a new chapter

More and more I hear people from people they have a family member or friend who wants to come and see me, but they can’t walk up the stairs.

I even get pulled up on the street people telling me the same thing.

Some of my loyal clients who I have been seeing for many years are finding it harder and harder, but they persevere because they know how good it makes them feel.

So here I am walking down the street and I see the building I have loved to be in for 10 years is empty again. I thought what the heck, I’m ringing to see what the rent is like, and I realise my dream can come through. So then it went real quick.

I HAVE MOVED

I am so exited, my partner and I put in many hours to get it to look like I visualised.

I’m even changing my logo I had for 12 years, it’s looking good.

Not 10 min after I put my flag outside I had old clients walk through the door that I hadn’t seen for 8 years because they couldn’t climb the stairs, booking in a treatment. WOW.

Walkers, wheel chairs, anyone who wants to, can come and see me now, and I’ll do my best to relieve them of their pain.

Pain is not the only thing that I will be treating from my new home away from home.

I've added some extra services to my list.

Eyelash extension - who doesn't want to look pretty        

Henna tattooing    - who doesn't want to look funky

Body plastering     - capture those special moments in life

I am exited to add these to my list of things that I offer, I love being creative and I can't wait to share this with others.

Unfortunately the corona virus is going around, so I’m taking extra precautions in hygiene and I expect my clients to do the same.

Together we can fight this virus and get things back to normal.

Want to come and check it out, I have a reopening on the 18 apr. From 3 – 5 pm your more then welcome to pop in.

Martine your Bowen – Emmett therapist

Auch that knot

All the time I get people in and they tell me they have a knot.
When all the fibres in the muscles are long and even it is healthy, but when they twist and cause a knot we feel pain. In the medical field they are called myofascial trigger points.

We loose range of motion and flexibility because the nutrients and circulation is not optimal in that particular area.
You are likely to change how you move, sit and stand just to avoid that pain but this is making the problem worse and you create a poor posture, creating more tightening in other muscles and developing more imbalances.

Stress is a big one it slows down blood circulation, I often get people in that tell me they are stressed and have neck ad shoulder issues, this is because they are tensing up that area and slowing down blood circulation.
Water intake is another one and then of course the biggest one is just living life.
We are movable objects and just like every other movable object we wear and tear that's why you get your car serviced, put new oil in so everything moves smoothly again.
Untreated muscle knots can cause chronic pain and lead to other health issues.

Bowen and Emmett work the same way, they allow the body to reset and balance itself, it allows the body to contain fluid. That's why it is important to drink enough water. When the body is hydrated the muscle fibres glide over each other freely and the is less or no friction.

Feel better with Bowen and Emmett.

Martine

Bowen and Anxiety

“Can you help me? I hear this question a lot.

There aren’t many things Bowen Therapy isn’t effective for so usually my answer is yes.

Most of the time people suffer physical problems, but sometimes it’s a mental issue.

Recently I started treating my most challenging client to date.

He was having some stress due something that had happened to him caused by someone else, and one morning he woke up and it was like there was a switch flipped in his brain, he suffered severe anxiety and started to get all sorts of autoimmune problems. He more or less turned gray overnight and then started loosing a lot hair creating bold spots.

Then to top it off he had a minor stroke earlier this year.

He also started to get pain everywhere, back, neck, legs he could barely move any more.

He looked like a little crippled old man and he is only a couple years older then me I really felt for him.

I started treating him and his wife was at his side, she couldn’t sit in the waiting room he had to have her by his side.

He was very relaxed during the treatment and decided he would continue with treatment protocol.

Long story short on his 2th visit he was much happier, looked more colourful and cracked a joke here and there.

On the 4^th treatment he walked in by himself so I asked where is your wife? She was at home, OMG what an improvement in such a short time, I was so happy for him.

He did confess he took a vallium, but hadn’t had one ever since starting the Bowen.

He has had 9 treatments now and every time he feels better, his hair is growing back WITH COLOUR and him and his wife feel like they are getting there life back.

I’m so happy to have been able to help him with my Bowen Therapy and hope with all my heart he will be 100% sometime.

Martine your Bowen Therapist

Now I’m in the clinic all day (oh well during school hours from 9 till 2.30) I’ve noticed I’m getting a lot more people walk in and enquire about what I do.

The sign at the front has a list of conditions that we successfully treat with Bowen Therapy and let’s face it there aren’t many people who don’t suffer some form of back pain.

Back problems are the most common problems of the people who come through my clinic, and I’m proud to say by the time these clients finish their series of treatments they are usually pain free.

There are lots of back problems some are more serious then others.

There can be bulging discs, degeneration of the vertebrae, muscular tightness, compression on the Siatic nerve, the list goes on and on.

Usually there are a combination of things that cause us to be sore or in pain very seldom do I see someone that has the hips in place, so on the first visit I more then likely perform the pelvis procedure and in the 9 years that I have been doing this that procedure only failed me probably a handful of times and when I see that person back the week after the pain is less and the pelvis has levelled up.

On the first visit I always do a full body treatment, because you might have pain somewhere, but everything else in the body is affected by this and it could well be that the back pain comes from tightness in the hamstrings as well as an unbalanced pelvis.

Have a look in the mirror and see if one shoulder is higher then the other, this can also cause problems in the lower back and of course problems in the shoulders and neck, it can then result in headaches.

So you see one problem somewhere can cause another problem somewhere else, so by treating the body as a whole I’m more likely to get you feeling the way you should be feeling.

