remove lactic acid from the muscles. However, we now know that blood circulation actually removes the lactic acid from muscles within a few seconds, and therefore cannot be responsible for DOMS. There can be no doubt that having a Massage after vigorous exercise unquestionably feels good, and it seems to reduce pain and help ...

NO HANDS Masters have completed the full journey from zero strain bodywork, through potent and transactional bodywork to being able to offer truly Transformational Touch Therapy. Master Beth Lloyd became a Master in 2017 and works in Staffordshire. In her words… My introduction to NO HANDS® Massage was just over 10 years ago. It was through a NO HANDS flyer landing on the desk of my then employers. I attended my first Transformational Touch course back in 2007, with ...

October has been an incredibly busy month in the world of NO HANDS training. It's hard to describe the amount of commitment each of our students puts in to their own learning to be able to offer their clients the best possible treatment they can - but it's fair to say that it's a lot! The road to becoming a NO HANDS Master takes a minimum of 3 years but each step these trainee Masters make builds on everything they already know and takes them to the next level. And ...

An article by Gerry Pyves - NO HANDS Massage Founder & Creator In Psychotherapy practice, the reason clients give for coming into treatment are as varied as the stars in the heaven and defy any categorisation that I have come across so far. This is why it is so important to spend time pinning down exactly why a client comes for Psychotherapy. Sometimes it takes me and the client several sessions fully to uncover their true motivation in coming for therapy. This process is ...

By Gerry Pyves, NO HANDS Academy for Transformational Touch Therapy Founder & Creator In the past, I've suggested that as therapists we ‘train’ our clients into the language and theories that we ourselves have studied. So, for example a Freudian Psychotherapist trains their clients to have ‘freudian dreams’ and Jungians train their clients to have ‘jungian dreams’. Likewise, many Massage therapists actually give a non-stop verbal ...

An article by Gerry Pyves, Founder & Creator of NO HANDS® Massage The Victorian paradigm of healing, from Florence Nightingale onwards, has been that we must suffer in order to help others. This is deeply embedded in most western Christian cultures. It is a sacrificial act to help others. Like most paradigms, such honourable concepts achieved great things and the public service that sprang from it is truly praiseworthy. Having conformed to this Victorian paradigm and ...

By Master Sophie Atkinson I was recently invited by a client to give ‘a talk and demonstration’ of NO HANDS Massage to a local group of over 60's to which she belongs.   It was a small group and there were only nine of them including my client in the audience, but two immediately booked in for a treatment and both expressed interest in signing up for my standing order scheme, even though they hadn’t even felt it. This is a pretty cool response from a marketing point ...

We feel the best people to describe our courses are people who've experienced them for themselves. Below are just some of the comments from students at recent courses : "Being able to do strokes without stress on my back and hands is simply wonderful. I am a Sports massage therapist and I was about to leave my career as I was very exhausted and drained all the time, my back hurt too, and the most amazing thing was to do all the strokes with no pain anywhere, simply amazing!!" Maria Graca ...

Mastery in any area of life is no mean feat and is something which takes considerable perseverance, determination and commitment to keeping going, through good times and bad. It's not an easy, "overnight success", but achieving Mastery in any area of life is a wonderful achievement, an opportunity to celebrate a truly awesome accomplishment and almost inevitably spills over from your "area of Mastery" into all aspects of life. Our courses have been designed and developed over 20 years to mean ...

Despite the fact that NO HANDS® Massage started life in 1988 as a zero strain way to deliver Swedish Massage, the plain fact is that it now resembles conventional Massage about as much as a space shuttle resembles a bicycle. I believe that this is down to three key characteristics:   1. SENSORY AND SENSORIMOTOR STIMULATION Most of the strokes used in NO HANDS® Massage involve four or five times more touch and sensory stimulation than conventional ...

Update 2024: NO HANDS Massage was incorporated into 4Elements in 2024 - references to NO HANDS have been left here as they were accurate at the time of writing. The second in our Meet the Master series is Master Wendy Mills. Wendy became a Master in 2016 just three years after starting her NO HANDS training - although a decade and a half since she first came across NO HANDS. In her words... Wendy, give us a brief description of yourselfI was a State Registered Nurse for 23 years, ...

