I love reading about the history of massage. One of my most popular pages on my website is on the history of massage. The definitive author and expert on massage is of course the late Robert Calvert. His book The History of Massage: 
puts our profession into perspective. I also had the chance to talk with him a few times and take a few of his lectures at conventions on the history of massage. He graciously pointed out to me that the page on the history of massage that I have on my website (linked above) is very inaccurate. It is a timeline history of massage that I put together from reading various sources such as massage school textbooks and other books. Fact is that most of it is wrong!
Whenever I read that book or start thinking about the history of massage, I wonder how we have gotten so off track and so caught up in licensing and legislation and how touch has gotten to be something we pay for rather than get within our family and social circles.
One of my favorite stories of his was about Australia Aborigines who used to teach their sons massage so that they could massage their wife during labor! Why didn’t that catch on in other countries?
Now we need licenses to touch and training and more training.
Touch is how we first learn about ourselves as newborns and even in utero. When we are touched we feel. When we touch we are also touched. It is a two way sense. We learn more about who we are through touch – where you begin and end and where another begins and ends. It is the basis for attunement with mother as an infant which is a big part of your self esteem that you will carry with you though life.
Touch has been a part of religious rituals, healing rituals, midwifery, nursing, exercise and sensuality. It is the most fundamental way of showing and giving care to one another. Touch through history has a rich cultural aspect as well as the medical aspect.
My thoughts always seem to go towards the loss of cultural touch and how that may be influencing our current societies. Everyone is rushed, stressed, texting more than talking, working on computers more than talking with others and we are losing touch with touch!
I often wonder if the massage profession would not be so large if there was more touch in families/communities. I do think there is still a place for therapeutic massage for injuries and diseases and such but wonder if there would be less of those if children were taught massage at an early age.
How can we preserve and teach massage to women in communities and bring touch back to were it once was – in the hands of everyone.
We could use more programs like
How to start a massage group at your church.
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