When I started massage school in Los Angeles just over 16 years ago, I had just completed 2 years of intense learning in a very religious Yeshiva Jewish Seminary in Jerusalem. It was men only and to be totally honest very sexually repressive. I had been trained to be overly sensitive to anything having to do with the opposite sex, especially physical touch.
So, you can imagine what it must have been like for me when I first started massage school. I will never forget the first time I did the full body massage protocol that we had learned. She had been in the class longer than I, so I would ask her for pointers as we worked. As I started working on her pecs chest muscles , I asked her if what I was doing was ok.
She then proceeded to pull down the sheet a bit, pull out one of her breasts and demonstrate how I should be doing the massage. I did not work on her breasts, she just felt the need to expose herself as she corrected my technique. I crack up at that story every time I think about itβ¦..
Over time, I learned to relax, found my center, and learned how to be very comfortable with all kinds of bodies in many different types of dress or undress. I have learned different modalities of bodywork through the years and each one has a preference as to how a person is dressed or undressed during a treatment. In most forms of massage, people usually undress and are treated directly on the skin. Within that framework, people have different levels of comfort as to how much they will take off.
In massage school and most of the treatments I performed before moving to Jerusalem, people almost always were completely naked removing all undergarments. However, many of the people who come in choose to keep their clothes on and that is totally ok, and I can treat those people just as well.
