07/24/2026
Yesterday, I had the most interesting client. You know those clients that fully reinforce your decision to do massage? This was one of those clients.
The right side of his body is unstable. Sometimes, his right leg just gives out. Sometimes, his right hand has no grip strength. He has trouble breathing and swallowing, feels like he is choking all the time. Sometimes, he just can’t speak.
He looks incredibly uncomfortable in his own skin. The cartilage in the front of his neck is visibly stuck to the right. His mandible is visibly shifted to the right. His face is visibly shifted left. As we talk, I notice his eyes can not easily shift to the right. I ask about it. He attempts to move them right and says, no, it is almost impossible. He talks to me as if I am just one in a string of many he has seen, and I will likely fail because no one can help him.
He has seen many doctors, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and massage therapists. All with a specialty that might help him. The doctors say nothing is wrong with him. 95% of the other treatments do not help, some make it worse. One chiropractor, who specialized in AO correction, said his C1 was intensely misaligned. He corrected it. This client felt better than he had in years, but it did not last. The chiro said he was hypermobile and his C1 was not going to stay in place.
He is on my table after I gather all of this information, and I agree he is somewhat hypermobile. But, the real issue is that the chiropractor adjusted his AO joints, corrected his C1, but did not work his head or the rest of his neck. All of his cranial bones are shifted. His nervous system is hypersensitive. I must be incredibly precise. At one point, I shift his frontal bone into its pattern. His wife is talking to me. I am slightly distracted. He begins to have whole body twitches. I stop, I apologize. I check the parietal bones, which move the opposite way of the frontal bone. I have to do both together. When I do this, he relaxes.
He and his wife have driven for around 20 hours to come see me. His wife has taken him to a lot of people. He is exhausted by it, but more exhausted by his issues. So he goes. When the session is over, he is excited he can breathe and he can swallow freely. He is smiling. He says his entire face and head feel completely different.
I tell him I understand his depression in the face of so many who cannot help him. I tell him to please remember the training, focus, and limitations of each of those professions. I say that taking what they tell him onboard will only make him stressed out and pi**ed off and that there are very few professionals who will be able listen to his body well enough to know what is happening. He smiles and says, “except you. You listened the whole time.”
This is what SMRT teaches us, to listen to the individual client. We have people searching for SMRT therapists across the country. There are entire states where we do not have practitioners. There are states that I have taught in for years and most are not doing SMRT. If you want to listen to the body better, be more specific, understand the anatomy, please learn SMRT. If only so that this client does not have to drive 20 hours one way to get relief.
https://efullcircle.com/workshop-schedule/
