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.

Happy Summer!

I am back to Charlotte and back to work. My vacation in Finland was amazing! The weather was perfect, lower 70's with sunshine and I needed my (friend's) umbrella only once. The first week I was wearing my (sister's) wollen socks, but after that: pure joy. Well, and a zillion mosquitos in some places..

I have eaten all the Finnish food I have been craving, most of all fresh strawberries, Karjalanpiirakka (Carelian pastries) and Finnish hot dogs with Finnish mustard. The mustard is important, I don't really like hot dogs, but I do love the smell of burning them on fire. Did I mention mustard? And Beet Salad! Homemade goat cheese! Freshly harvested 'new' potatoes with pickled herring! Fresh pike perch from the lake!

I met so many friends from the different phases of my life and sat in the Saunas. All different kind of Saunas: smoke saunas, wood heated saunas and electrical saunas. Once on a floating sauna with hot tub where jumping to the lake was refreshing! Sometimes alone on my own pace, but most of the time with a bunch of friends, giggles, wine or cider and laughter.

I picked flowers from the ditches and meadows. I enjoyed sunsets and a full moon with a sun. Midsummer up North is always spectacular! The northern nature in June is something to look forward to: green, greener and greenest. I will be posting pictures in my facebook page and Instagram, so make sure you follow me!

I am just happy:

On summer time I usually work 3-4 days a week but will take a couple long weekends to spend some time with my family. I am happy be back home in North Carolina and especially happy to sleep in my own bed.

Text or call to get to my books and remember that this is Kata's Own Way and it's Balanced as well as Painless. 

Why I don't call myself a massage therapist?

Happy and peaceful 2017 to all my clients, friends and colleagues!

It is a snowy (about one fifth of an inch in my back yard) and cold (as least relatively) day in Charlotte and I am sitting on my couch by the fire to keep my toes warm. I have managed to do my bookkeeping for 2016 and some planning for 2017, and now I am trying to think something new to tell you. Like, it's new beginning, new year and everything is fresh and time to turn the next page.

But I don' think so. I am really excited to start a new year and all, but there will be no significant changes is my business this year. I have set my pricing, I have a very comfortable office (and by the way, we might stay at this office after all, so no panicing about that either) and my name is now out there. I have a wonderful, full calendar year working for Kata's Way, LLC behind me, so I have some material to make more detailed planning and keep going forward. So, it's time to look back before rushing forward.

Looking back brought me to one specific question, kind of in the beginning of my (second) career: what am I supposed to call myself when massage therapist really doesn't cover what I do?

I AM a massage therapist, but I am also specialized and majority of my skills (although it's hard to know anymore how much I have learned while living and learning here in US) are from a different learning paradigm and can not be compared in North Carolina's system. I can not just tell people that I am functional massage therapist because I have not done a specific studies about functional massage in NC. Or can I?

How important is it to have a specific title? The titles are for everybody to recognize my style, but that's the question: my style is not recognizable here in NC. So I will keep up doing my work to make it a bit more recognizable! I am specialized massage therapist and structural bodyworker. I also do some functional bodywork, but I don't know anything about functional medicine (well, I am a patient in functional medicine, so I do know something, but I have no professional knowledge in this matter). I have a holistic view to a human body specially in it's motion and mobility: how left side's restriction affects to right side's function and vice versa.

I think that this year is time to keep talking more about Kata's Way and less about specific terms which really do not give us enough information. But if you have a fresh new term in mind, that describes what I do (you really need to be my client to do that), please, share it! Until that, I am going to keep Balancing my Clients because Balanced is Painless and that, my friends, is Kata's Way!

Keep following me, this is going to be the best year so far. I will have visitors from home and I will travel home (after 2 years) in June. I will be telling a bit about my new exercise program and developing even more individual stretching/exercising program for my clients and much more. I have also returned to my roots and I am teaching some Finnish again, Isn't that great or what? I really wish to see you soon!

Happy October!

October is a month of enjoying life. Enjoy the weather here in NC, enjoy the routines that has set back after the hectic summer, and enjoy the quiet time before holiday season. That's what I have been doing! The morning walks at the greenway are the best thong to do especially in October.

I also took a trip to Washington DC since we had to renew our passports, and I fell in love with the capital city. I can't wait to go back and visit some more museums and learn more about this nation! The first trip was just wandering around and taking a tons of pictures to show my friends back home that this really exists; the capitol is not made just for movies and television series... maybe you don't know the feeling of  'living in the movie' that is pretty familiar to us who have moved here from another country. At least for us who have grown up following the American television shows and movies.  'Living as in a television' was a constant feeling the first year and half in US, but it's getting rarer all the time. At this point (4,5 years in US) I probably need to pinch myself when I'll be back home in Finland next summer!

My work is still my passion and you can check my availability on the right column of this blog, or just call/text me. I am working some Fridays, so please feel free to ask those too. Unfortunately I am not available on weekends, I truly need at least 2 days off in a row every week.

Some of you have heard that Ballantyne Chiropractic Wellness might be moving out of the Ballantyne Village, which is true. We don't know the schedule yet, nor do I know if I'm following Dr. Snipes, but I will have an office and availability to serve my clients all the time whatever happens! In case of transition period, I will be seeing my clients at my house in Blakeney area. So, exiting new things are right on the corner.

I think this is a perfect time of the year but 'cold' season is on it's way, so I want to wish you an amazing fall, and please, stay warm when you prepare yourselves for the holiday season. I'm planning some specials towards end of the year, but at this point there's no more workshops to be planned at Ballantyne location. Don't wait until last minute to feel your body aching, call/text me now to make your appointment to a very special care.

It's Kata's Way and it means: balanced is painless! Come and let's check your balance, you deserve the best care in town.

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! 

New Pricing 9/1/2016

My new pricing includes 30 and 90mins sessions to serve you better. If you wish to have the whole body treatment that would be 75min appointment for $95! 

You may buy your sessions with the old pricing if you book your next appointment in August. 

New Client Special $75 / 60-75 minutes

30 mins treatment

$40 

3 x $115 (38.3/session)

5 x $175 (35/session)

45 mins treatment

$60 

3 x $165  (55/session)

5 x $250 (50/session)

1 hour treatments

$80

3 x $225 (75/session) 

5 x $350 (70/session)

75 min treatments

$95

3 x $270 (90/session)

5 x $425 (85/session)

90 min treatment

$110

3 x $315 (105/session)

5 x $500 (100/session) 

This is Kata's Way and Balanced is Painless. Take care of yourself!