Out of office July 20th - August 30th

 

A couple of words

 First of all, thank you to all my wonderful clients! I have been constantly changing and learning on my path to become a better healer and I could not have done it without you all. YOU are my biggest teachers and an everyday joy. I still enjoy doing what I do the best: helping my clients with their pain.

As you know, I have been reducing my hours on 2021, because I have been so fortunate to have been able to teach more Finnish. My work days are, and will stay to be, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The rest of the week is reserved for spacing out and taking care of myself, since on weekends I am busy with teaching. This possibility to use my both professions makes me super-happy!

I am still learning more skills with my Ortho-Bionomy studies, but I probably will not try to achieve any new certificates, since I will always be working my way. I will never say never, but I feel like this is who I am and I can keep adding new skills to my skillset  without taking tests or applying certificates. 

This is the second summer in a row that I am not able to go to Finland. That is not ideal, but I am going to take the life as it comes, and keep working throughout the summer. Please, contact me now, if you want an appointment, my September will be very busy and most probably I will not be able to take any new clients then! So, call/text me now, if you want to get to my books, I always will accommodate my existing clients first. 

And about next summer: I am already planning on spending 6-8 weeks home! Keep your fingers crossed for that to become reality and wish me luck in other sectors of my life too; I have some big dreams to (hopefully) come true in the future. 

Enjoy your summer, I definitely am having a good time! This is Kata's Way and it means Balance since Balanced is Painless. 

Post Covid-19 Diary

We are definitely not over covid-19 yet, but I wanted to tell you where I am at the moment, since I am allowed to go back to work with clients who have medical massage referral from their medical or naturopathic provider.

What is changing? 

I have always disinfected my room, all the door handles and guest bathroom several times a week, but now I will be doing it after each and every client. I will be spacing out my clients, so that nobody will ever meet anybody else in my house. I will also greet you at the door so, that any guest will touch as few surfaces as possible during their visit. I will also have disinfection wipes and clean towel for you in the bathroom and hand sanitizer for everybody to use.

I do not require using gloves or facemask, but feel free to use them if you wish. I will put my mask on when I will be touching your upper body or head, but I won't be covered all the time. I will NOT be using gloves when I touch you, but will wash and disinfect my hands several times an hour.

I will cancel, and I require you to do the same, if I get any flu or cold symptoms, and that might happen even in the same day. So same day cancellations will be okay until the end of the year.

With all that I am certain that we will be safe and comfortable to start working with your pains and aches again.

I also want to emphasize that the time off have had a deep impact in me and my work! I have deepend my listening skills, learned new relaxation techniques and changed my understanding about psoas major (and other hip flexors) muscle quite a bit. This will also change my work, which is an evolving learning process. The more I learn, the more I believe that it is not what I can do for my clients, but what and how the client can help themselves in guiding the body towards more ease and comfort! My body is changing, your body is changing, so what worked last year, maybe won't help anymore.

I am deepening my listening skills and learning to be quiet. I will demand you to do so too, since my goal is Balance, because Balanced is Painless. Balance of the mind, body, myself and my willingness to help you depends on how much you are willing to help yourself. I am in the right path and that is Kata's Way. I welcome You back whenever you are ready, but don't expect things to be the same.

P.S. I had such a good results with Zoom-sessions that I will be continuing those! 60 mins and $30 one-on-one Zoom-treament is a valid option if you wish to meet me between the real treatments, or if you are hesitant to leave your house.

What if?

Mitä jos

Juuresi tunkeutuisivat niin kiinteästi maahan

että voisit:

kuulla auringonpaisteen,

nähdä meren kohinan ja

haistaa lapsuutesi.

Kun suussasi kaikuu menestyksen väistämättömyys

kurota taivaaseen ja vajoa mereen,

josta kasvaa sielusi veljeys.

Ole.  

What if

Your roots were grounded

so deep that you could:

Hear the shining Sun,

See the Sound of an Ocean,

Smell your Childhood Dream.

The Echoing Taste of Inevitability.

To Reach to the Sky is

to Sink into the Sea of Kinship.

To Be.

New Pricing 2020!

Hi you all! Today I'm here to tell you about my big decisions for 2020. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere nor will I reduce my working hours. I will still be available for my clients for 30 hours every week Monday through Thursday. Check my hours on the right column of this page!

As many of you already know, this year I have been studying a new treatment style called Ortho-Bionomy. These studies have not really changed the way I work, but the way I think! And it has been mind blowing. At the end of this year I can proudly say that I have already been studying this style over 70 hours. That's two full weeks of training, a couple of lectures, but especially hands-on practicing under the eyes of my wonderful teacher Jessica Marks from Happy Body in Asheville. That's a lot! But even that is only the beginning. Stay tuned!

I call my own style Kata's Way, and my motto is Balanced is Painless. I stand by this 100 percent. I have had my massage license in North Carolina for 5.5 years and during that time I have helped hundreds of clients! I have been able to bring back the mobility to the ankles, helped my clients rehabilitate several painful shoulder issues, kept my loyal clients running their marathons, opened up rib cages and diaphragms to serve better with voice production and got rid of several golf and tennis elbows among other issues. I have several weekly appointment slots for Neuropathy clients to vote for my treatment as the best way of keeping the neuropathy related pain away. I don't even know how many spines have been balancing themselves after my special seated vertebrae treatment sessions. Even scoliosis can be helped with this treatment! And the list goes on.

