Massage

By Anastasia Toufexis

Susan Gilbert Bryan was 25 and a struggling public relations assistant when, as sort of a lark, she tried one for the first time. She quickly found she had to have it every month. A decade later Bryan, now the owner of an advertising agency in Coral Gables, Fla., finds she requires it twice a week -- and insists on having it at home. Husband Jim has also been snared, as well as their two-year-old daughter Vanessa, who coos when she gets it. Admits Bryan without a blush: "I can go without exercise sometimes, but I can't live without my massages."

Massage? Isn't that just a high-priced kneading for doughy dowagers or, heh, heh, something offered to men by scantily clad masseuses as a prelude to sex? Not anymore. In the past few years, massage has been moving out of both kinds of parlors and into the mainstream. No longer an embarrassing reminder of those touchy-feely human potential movements of the '70s, massage is fast emerging as Americans' favorite antidote to that current cultural Grinch: stress. Nothing kinky, just a way to get out the kinks. "It's the ideal therapy for the '80s," declares Robert King, president of the Chicago-based American Massage Therapy Association. "Instead of having an extra martini or gulping Valium, people ought to consider a professional massage."

It is an increasingly popular prescription, one that is eagerly being filled by the nation's 50,000 massage therapists (masseur and masseuse are outre). And they deliver. If health club appointments and at-home visits are inconvenient, don't worry. Therapists will come to the office. No time or inclination for a full-hour full-undress manipulation? Then how about a minimassage? It is brief (ten to 15 minutes), thoroughly proper (clothes stay on) and cheap (a tune-up costs $10 to $15, while a complete overhaul can run $80).

Frazzled urban professionals love them. Once a week Joe Meissner, 39, who runs an executive placement service in San Francisco, reroutes his calls, takes off his vest, loosens his tie and turns himself over to Corporate Stressbusters. They bring the equipment: a stool, a 3-in.-thick black cushion and a pair of hands. "Stress goes right into my shoulders," sighs Meissner. "They knead it all out of me." Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles boast similar services. In New York City, Attorney Peter Kupersmith calls the quarter-hour sessions devoted to his neck and shoulders "miraculous and a crucial part of my weekly regimen." Muscle tension under the blue collar is getting attention too. Therapist Pat Malone counts among his clients factory workers outside Chicago, who, in addition to coffee breaks, sometimes schedule a tactile time-out.

Some organizations have even begun to offer massage as a paid employee perk-up. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, addled workers can get on-site soothing. At Merrill Lynch's Manhattan headquarters, a therapist is on staff. Steve Herfield, president of Manhattan Temporaries, pays for up to two minimassages a week for each of his twelve employees. "Some were skeptical at first," he recalls. "Now they'd like it every day. It's a real break and a real lift." Not always, however. Some therapists report that staffers occasionally are left so relaxed that they nod off at their desks.

Practitioners are successfully digging in at malls. Bob Watt opened Massage Works just six months ago in a plaza in Plantation, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale. Nestled between a VCR repair store and a restaurant, the shop is so busy Watt has had to hire three more therapists. Airports are another new arena. At the Phoenix and Dallas-Fort Worth terminals, tense travelers can drop into the Air Vita health club and get a relaxing massage. One satisfied customer, Dr. Steven Jacobson of Madison, Wis., says massage could figure in his future flight plans: "It might be a reason to have a six-hour layover instead of an hour one."

Such enthusiasm gratifies therapists, who five years ago were mumbling the answer when asked what they did for a living. Attitudes began shifting with the fitness boom and with growing recognition of the importance of massage in high-caliber sports. Professional athletes, as well as dancers, have long sworn by its revitalizing effects. Shortly after New York Giant Running Back Joe Morris began getting regular massages this season to relieve hyperventilation, he started to cut loose on his way to a record year. By stimulating blood circulation and oxygen flow through the muscles, therapists explain, massage helps lower blood pressure, speed up healing of injured tissue and aid in keeping muscles supple. But, they caution, it is not a panacea, and it is not recommended for those with circulatory ailments. One thing massage will not do, myths to the contrary, is rub away excess weight.

Different folks can choose different strokes or a combination. Swedish massage, the most familiar technique, uses oils to reduce friction and employs long full strokes, along with kneading and pounding motions. In newly popular Japanese Shiatsu and Chinese acupressure, fingers are pressed along defined paths on the body in order to release chi, or trapped energy. Other techniques include deep-tissue or structural massage, and reflexology, which focuses on the foot and hand.

With the stigma lifting and demand growing, massage therapy has become an entrepreneur's dream. Schools are proliferating; there are now about 300. Many therapists are concerned, however, about the lack of uniform training standards: the American Massage Therapy Association has approved only 51 schools. Moreover, the field is poorly regulated by outside authorities. Just 13 states have licensing requirements, and their criteria vary widely. Florida, for example, requires therapists to complete 500 hours of training, while Ohio calls for half that.

Better credentials would certainly add tighter tone. Still, there is no doubt that massage has shed its shady image, even deep in the Bible Belt South. Five years ago, when Therapist Michele Marie Balliet arrived in Murfreesboro, Tenn., "they pictured the places beside I-40 that say MASSAGE," she recalls. Today, though, it seems as if the whole town is beating a path to her table. Not just the doctors, lawyers and bankers, but the factory workers, farmers and handicrafters. Balliet takes cash for her services but occasionally accepts other down-home forms of payment: six dozen eggs, handwoven baskets, clothing. "Massage," she says, "has become a necessary part of their lives."

With reporting by Mike Cannell/New York and B. Russell Leavitt/Atlanta