I always say you get your car serviced so why not yourself you probably need it more then your car J.

Martine your Bowen Therapist

business exelence awards

A few weeks ago I got a letter in the mail saying that I was nominated in the business awards. Well what a surprise who would have thought, I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

I was very humbled and I don’t know who you are, but thanks.

Sometimes I get a letter, phone call, text message from people whom I treated thanking me because they are feeling so good. It always lifts me up, because after all that’s my goal to make people feel better.

Muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia contain specialized cells that communicate with the brain and spinal cord.

 In a relaxed position our muscles have a certain length and sometimes due to bad posture, accident or working conditions these muscles are being stretched, tendons, ligaments and joint lost their tone or tension and don’t know how to get back to their original position.

Through the Bowen therapy the muscles go back to balance and it normalises our tension levels.  It lessens or elimination the pain and allows an increase in movement around the joint and as a result the body function is back to normal.

The aim of Bowen is for the body to heal itself and correct the dysfunction so people don’t have to keep coming back for treatments.

Muscle memory is being reset by the body itself so unless you keep reinjuring yourself the body will stay in a happy balance.

Martine your Bowen Therapist

a body's response to Bowen Therapy

As a Bowen therapist I know how amazing the treatment can be.
I have experienced some great reactions during treatment on myself and also while I treated some of my own clients.
Recently one of my clients walked into my clinic for his appointment, or maybe I should say stumbled, because he was more or less crawling into the clinic from back pain.

Earlier that day he worked on his farm and had to pull a tarp, he felt pain in his hip, but kept on going with his duties. Later he twisted and the pain shot in his hip.
After that, that was it he was not able to move.
He never felt before the 20 k he had to travel into town was that long. (lol he was still able to joke).

Because he was in such bad shape I treated him with our motto " less is best", and booked him in again for the week after.

This time he walked in no worries, and told me the pain was much less.
On his visit the week before I noticed he had very tight hamstrings so I checked them this time again.
They still felt tight so I decided to do the hamstring procedure again.

When I walked back into his room after the 2 min brake during the moves, I noticed his calf muscle was spasming, I asked if that had been going on for a while and he told me it started when I walked out after the hamstring move.
I quickly grabbed my mobile to record it and after another few minutes it finally stopped.
I finished off his treatment and helped him of the table.
Back into the front office I asked him how he was feeling and to no surprise of me he was pain free.

I have not seem him back since, how wonderfull.
Every body loves Bowen.

Fascial lines

fascia is the thin see through layer between skin, bone, muscles, nerves, tendons etc etc, and it surrounds everything in our body even the smallest cells. (if you look at raw chicken breast you can see it easy its the slimy film that surrounds it).

Although it is unbroken, it does have specific lines.
All these Fascial lines have a function.
A lady called Kelly Clancy from Seattle came over to Brisbane to do a course called Bowen, Tensegrity and the Fascial Lines.
I attended the course and she taught us how we can test the Fascial lines to see which ones are tight and might be causing us to be in pain and how to treat accordingly.
It was one of the best courses I have been to I loved, loved, loved it.
Now I just have to practice it a lot to get good at it.
Practice makes perfect they say, and only the best is good enough for my clients.

When the fascia is dry it restricts our movement.
Just look at it this way, if a door creaks you put oil on it and it stops creaking until the oil dries up again.
Bowen helps the body hydrate so therefore it results in less restriction, which means less or no pain.

There are 7 Fascial lines.

#1 The Front Functional Line

We use it in general movement and it gives strength to op-positional limbs by linking them together. It also counter balances us while walking. Problems with the Front Functional line can cause shoulder Pain, thoracic (chest) pain, lower back pain, hip pain, and respiratory issues.













#2 The Back Functional Line

This is practically the same as the front functional line, but then on the back, it's also used while we move and links the opposite limbs together and helps us keep our balance while moving.
Both functional lines are the most superficial
lines which means they are the lines closed to the skin, the others lay underneath these.

Most of the basic bowen moves are done over the Back Functional Line, when there is a problem within the fascia in this line it can cause respiratory problems, shoulder problems, chest problems, lower back problems, hip and leg problems.
As you can see the problems in both lines are the same.
This is because both lines work together and if the one has a problem the other is affected by it as well.





#3 Superficial Back line
It goes from the bottom of the toes (plantar surface) all the way up to the eyebrow line on our forehead.
As you can tell by it's name it connects the whole back of our body.
It creates extension and resists flexion
It's job is to keep us up right.
Problems within this fascia line can cause neck, chest, lower back pain, problems in the hamstrings, calf and ankles and pain in the foot.

Whilst doing some forward stretching tests we found problems in the
neck, although after some further testing of the hamstrings we found
those problems weren't located in the neck, but caused by the hamstrings.
After treating the hamstrings the range of motion and problem in the
neck got much better.




#4 Superficial Front line

It connect the whole front of our body from the top of our feet to either side of the skull.

It balances the Superficial Back Line, again these two lines work together.

The overall movement function of this line is bending forward from trunk and hips (flexion), bend our knees (extension) and bring our foot up (dorsiflexion). It also allows a complex set of movements at the level of the neck.

Problems within this line are the same as in the Superficial Back Line.

To be continued.
I'm not finished writing this blog so please keep an eye out for the rest if your interested.
You can also click on this link and like my Facebook page The-Dutch-Touch-Bowen-Therapy
so you can easily see when it is updated.

photos from Thomas Myers, Anatomy trains, 2th edition
information taken out of the course and Thomas Myers, Anatomy trains, 2th edition