I am constantly keeping my eye on the therapeutic massage field in Charlotte. I follow (even try out occasionally) several Massage LLC:s and Inc:s and their pricing. I know that in the Spas you need to pay somewhere between $130-160 per hour, and that is not at all who I compete with. My competitors (including terms like therapeutic, advanced therapeutic, integrative etc.) charge anything between $70 (for membership) to $100 per hour massage. Advanced therapies (like Rolfing) are $130-160  per session.

So here is goes: my new rate for one hour treatment is $95 with cash/check/Zelle and $100 with credit. For my most popular appointment for 75 minutes is will be $115 cash/check/Zelle.

I did it!

I STILL offer 5-10% discount for series of 3 or 5. My treatment is still FULL  ONE-ON-ONE time with you. My treatment includes: massage, range of motion exercising, stretching, stretching guidance, essential oils, infrared heat, whole body analysis, balancing the nervous system, neural opening, lymphatic massage, myofascial release, deep tissue massage, trigger point therapy, whole body integration, structural and functional analysis to mention a few. All these and some more in each and every session! Without an extra charge.

I am so grateful to be doing this. And this is Kata's Way. It is Balanced, it is fun, it is evolving and extremely good for you. Welcome to the best possible treatment. Balanced is Painless. 

Here's link to full pricing list.

Welcome 2019!

Hello everyone!

I have updated my web pages (finally) to 2019 and here is some things I want you to notice:

My hours are Mon, Tue, Thu 9-4 and Wed 12-6. So, hooray, Mondays are back in schedule for a moment. I don't know for how long.

 I will be out of town April 15 - 18. I have a good reason to get away for a week, but I don't want to be reminded of it. Yes, I'll have A BIG BIG BIG b-day. But life goes on...

...because, I am beyond excited to go to Finland for the month of June! I'll be out of town June 2019. Can't wait. It's been two years, so it's time to go home and make sure that I don't forget my roots and my language.

I have started a huge learning path to become an excellent healer with Happy Body and Jessica Marks in Asheville. I will add some wonderful listening and calming abilities to my handwork in the future years. I need this so much and in so many levels: I'm finally excited to have found something that'll profoundly teach me something new, but staying in my own mind set. And I have found like minded, passionate and supportive group of other therapists to help me grow. The style is called Ortho-Bionomy and it really doesn't change the way I work, it changes the mindset I put to my work. My treatment will still be called Kata's Way, because that is my way, and it's completely Painless and Balanced. 

And remember, I can help you or your loved ones with variety of issues, here are some examples:

Neuropathy

Frozen Shoulder or any Shoulder problem

Plantar Fasciitis

Head and Neck Ache  

I hope to see you soon, my pricing will stay the same for 2019. Book your appointment now, I am always happy to see some new faces with some new challenges for me to figure out!

This is going to be a great, and busy, year. (So busy that my voice mail does not keep up. If I don't call you back, please try again, my voice mail has kept some messages from me.)

Some changes that happened 2018

Most of you know, that last summer I was forced to move out of my office pretty suddenly. Since I had no time to search for a new, reasonable priced space, it was an easy decision to move back to my home office located behind Blakeney Shopping Center. I am honored to keep working with all of you at my house and the space is all ready and comfortable! I still have my Chi-machine for your convenience and on 'cold' winter time I will be also offering an Infra Red Heating Pad as a part of your treatment.

My work hours are Tuesdays 9-4, Wednesdays and Thursdays 9-6. Yes, that means that I will NOT be working on Mondays any more. This wasn't an easy decision, but it was necessary. 2019 I will most probably bring some Mondays back to my schedule, but that's still depending.

I have also started new studies in Happy Body that is located in Asheville. I'm constantly working on making my life, and work, easier, so this is part of that. I will be posting more about Ortho-Bionomy, when I learn a bit more.

For some of you it has come as a surprise that I also teach my language, Finnish! That is actually my original profession and I am so pleased  to keep up with that too. At the moment I have 5 eager students who I meet weekly, so freeing Monday is giving me another weekly day off. Which I need.

I wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season! I will be working until 12/20/2018 and then again 1/2/2019. On Christmas time me and my family will be enjoying a staycation with books like How Brain Works, What is Neuropathy, Movements of the Skeleton and A Practical Manual to Ortho-Bionomy ... sounds fun!

Remember that it's still Kata's Way and that means that Life needs to be Balanced because only Balanced is Painless.

Self help and exercise

Part of this profession is to help my clients to help themselves. Taking care of him/herself should be everyone's priority and seeing a massage therapist (or any healthcare provider) just an addition among other things. Here's some of my tips to take care of yourself!

