School Stretches Students
Jeff Tiebout, founder and co-director of the Blue Ridge School of Massage and Yoga, in Blacksburg, Virginia, has always found yoga and massage to be a natural match. "There was never a separation between the two in my head, the two were intertwined always," he says. Tiebout founded the Blue Ridge School in 1997. For the past three years the school has integrated the ancient movement art of yoga into its massage-therapy curriculum.

Before any anatomy books are opened or strokes demonstrated, students push the lightweight massage tables to the edge of the room. They're making space for a half-hour of asanas, or physical yoga movements; and postures, and pranayama, or conscious breathing.

For Tiebout, yoga is the best way to start class on the right foot. "Everyone is doing the same thing, focusing on that so that they make the transition from focusing on the drive, from focusing on all the stuff that's happening in life," he says. "When you start the lesson of the day, everyone is at least, more or less, on the same page."

But yoga's benefits don't stop after the last pose has been released; they extend to academics. Greg Bryson, a Blue Ridge student, believes yoga relieves test anxiety for many students. "Instead of doing the test first, we might do an hour of yoga. By the time that's over, they're much calmer." Fellow student Chelsea Jackson says yoga helps her stay focused throughout the three-hour classes. "Instantly after yoga I'm kind of relaxed, but it gets me in a state to learn because I'm more concentrated on what I'm doing." Tiebout adds that after a full day of teaching, "[Yoga] helps me as much as it helps them, maybe more."

Although the mental strain of massage school can be draining, the physical rigors are considerable as well. During the hours of standing, pushing and rubbing, yoga keeps the body limber, strong and relaxed.

"If you don't have good body mechanics, you may end up injuring yourself over time," Bryson says. Student Drew Williams agrees, adding that yoga teaches good posture and kinesthetic sense. "I think the big thing that I got from the yoga was an awareness of where my muscles are in my body, what's going on when you're moving different directions."

School co-director and instructor Victoria Stone is very protective of her students' bodies, especially their hard-working hands, arms and shoulders. "I use the repetitive-strain-injury-prevention exercises to warm up for the yoga, and the yoga to warm up for the massage," she says.

But yoga carries its own physical risks for massage therapists, especially in poses where weight is supported by the hands, wrists and shoulders. "Things that involve hyper-extension of the wrist have to be done carefully," Stone warns. "You can change your hand position in a yoga posture; you don't have to go with the classic posture."
When yoga is done safely and combined with other methods of self-care, Tiebout says, the long-term results can be remarkable. He credits his own career's longevity to regular yoga practice. "For the better part of 20 years I was seeing 20-25 people a week at an hour-and-a-half to two-hour sessions," he says. "There's no question in my mind that my practice of yoga assisted in maintaining me physically, mentally and emotionally."

Yoga benefits the person on the table as well as the person behind it. According to Stone, one of yoga's most direct contributions to giving a superior massage is controlled breathing. "Learning to breath openly and freely in a measured way helps [massage therapists] to bring that calm and that flow into their work. And you can't give to a client something you don't have yourself."

That's why the self-knowledge yoga fosters is so important, says Tiebout. "To be as connected to your own physical being as you can be facilitates your own bodywork on other people."

When it comes to bodies, yoga is another tool to teach concrete anatomical principles. Williams says, "In a certain pose, [we learn] what muscles are being lengthened and which are shortened, and that carries on to massage."

Tiebout adds that the most difficult yoga poses teach students to "play the edge" of bodily manipulation. "The idea is to push that envelope with compassion and understanding, and that's exactly how you do bodywork."

As for fitting yoga and other Asian movement arts, such as chi kung and tai chi, into the Blue Ridge School's business model, Stone says it's too important to exclude. "I believe that we would do it even if it had a negative monetary effect." Any negative impact seems unlikely; in April, the school recently celebrated the grand opening of its new facility, with double the floor space of the original location. They needed the space for the school's popular yoga classes, which have led to a new yoga-teacher certification program slated for October.

Tiebout says there are three fundamental ways to make yoga work with massage-therapy training: Make it relevant, make it useful, and make it accessible.
- Paul Ruggiero