We may all be familiar with Swedish massage or Chinese massage, but we could use a bit of “enlightenment” about Russian massage. An article by David Helwig caught our attention. He says the basic premise of Russian message is that it focuses more on the “physiology of a dysfunction rather than on anatomy as the principal guideline for treatment.”
If we understand this correctly, the massage therapist looks at the injury and how this injury has brought about reduced mobility or range of motion.
David Helwig says that the Russian government recognized the importance of massage therapy in 1860 when medicines were in short supply. Today, massage therapy is a major – if not the largest department – in most hospitals and clinics in the Soviet Union. Given that massage therapy is considered a crucial and indispensable factor in physical rehabilitation, Russian massage therapists are regarded as medical practitioners. Its approach is to combine sports and therapeutic massage by working on the body’s soft tissues to relieve muscle aches and pains and reduce stress.
In our previous blog, we said that the Utah College of Massage Therapy offers Russian Sports Therapy in its curriculum. More research revealed that the Florida College of Natural Health in Miami, Florida also offers Russian massage. The person we spoke to says that Russian massage is not a separate seminar but is part of the 14 modalities in the curriculum for the professional massage therapy program. We also called the Baltimore School of Massage in Baltimore, Maryland and the lady we spoke to confirmed that Russian massage is one of the modalities in their massage therapy program.
When looking for specific courses in Russian massage or Russian sports therapy, you may not find many schools that list it as Russian massage because it is actually integrated into their modalities. If you wish to make sure that you’re getting into a massage therapy program that teaches Russian massage either as a credit course, continuing education subject or as a seminar/workshop, you will need to call the school and speak to someone in the appropriate department. Massage schools in larger cities usually have a toll free number.
If you come across admissions personnel who say they’ve never heard of Russian Massage (we spoke to one city school that didn’t have a clue as to what we were talking about), don’t be discouraged. Russian massage has evolved into multi-disciplinary disciplines, and some of its principles may actually be integrated into the curriculum under a different name. You can also check with the schools’ continuing education departments.
© 2012 Massage Schools Guide