First of all, do something you really like to do! I know that the world is full of different programs, guidelines and 'this is what you should do to gain this or that' information about everything, but if you really don't like doing yoga, you should find something else to do that gives you the same benefits and enjoyment. There is plenty of options just among different styles of yoga, so go and try them all and then decide if you really enjoy one or the other. If you don't enjoy going outdoors, you won't get the benefits you are meant to get out of wandering in the forests. So do something you enjoy.

But we all need to find some type of exercise to do daily! Only active body stays active and movement benefits each and every system of your body. From my profession I can see many postural problems in today's world, so my suggestion is to also find enough movement to the upper body: yoga (partly), stretching, Pilates, boxing, dancing etc. I suggest you think about boxing for a moment: punching a bag not only takes out of some tension of your (mind) upper body, it also gives some desperately needed movement in all the plates of upper spine movement! That is what we all need.

All my clients are helped with their posture and I give a bunch of self help upper body stretching for every day use. Keeping an upright posture needs some effort in the world of iPads, computers and sell phones, so seeing me (or any other massage therapists) is not enough but everyday movement is essential. If you really want to gain some improvement in your posture, you also need to concentrate on your abdominal corset, and this is not at all what you think it is! The proper engagement of, let's say for example, transversus abdominis muscle is a delicate thing and most of us (yes, me too) have been doing it 'wrong' for years. You need guidance and long-term work to learn to isolate certain muscles and then use them in co-operation to 'hold' your core. I can help you with this too, but I rather guide you to see a true specialist who works with me on this. And yes, it took me 9 months to figure out what am I supposed to do when using the core strength in a proper way.

I think it's essential to do something for your body EVERY DAY! There's no need to run for miles if you don't like running, but go out and see the nature for 20 minutes. There's no need to do heavy weightlifting unless you enjoy doing weights, but move your whole body for 20 minutes every day. There's no need to go sweat in 90 minutes hot yoga if you don't enjoy that, but stretch yourself 20 minutes every day! And if all this is too much, rotate these exercises and do one of them every day. For me this is easy to do while listening books. I'm happy to pay my monthly Audible payment for a health reasons and with a good book it's easier to walk 30 or 60 minutes once in awhile.

But if you need some extra release for your body, Kata's Way is totally Painless and Balanced way of adding some extra care for yourself. I have Gift Cards for those loved ones who may need some extra pampering too... just call/text and ask.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season!

Change of my Location

Some of you already know that our lease in the current office will expire at the end of the June. It means that I need to find a new office close to Ballantyne as soon as possible. I have 3 choices to choose from: 1) Stay with Dr. Snipes (most probably at Carmel) 2) find a place of my own (everything is pretty expensive around here, but I have done some research and there might be something interesting) or 3) work at my house for awhile.

Well, like you all know, we have to think these big changes from several different perspectives one of them being a financial situation. It's simple to think that working at my house would save me the rent (my biggest monthly expense for sure), but we would also lose some privacy even if I would restrict my hours between 9 and 5. I also like going out of my house for work, so working at my home would cost me more money spent in coffee houses...

One really important part for me in this decision is who to work with. My goal still is to be surrounded by people whom I can learn from, and working by myself would keep me at the current level of skills (well, I do need to take some continuing education classes, but everyday learning in a contact with other professionals is a completely different thing). On the other hand, my treatment is so special and different, that maybe I should actually be teaching others. Another big decision for the future to make.

The third, and the most important thing in my life at the moment, is to work the way I really want and am able to handle. To help others in their healing process is pretty demanding job, and although I have already done changes in my schedule, I will need to monitor my own capability to work even more carefully. I do have aches and pains, and sometimes 3 day weekend is not enough to compensate my work load and recover physically. No, I'm not getting old, I'm just giving more thought to the important aspects of life and, I really love what I do, so I want to keep doing this for years to come!

After all this being said, I really hope to find a perfect office space for next fall! Meanwhile, I will work at Ballantyne Village until the end of May and enjoy a bit longer  summer mainly in Finland (from  June 13th until July 9th). I know that it's a long time (5 weeks altogether) to be away, and the rest of the July I might still have restricted hours. But I do have some new ideas for the fall to serve you better in facilitating your health. What is manageable depend also a bit about the size and location of the new office.

I am so excited about this vacation and new possibilities to explore next fall! I will be back with a burst of energy and new things, so stay tuned. Kata's Way will be stronger, because Kata will be more balanced and as you already know: Balanced is Painless and that is Kata's Way!

Let's talk about head and neck ache

Do you have a tension neck or migraine? I certainly hope that you don't but if you do, let me explain my way of helping you.

In case of a migraine, I will not quarantine any results, since the migraine can be caused by so many different factors that are beyond my knowledge (like hormonal imbalance), but if there's any muscle tension involved, I might be able to ease your situation a bit. So, what I will explain next, is more how to deal with a tension neck or tension head ache.

First of all: there is no easy or fast fix! For some people, massaging can actually make the headache worse and some cliets always get a headache after a neck massage. Is that normal? Yes. Is that necessary? NO. From my point of view, there should NEVER be headache after my treatment, because it means that we have done something to aggravate your body.

