INTRODUCING THE TRIGGER POINT PRESS
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INTRODUCING
THE TRIGGER POINT PRESS
Your Massage School and Community Newsletter
published by the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy
FROM THE EDITOR
KNOW ME BY MY NAME
There were so many excellent, clever and entertaining names submitted to the Name
the Newsletter contest, I wish I could give it a bunch of names. Alas, we can have
only one name. And that name is…
The Trigger Point Press
Ta-da. Congratulations go to Angela Corsello, class of 2019, for providing us with
our new name.
For her effort, Angela will receive a $20 gift certificate to our school store.
I thank the rest of you who submitted a name and appreciate all your entries.
Kenn
FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK I hope that you are enjoying the transition to Spring! It is thrilling to see new life being breathed into the world around us. The birds are back and the flowers and trees are starting to bloom. There are new things happening at the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy as well. We are remodeling the retail space to present a more welcoming entrance to the School. We just started the Spring 2021 class with 18 students. We are looking at resuming Continuing Education this summer, as well as reopening the Clinic to the public. It is exciting to see the return to full operations after an incredibly challenging year. And I am looking forward to celebrating the rebirth of Spring with all of you! David Briggs, President UPCOMING EVENT GARDEN DAY Alumni and former instructor Tom Downing is organizing a garden cleanup workday on Saturday, April 17. If it is raining that day, clean up will be Sunday, April 25. If you are interested in making our school environment even lovelier and want to volunteer, please email Timothy to sign up: timothy.kocher-hillmer@pghschmass.com
IN MEMORIAM
Alexandra Novack passed away on March 26, 2021 at the age of 29. Alexandra
graduated our school in 2018.
Jody Newlon passed away on December 28, 2020 at the age of 50.
Jody graduated our school in 2001.
The staff and faculty of the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy extend our
sympathies to the family and friends of both Alexandra and Jody.
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You may have questions about your schedule, about your payments, about school
protocol, or a million other things. These people can answer 99% of your questions.
CONTACTS
Dave Briggs, president
director@pghschmass.com
Stacey Briggs, accounting
accounting@massageschoolpittsburgh.com
Mara Adams, records
records@pghschmass.com
Timothy Kocher-Hillmer, Support Coordinator
timothy.kocher-hillmer@pghschmass.com
Kenn Howard, The Trigger Point Press editor
Kenn@PanaceaInstitute.com
Telephone calls are likely to get answered by the staff on Mondays through Thursdays
from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.
The store is open on Mondays and Wednesdays from noon until 5 p.m. To be safe,
call first to verify.
We will announce changes as they are made.About our Student Referral Credit? You can do good in two ways, with just one act. Refer * If you refer someone to our school as a prospective student, and that person enrolls and successfully completes one full time term, you will be eligible to receive a $50 credit toward a purchase in the Retail Store or at our Professional Massage Clinic. How are you doing good in two ways? * First, you reap the benefits of 50 bucks of merchandise or massage, and second, you are encouraging someone to look closely at a career that many of us have chosen and found to be the best choice we’ve ever made. Please contact Cheryl in Admissions for further details at 412-241-5155 or admissions@pghschmass.com
OUR FEATURED AUTHOR Jenny Briggs originally planned to teach English Literature to high school students. Instead, between her junior and senior years at Swarthmore College she attended The Minneapolis School of Massage and Bodywork in 1998. She loved it. She finished getting certified to teach English Literature, moved to Pittsburgh and promptly went back to massage school at the Career Training Academy. She worked at spas, salons and chiropractor’s offices before starting her own business in 2001. After five years of massage therapy Jenny developed an intense pain in her hands and wrists and thought she might have to give up her career. She attended a Continuing Education workshop in the Alexander Technique taught by alumna Priscilla Brown. It changed her life and saved her career. She trained for three years at