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New Apres Ski
Pasttime?
Stone massage therapy for body and mind
by Ben Tiffany
After a particularly long ski binge, I called The Cliff Spa at
Snowbird, thinking their hot tub and sauna would provide the perfect
après-ski activity to sooth sore, aching muscles. But to my
surprise, they insisted that I take it to another level. They insisted
on their new stone massage treatment.
Before any writing assignment, I always do a little research. So with a
steaming cup of coffee in hand, I fired up the computer to surf the
web. It all started out pretty innocently.
Now any of you that know me know that I’m about as “new age” as a bond
broker and completely barren of all sentiment. I’m about as spiritual
as a Disney Executive and almost half as mean. So imagine my shock when
I visited the LaStone Therapy home page and came across the wild, even
creepy client testimonies. I read that “clients unanimously express the
same words as they leave the treatment table: “I feel blessed, balance
and cradled by mother earth.”
Yikes
Furthermore, the founder of the method gave a chilling account of its
origin. She described sitting in a sauna when she heard the heated
stones call out to her, saying that she should use them in massage. I’m
dead serious, folks. She went on to say that during a meditative
trance, she met a Native American on horseback who gave her a lift down
a river, further stressing the importance of the stones.
So there I was, sitting at my desk, head in hands, trying to figure out
what I could possible do to go into the massage with an open mind. I
needed to cast aside visions of carnival medicine shows and instead
picture the cold hands of modern science at work. I needed to be
unbiased and start acting like a reporter. But in the end I know there
was only one thing I could I’d do. I’d fake it.
When I walked into the spa, I was immediately impressed. Despite the
fact that such a high volume of folk roll through the place each week,
the spa was immaculate. They gave me a robe and some sandals and
steered me toward the men’s locker room. During my wanderings, I found
that the spa offers a eucalyptus-infused steam room, saunas, an
enormous hot tub, a lap pool, a solarium, cardio equipment, free
weights and an aerobics room. All of these are enough to sooth away the
beating you might take on the slopes. But I sensed the real action was
down the therapy hall where there are 20 individualized treatment rooms.
Shanna led me into a treatment room with a running fountain and new age
music. The fountain was pretty cool. But the music sort of turned me
off. After all, this is Salt Lake, not Santa Fe. Then came the stones.
The stones come in a variety of sizes. The Cliff spa uses basalt
stones, which are indigenous to Little Cottonwood Canyon and are most
useful for their ability to retain heat for so very long.
Well, Shanna gave me a rub down like I’ve never experienced. First, she
placed several small heated stones on the different trigger points of
my body, including my feet, the palms of my hands, and my neck. They
sank deep into my muscles. And the stones’ weight seemed to work out
the tension like a rolling pin. Then Shanna pulled smooth stones out of
a hot pot of oil and worked (almost) every inch of my body. She swept
from the balls of my feet to the tops of my shoulders with log, firm
strokes. And with each stroke, the heat of the stones dragged me into a
deeper state of relaxation.
Like I said, I’m a skeptic and a troublemaker, to boot. But I have to
admit feeling pretty good about things toward the end of the massage.
At one point, I thought: “Well, damn. I ski about 80 days a season. I
get paid to make wisecracks. And I just spent the entire weekend with
the prettiest young knuckle-dragger (snowboarder) in the Rocky Mountain
region. How can it get any better than this?”
And when I climbed down to the ground and put on my robe, I could see
that nothing in my body or in my head was the same as it had been
before the massage. Some call it a free buzz. But professionals call it
the natural release of body toxins. Whatever it was, it had my head
swimming in a deep fog. Shanna led me down the hallway to the locker
room, making sure I was steady. I thanked her for her time and she sent
me on my way.
A while later, I sat in the steam room, thinking about what had just
happened and wondered how I could relay the experience to others. No, I
didn’t “feel blessed, balanced and cradled by Mother Earth”. But I did
sit and breathe in the steamy air thinking a bout how good my life is,
and how I wouldn’t change a thing. Maybe I had “young knuckle dragger”
on the brain. Or maybe there’s something to all this mystic voodoo
stuff. I’ll let you decide. All I know is I didn’t shout or even
grumble at any of the idiot drivers I encountered on the long drive
home. I just chomped on my sandwich, sipped on my tea, tuned-in to the
new age station, and kept my mouth shut.
...more Ben Tiffany articles here
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