If you tend to get headaches after the treatment, the first thing to do, is to drink more water before and after the treatment. The second thing is: tell me about it, and we'll make a treatment plan so careful that you won't get your ache again!

How is that done? In Kata's Way I will treat you each session only as long as needed, and I will first make sure that your lymphatic drainage is working the best possible way (this is pretty much opening the chest and arms). After that I will work on your mid and low back, that is to make room for upper back muscles to relax. Think about a room full of people (upper back muscles) and you need to get in (without a headache). It will definitely happen easier, if some of the people get out of the room (opening mid back muscles) before you squeeze in! In my way, this is preferably done in a seated position, because that is the best way to release tension on rotatores and deep erector muscles.

Only after that, if we decide that it's comfortable for both me and my client, we will work on upper back and shoulder muscles. Most probably, in the first session, I hardly touch your neck or head more than opening a lymphatic drainage in a very gentle way. And that's simply because your body isn't ready for it yet!  No matter how much you want, you can not force your body to open or relax faster than it's able to do in a given moment!

So, it might take one 90 minutes session (in an ideal world) to get rid of a headache, but most probably it's going to take 5-10 sessions of 30-45 minutes. In this time we will have enough time to discover if the underlying cause for your headache is truly in your neck, in upper back muscles or maybe one of the nerves down to your hands are impinging so that we need to release muscles, tendons and other blockages in arms and forearms before the neck gets any release. Sometimes the neck ache can be caused by tendinitis in forearms or wrist issues.

My pricing is by a minute and I could be selling you a package deal of 5X45 minutes to begin with, but if we are only using 30 minutes, the remaining 15 minutes will be put to your bank. I am willing to deal with a fact that your body is unpredictable in it's current state of accepting therapeutic treatment! If you want some relaxation for the remaining 15 minutes, that's another thing, in which case we can maybe add a truly relaxing foot massage at the end of a session.

Kata's Way is best in practice when we are resolving some therapeutic goals, not in relaxation. To get the best possible outcome for your money, come open minded and communicate with me towards our goal in each and every session. If the goal for the session is relaxation, I'm happy to put you to sleep, but in therapeutic work I might need to keep you awake to get truly important feedback during our session!

I hope to see you soon in my office. This is Kata's Way which is Balanced, because only Balanced is Painless!

Staying on top of Things: NEW TREATMENT

The fall and everything in pumpkin spice is here! I do like the colors of the fall (orange is my favorite), but I don't like pumpkin spice at all, so what a pathetic beginning of the post...

After the loooong and hot summer I have been trying to put together all the things I have recently learnt and make some kind of the synthesis in my head. I still haven't finished the Principles of Osteopathy, the book I have been reading for a long time. That's because this book is not an easy read at all, and I really want to understand what is meant in each an every page. I will get through it eventually, when my brains are ready for it.

But at this point I am very satisfied to look my life a few months back and see how much I have learned! After the move to US and struggling to begin and develop my business in the new country, I am so pleased to be in the point of my career where I can say that I have learned some new treatment techniques. I am developing  a new way of assessing and treating the rib cage area as a synthesis of everything I have learned so far.

In my original training in Finland the treatment of the ribs is mostly done in a seated position, so that the therapist sits behind the client and glides his/her fingers from sacrum area up towards cranium. When erector spinae and rotatores of the spine are softened, the therapist gently glides his/her fingers laterally to open up intercostal and serratus anterior muscles. This part of the treatment is one of my all time favorite (as a therapist, but also when receiving treatment myself), but that's pretty much what was taught for me about ribs.

This spring I learned basics of Total Body Balancing in the Ambrosio Institute, where a lot more emphasis was put on the front side of the rib cage. It is so amazing, how delicate, passive movement of the arm can affect the tissues on the surface of the sternum and ribs! In the Ambrosio Institute I also truly understood the meaning of parasympathetic nervous system in massage. Now I have more concepts and words to explain, what needs to happen during my treatment  from the nerves point of view!

As a topping to all this, I had an honor to meet Dr. Bruce Rind from Washington D.C. and see the treatment pattern he uses to help his patients. His technique is a result of years of practicing medicine and osteopathic treatments and contains many elements, which I do not or can not perform, but he gave me much information and confidence to put all my skills together! I do know how to relieve muscular tension in thoracic and abdominal area and along the spine. I have a training and skills to use Total Body Balancing technique. I can learn to utilize more kinesiology (I don't have kinesiology training in U.S. yet, only in Finland). And everything I have learned is under the principles of osteopathy.

I am so excited to help you with any structural or functional issues in the rib cage! You will be in safe hands, because I do work at the Chiropractic Office, so if we run into any questions I can not answer, there's more expertise advice in hand. I have developed a pretty large assessing tool to test the structural/functional differences between left and right side and in my treatment plan this assessment will be done in every 5th treatment, so we can monitor the change. I am anxious to test how this really works, so please contact me, if you feel like (or know) that there's a structural imbalance in your ribs! I will never use force or adjustment, my technique is gentle, massage and movement based soft tissue relaxation technique. I look forward meeting you soon!

This is Kata's Way and it means that Balanced in Painless! 