the Philadelphia School for the Alexander Technique and began teaching at the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy soon after. She has continued her Alexander Technique training in Pittsburgh and in England. During this time, Jenny became a mother of two daughters, Sarah and Amy. Sarah has developmental delays and challenges so Jenny ran a Son-Rise Program for her for several years, calling it Sarah-Rise. She spent countless hours of focused one-on-one play with Sarah, helping her learn to talk, make eye contact, play games, become potty trained, eat healthily, read, write and generally thrive. Jenny currently teaches Alexander Technique, Myofascial Touch and is chair of the Neuromuscular Therapy department at the school. Here is Jenny’s contribution to this issue of our newsletter
Headaches and Hope My headaches began in the spring of 1996. It took years to get a diagnosis and my husband figured it out before my doctor did. Cluster headaches. Cluster headaches get their name from the cluster of time in which they occur. They tend to happen at night, waking a person with pain that feels like a knife is going through the skull. The pain is so severe that it is hard to be still and slamming your head into a porcelain sink looks like an appealing remedy. Consequently they are called the suicide headache. Each headache can last anywhere from 15 minutes to a few hours. They tend to stop as mysteriously as they began. Some people transition from being an episodic cluster sufferer to a chronic sufferer. Cluster headaches are rare compared to other headaches and they are even more rare for women. Well, you always knew I was unique. My headaches are now chronic, meaning at least one per night, if not managed by medication. In the beginning it was tolerable to just deal with six weeks of awfulness every year or two. I took no medications because I had not gotten a diagnosis and without a diagnosis, no one knew what to do with me. Finally a headache specialist came up with a diagnosis, prescribing medication which helped me skip a cluster. Having had good success with other issues by practicing the Alexander Technique, I was hopeful. It wasn’t the ultimate solution but it does mitigate the pain. I tried acupuncture also with limited success. Neuromuscular Therapy and Myofascial Release both helped me be more comfortable. However, this being the time of COVID-19, I have been unable to get enough bodywork! When I received my first nerve block to calm my occipital nerve, my doctor said my head muscles were the tightest she had ever injected. What an honor! I expect part of that is because I was actively tensing them in panic. But hearing that was an embarrassing wake-up call for someone in my line of work. I immediately contacted a massage therapist who specialized in Myofascial Release and NMT. I was so impressed with his work that I decided to audit the NMT classes at the school so that I could become a better massage therapist and possibly begin to teach. In fact, I was
soon assigned to teach a hands-on NMT class. While my headaches have been terrible I cannot help but feel grateful that they brought me to where I am now. Just after Thanksgiving 2020, my headaches broke through my medication barrier. I was dealing with horrendous headaches that didn’t respond to the cycle breakers I had been using. In desperation I received another round of nerve block injections to the back of my head. That mostly worked, but I still get traces of headaches. Recently I discovered The Presence Process by Michael Brown. Dr Brown found a way to heal his own cluster headaches. He also provides a blueprint for becoming more present and aware of oneself. I’m ten weeks into the process and it is helping a great deal with reducing my symptoms. I’m still on my regular medications, but what gives me hope this time is that I’m noticing the thoughts and patterns that lead to low-level headaches and I’m able to stop what I’m doing or thinking. I’m breathing more normally and I notice when I’m holding my breath. Yoga also helps with being more present and with breathing more fully. I’m able to get headache whispers to go away. I have had many times where I thought I had found the answer. I’m so grateful for the various forms of bodywork that help me function, heal and learn about my patterns of tension. I know any answer isn’t going to be a one-time-fix-all solution but rather it is about making changes to my habits and choices, repeatedly inviting more ease and awareness into my experience and reaping the benefits of knowing so many amazing massage therapists.