One of the characteristics of NO HANDS® Massage is our refusal to be seduced by the dark side of “clever massage techniques”. Because we regard human beings as much more than simply “physical machines that need fixing” we prefer the power of touch to trigger the innate power of self healing within each client over the ‘cleverness’ of the practitioner. Although this approach has repeatedly bruised the ego of many a Massage therapist, the simple fact ...

Tigger, now co-owner of the NO HANDS Massage Company Ltd,  was one of the four new Masters of the 2010 cohort. She started her training in NO HANDS in 2006 at the very first TRANSFORMING TOUCH course (now integrated into our PRACTITIONER course) at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Little did she know the significance NO HANDS would have in her life when she arrived at that first course thinking to herself "Wow! The Royal College of Surgeons are so cool - they burn incense! I never ...

Dawn Cree, one of our ADVANCED Practitioners, recently volunteered at the London Marathon offering Massage to runners raising money for the Heads Together campaign. Our Association is full of generous therapists giving freely of the time and skills both on a regular basis and at one-off events like this - hats off to each and every one of you! Dawn also took her NO HANDS learning to a deeper level being amidst "non-NO HANDers" and she has shared a great write up with ...

After an absolutely thrilling opening module in March of the 2017 Mastery Programme we have four new NO HANDS Masters: Master Sharon Lomax Master Beth Hunt Master Nathalie Scullard Master Beth Lloyd These four have shown a Mastery of the three key elements of NO HANDS - Zero-strain Bodywork, Potent Bodywork and Transactional Bodywork - which, combined, enables them to offer truly Transformational Bodywork to their clients. Each Master has a unique story about how they ...

The delivery of every NO HANDS Massage is underpinned by a wealth of concepts and principles which are what make NO HANDS, NO HANDS. It doesn't matter whether you've just completed Practitioner or are a Master with decades of experience, these ideas are there in the background supporting you and supporting your client. That said, there are so many of these concepts that it's easy to take some for granted - and we recently had a great thread on our Association-only ...

Many a time you may have heard that lactic acid is what causes the aching in your muscles after exercise (known as DOMS: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) and that Massage can remove lactic acid from the muscles. However, we now know that blood circulation actually removes the lactic acid from muscles within a few seconds, and therefore cannot be responsible for DOMS. There can be no doubt that having a Massage after vigorous exercise unquestionably feels good, and it seems to reduce pain and help ...

By Master Karen Lakeland I still remember the first time I was taught the 8 Minds and I love the simplicity of them. I still have a copy in my treatment room so I can keep them at the front of my mind.   EMPTY YOUR MIND Be like a baby and open to learning new information every time you start each stroke. So often I am multi-tasking and trying to think of the next thing and the next thing.  Just reading this brings me back to the here and now. Think of my client and what learning I ...

NO HANDS Master, Wendy Mills, has been involved with people's health & well being all her life - from being a nurse to running a successful Beauty & Complementary Therapy Centre in Hereford. Wendy has been a NO HANDS Instructor since 2015 and became a Master in November 2016  At the beginning of Mastery 2016 I wrote down what I wanted my outcomes for the year to be: 1) To get more clarity in my contracting. 2) To meet the client on whatever PEEMS level they are on. At Module 1 I ...

Being a Massage therapist must be one of the best jobs in the world. Working with the immense power of Touch, supporting our clients to be the best they can be, seeing them grow and develop through the power of regular treatments. It's a real privilege and yet this wonderful healing profession is facing an injury pandemic...which very few people seem to be talking about. When it became clear that injury amongst Massage therapists was far actually painfully common, an early student of NH, ...

By Master Tigger MacGregor An earlier post included the story of me and my “sugar crutches”. Well, my most recent “crutch realisation” happened a couple of weeks ago and coincided with a pile of stress and a general feeling of being too sugar-dependent and bloated. So I cracked out my Belly Ball. When the Belly Ball was launched I was lucky enough to be among the first to try it out. I followed the suggested regime pretty much to the letter (no days off, no ...