You want to know a bit about me?

I think (well at least I hope) that you, who are reading this blog already know bit or pieces about me, but since I also hope that you refer my blog to your friends and colleagues, I want to tell a little bit about myself.

I am originally a Finnish Language Teacher from Finland and I never thought that I'd move anywhere farter away from my home than Tampere, where I lived over 20 years. And yes, I found my hubby at that city and my daughter was born there. She is our only child and currently a senior at Ardrey Kell High school, so we are soaked in a process of trying to find a great (and reasonable) college here.

So, what does a Finnish Teacher do in Charlotte, North Carolina? She is learning her way to resolve some physical issues that are causing a discomfort or even pain in our bodies. I started my way to this second profession because I had some back pain of my own, and I certainly did not like the way my doctor treated me. There had to be a better way to help than give a bunch off pills and tell that it's just a matter of growing old. I was in my early 30's at that time! I tried some massage (it helped me a ton!), some foot reflexology (so relaxing if it is done that way) and then I finally found a therapist who was called a Bonesetter.

He changed my life! He was a welder in his 60's and his office for this bodywork located in his garage. He glanced at me and said: "You little girl (33 yrs and a mother of one) have a major issues with your right knee. That need to be placed back in it's place, so that we can relax those muscles in your spine. Seems like you have issues at your right wrist also." All that in 2 minutes. I was blown away and thougt that he must possess some magical eye! And then he did his assessment and treated me 3 times.

I had seen my chiropractor 4-6 times a year 5 previous years to keep my body functional and able to work, and this man took all my pain and discomfort away in 3 sessions! There was absolutely NO PAIN or discomfort during the sessions, but my body felt a bit 'off' after each treatment for a day or two. I enjoyed every minute of his his sessions (no need to anticipate what's gonna pop next like with chiropractic adjustments) and: I was amazed!
So, I learned that this treatment is an 'ancient' and organic and kinda folklore's  way of massaging people and there has been quite a bit of these masters mainly in the Ostrobothnia area in Finland. I also learned that there's an association whose main purpose is to document this treatment as authentic as possible and educate newer masters to keep this historical treatment alive. There was not two words about it, I headed to learn this treatment myself and found my calling.

It took me 3 1/2 years to master enough skills to get a certificate and start helping my clients. I also certified as a licensed massage therapist and learned some reflexology, head massage and aromatherapy on my way, but there was never a question about what I truly want to do and which way to develop my skills. It is this Integrative, Structural, Functional, Medical, Therapeutic way of soft tissue treatment that I do the best. And yes, sometimes it is called as a bone setting, but I really don't like that name, since we don't set any bones in 21st century. We have a great amount of surgeons to do that; my work is to make sure that your bones have enough room surrounding them and by that I'm talking about muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and lymphatic system among other things. Those are the areas and systems I work with. And my work always includes touching.

Well, life is full of surprises and one of them was a chance (well, chance for someone, more like a challenge to others) to move to U.S. since my husband was relocated in his company. So here we are, and now a Finnish Teacher is re-educating some muscles and kinetic chains to move better, more effortless and painless ways. After 4 years in Charlotte I am definitely loving it and finding my ways to learn and treat my awesome, open-minded clients. I still don't know everything (ha ha, never will), but I am surrounded by these great therapists and co-workers I can learn with.

I had to accomplish massage therapy license here in NC (yes, I went back to school) and I have been working as a massage therapist practically 2 years now. I have done some CE (continuing education) classes and found myself a great office with the best possible chiropractor to work with. I am ready to do this!

But I am who I am, and I need to work my way. I wish that you will challenge my way, ask me questions and make me explain what I do and why I do it the way I do. I am here to learn and since I don't have many colleagues in U.S. (that's not completely true, there is one in Gainesville, Florida), I have to find this way as I go. Step by step. And every step is with a pure intention and an open mind. I have a great background education, but that is only the beginning in this career.

I hope You will enjoy this path with me: It's Kata's Way and Balanced is Painless.

P.S. I am struggling a bit between keeping this blog as authentic as my written English is or ask someone to proof read it. What do you think? Can you manage with my mistakes, this a blog, not my official web page, after all.

Where did these months/years go?

Isn't it weird that even if this year's February has 29 days, time just flews by!

But for me it has been that way for past 3,5 years. Time definitely flies faster in U.S. than in Europe...

At this moment I am definitely feeling that this week should just stop and wait a bit. My baby is turning 19 in a week and mommy just can't really comprehend it! Were we in Finland, she would be done with highschool and having a few weeks off to prepare the big finals! And with finals I mean that they are testing EVERYTHING you have learned during three years of highschool. And yes, the tests are standardized, but you really have to write an essey in every subject. If my daughter were there right now, she'd be preparing to show what she has learnt in Finnish (she'd be graded as A), English (A), Swedish (A), German (A), Mathematics (A or B), Psychology (A or B), History (A) and maybe one more. 

In this life, in U.S. her big multiple choices  testing is already done, and she has been accepted to 4 colleges. In Finland she would have to apply and then wait for entrance exams in June, and then wait some more to find out if she'd be accepted. So here the most stressful part is already over, in Finland it's just beginning! Aren't we glad to be here?