MUSINGS From Kenn Never Give In Dear readers. A few weeks ago in the suburbs of Atlanta, a man with a gun shot and killed eight people, six of whom were Asian. Seven of them were women. All of them were involved with massage. The media has framed this as an attack on Asians, or Asian Americans, and not so much an attack on women. Maybe it was an attack on Asians, maybe on women. As a professional massage therapist for 27 years, I can’t help but see it as somehow related to our tribe, we massage therapists. Not all the victims in this shooting were MTs, but a great misunderstanding about massage was involved. Supposedly the shooter’s motive was to reduce the effect on him of what he saw as sexually tantalizing behavior — massage. He claimed to have a sex addiction and in his mind, massage and sex were essentially the same thing. If he got rid of the people involved in massage, he would not be so tempted.
When I first heard the report, it immediately took me back almost two and a half years to another shooting incident. During morning religious services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, a man with a gun shot and killed eleven people and wounded six, all Jewish. At the time of the synagogue murders, I wrote an article titled, “Never Give In.” I had originally written this column as a reprint of that article, but in the past few weeks another mass shooting occurred, this one in Colorado, with ten victims. It took the wind out of my sails. The murder of Jews in Pittsburgh. The murder of Asians and/or women in Atlanta. The murder of random shoppers in a grocery store in Boulder. I haven’t even begun to recount the murders of Black people all over the country. Is it hate? Is it too many guns? Insufficient legislation? Mental illness? Maybe it’s plain old anger, or alcohol, or poverty or race? Is it a lack of education? Could it even be video games? Here are some of my observations of the shootings in Pittsburgh, which, of course, relate directly to the recent murders. . The small yard to the side of the synagogue is blocked off by police barricades and tape. Cardboard stars with victims’ names are hung with ribbons on one
barricade. The lawn overflows with flower bouquets. Israeli flags placed here and there, photographs of the deceased among the flowers, trinkets and tchotchkes of all types, poems. A man wearing a yarmulke standing silently, staring, tears in his eyes. Messages are written in chalk on the sidewalk. The one we see most often… STRONGER THAN HATE . I walk into my physical therapist’s office a few days later and she throws her arms around me and sobs. Heartache. Yes. Our hearts hurt. I’m still searching for meaning, my soul is open. I know I won’t get answers, but I still wonder at this bountiful, terrifying up world we’ve built. I weep. I weep this past week like I haven’t done in a long time. I now spend time reaching out to people in my life. So much time this week with people I feel close to. What else do we do? . Tradition has it that when a Jewish person is buried, all their remains are to be buried together. A crew of volunteers spends the week in the synagogue gathering up every spilled drop of blood, all to be sanctified in death, and so buried.
. I am not a member of a synagogue or a congregation. Yet, I feel an undeniable connection. There is plenty enough heartache to go around. Do you feel it too? . The shooter is injured during the attack. He is taken to Allegheny General Hospital where the first medical personnel to treat him, a nurse and a doctor, are both Jewish. I want everyone in the world to know this. . One morning, I stop by the memorial garden once again. Three firefighters in uniform stand solemnly by for a few moments. Then all three make the sign of the cross. This is a Jewish temple! Think about this. To me, it represents the unity everyone is talking about lately. Christians praying for Jews. Does that seem strange at all? Why is this column here in our massage school newsletter? I am still trying to heal from the synagogue killings, and now, we have another tragedy that demands our healing. And another one. The Jewish massacre of October 2018 in Pittsburgh is a profound event with profound repercussions. Now, members of a different tribe, our tribe, had their lives ended. Was it because most of them are Asian? Was it because they are women? Massage therapists and clients? We can’t say for sure.
This episode strikes close to home for every one of us, for each of us who has laid hands on another person with the desire to make a connection, with a wish to share the world with another and with the intention of healing. We dedicate our professions, and in some cases, our lives, to help others. There is nothing to hate here. Events like these remind me that, even in quiet times, we must continue to spread the word, keep loving each other and hope, somehow, that we can make a difference. This is our duty, this is our mission. This is what we must do, it is imperative that we heal the world. Even if it is only one massage at a time. If not now, when? If not us, who?
Our Mission
The Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy is a student centered organization
committed to promoting the art, science and profession of Massage Therapy through
excellence in education and training.
(800) 860-1114 | www.pghschmass.com
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