And here we will stay! Our permanent residency cards arrived a couple weeks ago and it's time to a reality check: I will be living and working here in States for my future. That means that I'll make some changes in my work, clarify all the legal issues and prepare for my next level of learning! All this means that this is my career now and to keep it going, I need to concentrare even more to these things:

1) Keep giving each and every client an excellent treatment experience each time they come to see me with a specific problem.

2) Take better care of me and find out new ways to help myself and my clients to help themselves also between the treatments.

3) Learn new techniques and refresh what I have already learned, so that my treatment will be ever so painless, effective and comfortable to every clients' needs. I am here to solve your issues in kinetic chains and ease up those non-optimal movement patterns we tend to create in many traumas or after the trauma; a simple sprain in one ankle can change the movement pattern in the whole body!

I am so much enjoying my life at the moment! That is why I just asked myself if I can have some more recovering time and vacation for me this year. And the answer was YES, so make sure that you keep your appointment slots covered. I'm taking my first week off March 24-31! 

I will be taking my CE classes learning Positional Release Therapy (PRT) in D'Ambrogio Institute in West Palm Beach FL in the beginning of May and I am super-excited to learn this technique to help you! That puts me off work May 3-11 since I'll also visit my friend in Florida.

I am also hoping that some of my family from Finland will be spending some time here in Charlotte this summer, and in that case I'll restrict my hours during summer. Maybe taking the first week of July off. And then I'll be in Minnesota teaching Finnish the first week of August and that is just an amazing opportunity to go back to my past life for a while. I am beyond excited to fly there and be teaching my language again (if you didn't know, I was a Finnish language instructor for 17 years).

As a self-employee my list of absences this spring and summer looks a little bit scary for me, but on the other hand, all this is preparing for the future, spending some family time and keeping myself challenged. I am convinced that taking some time off, I'll be taking care of me and that is the main thing in this profession! I want to be able to give my ultimate best for each and every session with You.

Next fall my daughter is starting her college career and this mommy has all the time in the world to put in her business. Until that, let's keep the flow going and enjoy this moment. This is Kata's Way and my way is balanced: family, learning and work. Everything right now is here in States (so let me dream about the summer 2017 in Finland).

Love your neck!

Some of you know that 'Text Neck' is fast becoming a huge issue in out health. Not just adults, but adolescent and even children, suffer neck pain and head ache due to excessive use of mobile devices. Everywhere you go, you'll see people looking downwards to their devices and soon the muscles of the neck become extremely tight and stretched or shortened.

More specific info you can read at this great article: 

Text Neck

Opening a spine with my thumbs

Sometimes we need an Advil or too to help with immediate pain, but I hope that you all understand, and explain to your children, that painkillers never correct any factors or issues behind the pain. Any kind of pain is  an important signal from your body that yells: something is wrong!

Client helping with 'wings up'.

Usually neck pain and headache will  just gradually get worse if we don't remove the tightness of muscles attaching to upper spine and neck area and correct the posture. That is what I do in my work: correct the posture with clients help.

If you have neck/head pain, my main goal is to bring back the flexibility of mid and upper spine, which allows your a better, natural, posture. And I am not talking just how you're supposed to constantly think of sitting/standing with your head up, but allowing those deep postural muscles to do their job. And for that they need nutriens, blood and mobilization, since the lack of blood had been immobilizing the deep muscles (think how the motor of your car needs oil, our joints and muscles need circulation the same way).

Client helping with 'wings down'.

With special technique that I have learned the mid and upper body treatment is being done in seated position! That allows the spine movements and gravity to help in the process. The prone (face down) positioned massage  won't allow me to use all the natural movements of the spine (flexion, extension, side flexion and rotation), so that's why I add seated part (15-45 minutes) to my type of spine massage. And I strongly suggest you to join to my excellent spine stretching workshops every Wednesday @11!

Relieving subscapularis muscle - I will not force
it, so there is NO PAIN.

So help your neck and relieve the balance of your muscles. Keeping our posture upright is hard work and I can not do it for you. But I can re-activate and soften the muscles, make sure that joints are moving in their best range of motion and help your nervous system function in its best. And all that I do, in painless, gentle and there is no manipulation of bones! (I can refer you to an excellent chiropractic care in case I suspect there is something out of alignment in vertabrael level.)

Welcome to an evaluation for $25 or just book the first treatment for $60 (70minutes!). It's Kata's Way that keeps you in balance. And Balanced is Painless!

January 2016

Hello all my friends!

First I want to thank you all for being my clients. I have enjoyed this interesting journey to become a better functional and structural therapist. Past year and a half has been enjoyable and empowering time for a newbie in this business in this country. If you don't know me yet (or long enough), I will just briefly mention, that I got my license in North Carolina in June 2014 and started to work at Ballantyne Chiropractic Wellness for two days a week at that point. I was also an employee in another chiropracters' office for a 8 months (1-2 days a week), but soon realized in which way, with who and where I truly want to work.

My journey in this field is to learn more about human body and it's functions. But I also want to use my original Finnish techniques and that is,  because so far I have found nothing better nor even close to this technique in this country. But I'll keep searching and widening my perspectives, because that's what this journey is about.

At this point of my journey I have also learnt something really important: I need to take care of me better. I love my job and have been giving almost all my energy to it (that's what you are supposed to do when you start a business, right) and enjoyed every single day! But I also have suffered some wrist issues and low back trouble, just like we all. I am lucky to have such a great group of therapist around me, so I am taking good care of, but it reminds me that (even) I am not getting any younger.

So in the beginning of 2016 I will not do resolutions, but I am promising to take better care of myself, find time for my exercise and make sure that I have enough time for relaxation. If all this goes well, it also means that I'll have more energy to search for interesting continuing education, time for my study groups and best of all: opportunities to explore and develop new products and my ways of helping you to feel better!

I am so very certain, that I know the best techniques in the world, but there is so much more we can do together. I am continuing my journey to better and optimal health and will be sharing what I learn to all of you. At this point it means reducing my working hours a bit: I will be available Wednesday and Thursday evenings, but can not take any clients Thursday morning or Friday afternoons. I will stick into my taichi class on Tuesday afternoon, so my last appointment time on Tuesdays will be at 3pm. That will still leave a plenty of options for your care.

Mondays 10-5.30, Tuesdays 8-4, Wednesdays 8-7.30 and Thursdays 1-7.30. Fridays by appointment only (8-2). This sounds complicated, but only thing I did, was blocked 2 hours for taichi, 1 hour for tennis and opportunities for gym and walk. These activities deserve to have a spot in my schedule!

As a reminder, I will continue my awesome Stretching Classes for Spine Health every Wednesday @11am. If you haven't tried it yet, please do so. YOU need to take care of YOU and I need to take care of ME. Let's do this together! If you have any new ideas, please let me know. I am always open to new things.

But my number one goal for 2016 remains the same: Let's balance your body and keep that pain away. I can help you both in structural issues and in functional imbalances. Balanced is Painless: that's Kata's Way!

In this picture I'm checking my clients ankle (joint between calcaneus and talus bones; tibialis and fibularis muscle groups).

Our Feet

Those of you who already know me, also know that I like feet. Not just my own, but also my clients. That´s simply because everything starts there. Feet are like a basement of a house and you sure want to have a firm, healthy and stable base to built your house on.

Here is some facts (http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/picture-of-the-feet):

The feet are flexible structures of bones, joints, muscles, and soft tissues that let us stand upright and perform activities like walking, running, and jumping. The feet are divided into three sections:

• The forefoot contains the five toes (phalanges) and the five longer bones (metatarsals).
• The midfoot is a pyramid-like collection of bones that form the arches of the feet. These include the three cuneiform bones, the cuboid bone, and the navicular bone.
• The hindfoot forms the heel and ankle. The talus bone supports the leg bones (tibia and fibula), forming the ankle. The calcaneus (heel bone) is the largest bone in the foot.

Muscles, tendons, and ligaments run along the surfaces of the feet, allowing the complex movements needed for motion and balance. The Achilles tendon connects the heel to the calf muscle and is essential for running, jumping, and standing on the toes.

 My job is to make sure that each and every one of those joints are movable, muscles and soft tissues are flexible and there is no ischemia. What does that mean?

In my treatment I will check all the joints between each parts of toes, toes and metatarsals, between metatarsals, between cuneiform and cuboid, between cuboid and navicular etc, you get the picture. Sometimes the muscles and tendons are so tight that the first session goes on more superficial (soft tissues) work, since a big part of the picture are muscles of the shins (peroneals, tibialisis, soleus and gastrocnemius) and only in the second session we can try to move those ligaments to open the joints.

Opening the joints is essential because we want all the nervous tissue be free of any kind of impingement and discomfort. Is it painful? Definitely no, if it's done in a right way. When I am opening your joints, it happens with time and you probably don't even feel it. If we have more stubborn foot, I might ask you to flex and extend your ankle, so that you are always in charge of the movement. That is if I have a slightest idea that my work would give you any pain.

Why you want your feet to be flexible? Because that is how they are meant to be to keep you going. If we wouldn't need the flexibility all those joints give us, we wouldn't have that many joints in our feet!

Most of you have also heard about Reflexology, that addresses all the pressure points at the souls of the feet to help in a huge variety of issues. And yes, I do some reflexology, but that is not my specialty or the field where I am in my most comfort zone. In my believe, you can't get all the benefits of reflexology if you feet lack blood, are swollen or immovable. If the signal from the brain (like keep your feet warm) can't reach the feet, how can the signal from the feet (reflexology) make it's way to a different parts of the body? At least the reflexology session is much more helpful to you if your feet are healthy.

Okay, I will not start to explain about how an imbalance in one ankle affect to the knees and hips etc. You can read about that in my other blog posts (About Posture, More about Soft Tissues) . But what I want to tell you, is that I am able to help you so many issues with your feet: plantar fasciitis, bunions(!), rheumatoid arthritis to a certain point, achilles tendon issues, edema, calluses(!), corns, heal spurs, fallen arches, mallet toes and claw toes (depending on situation) and sometimes even in Morton's neuroma. My treatment is helpful also in cold feet or even peripheral artery disease and peripheral neuropathy if it is supervised by a medical doctor.

Unfortunately I can not help you, if you have gout, fraction, any kind of infection or osteoarthritis or osteoporosis (unless your doctor is working with us). I also need to know and be prepared, if you have warts, athlete's foot or any other kind of fungal infection.

And if you don't have anything special going on with your feet, just come and relax. I know some relaxation techniques that make you sleep in my table.

Loving your feet is healthy!

What are those soft tissues I keep talking about?

  Ok, let’s take a second try. Blogger was so kind and throw away all my hard work yesterday. I am going to try to explain what I mean about all the soft tissues I keep talking about. Like you already know, I am a licensed massage therapist and as so, I feel blessed to work in a field I truly love and am passionate about. But I am also something more. Or should I say, that I am trained in a two different ways.

Originally my massage therapist's studies are from Finland, where it takes 10 months to complete your studies and get your license. We were taught pretty much the same techniques than here in NC, but our qualification system differs quite a bit. On the other hand the muscles and joints are the same where ever you are learning your basics, so I feel pretty confident about knowing my muscles. Well, at least I have learned them (and passed my exams) twice; once in Latin and second time in English. (And by the way all the 650+ muscles also have a name in Finnish).

But my true passion is that functional and structural bodywork in which I completed 3 year program while working with my clients. We were taught to see the big picture and in my education it was crucial to see the differences between the body's left and right side, rotation in your skeleton and leg length discrepancy (pretty often caused by rotation in hip bones). We were challenged to analyze different ways to stabilize the body and see how dysfunction in joint or a problem in a  range of motion will affect to another joint. I am also able to see and feel adhesion not only in a muscle, but also in a ligament and analyze its function to the whole kinetic chain.

Pictures are about ankles; here flexion.

That being said, I pretty often start by treating your ankle, even if you make your appointment to treat pain in your neck. That is because if your left ankle (‘s joints) isn’t functioning properly, that definitely affects to your (left) knee. And if you have trouble in your knee, your body will compensate it all its best ways to keep pain away and that brings you (most probably) some trouble in the opposite hip, which tries to ease up left knee’s job. And finally, if your hips’ muscular balance is off, your spine compensates the situation and you might end up having neck issues. Sounds easy enough, right? But no, it is not that easy or predictable every time, but that’s pretty much how it goes.

This is the way my special training in Finland taught me to see your body, and I am unable to see it any other ways. I can (and I am) use many different techniques and modalities, but my inner self always wants to figure out this chain of functional and structural alignments, and try to bring your left and right side as even as they can in their current situation be. So, I work with your tendons (they attach your muscles to the bones) and ligaments (they attach bone to bone where is no muscle) as much as with your muscles. My work is always gentle, so stretching the tendon is not painful, and we’ll do it together with a client’s own movement.

But our body is not only muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, but as I have recently learned, we have to pay so much more attention to our lymphatic system, since it is one of our cleaning processes and has everything to do with our immune system too. Lymph has its special ways and directions to run around our body, but unfortunately it doesn’t have its own designated pump (like the hearth is the pump for blood circulation). Our lymph needs movement to keep functioning properly and in many cases we (yes, I am looking at my own mirror right here and now) are sitting too much and not being active enough. The best lymph pump is to get up and walk/get up and down to your toes/run. So again, if you come to see me with that neck pain and I figure out that your lymph isn’t functioning as well as it should be, we’ll go back to your feet and start our pain relieving process from there. Just be prepared, that I could suggest you something completely different that you think you need, and so we’ll make you a customized treatment plan.

But it is always up to you. Or actually, let’s just ask your nervous system what it wants to have done. This is probably the biggest difference between Kata’s Way and deep tissue/trigger point massage (and I can do both): I don’t want to give you any pain! (And actually, no therapy, not trigger point therapy nor deep tissue massage should ever, ever, be painful.) In Kata’s Way we go as deep to your tissues than your tissues allow. So simple! If I try to press too hard, your nervous system gets activated in a nanosecond, and do you think that hyperactive nervous system will allow us to relieve any pain? Then, if you ask me to go deeper, I will tell your brains to be quiet, since I’m working with the body and not with your brains. And I say it with all my love.

And here's the extension (of one) of  the ankle joint.

Now, don’t get me wrong; my treatment will be effective and deep, sometimes even a bit uncomfortable, but if you really want some deep deep tissue work, maybe I am just wasting your time (and you are wasting money). But if you have some specific issues (tennis/golf/shoulder tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, sciatica etc.) or you just feel that something is off, please come to see me and we’ll figure out together, if my style and my skills can help you.

Your body is an amazing system and it knows how to heal itself. You just need to know how to listen. I am pretty good at listening your body, so please bring your body to me and let’s figure it out together. I am here to learn new ways to help you relieve your pain and bring your body to its balance.