Almost everyone I know has an interesting story on the long road that led them to massage school and to where they are today. I'll never take for granted the "vision map" that led me to massage…it must have been planned long before I even knew it myself.

Growing up I did a lot of traveling with my parents into Asia and India. My Dad specialized in tropical medicine and served in the Belgium Congo in Africa. My mother was born in Congo and studied to be a nurse. They met in a small village and as a team, provided for the sick and the poor with the aid of the Methodist Mission Board.

Each summer they would join other world mission groups and would help set up medical dispensaries for people in villages suffering from rare diseases. I had the opportunity to see some pretty amazing stuff on those trips.

While in Bangkok, I saw a barefoot woman standing on a man holding onto bamboo rods suspended from the ceiling in a health club one afternoon. During a different summer in the Philippines, I saw a different barefoot technique being performed. In an open air pavilion market under a thatched roof, an assembly line of small Asian women worked on as many as 6 men, all at the same time. They held onto the same long, wooden bar spanning the ceiling, sometimes engaged in very loud conversation with each other as they pummeled and rocked through the men's clothing. One woman even had a baby on her back while she gave the man a massage. At the time, I didn't understand the term, "massage", I was only 13 year old. But I remember always being fascinated with what I saw in those places.

After high school it was a no brainer that I might follow in the professional footsteps of my parents, but after college and leaving Florida, I landed a job in the Film and Television industry in California.

In 1990 the writer's strike hit Hollywood hard and those of us in production had to either collect unemployment or look for a new vocation. Massage had always been of interest to me so I enrolled at a local massage school.

After graduating and working on various movie sets as the on-site therapist, I recall thinking, I will never make it in this field, if I have to bend at the waist and push with my hands to deliver deep tissue effleurage. Deep work was what I enjoyed receiving but giving it back to someone else was a different story. You see, I had lumbar Scoliosis at birth which cultivated into ankylosing Spondylitus over the years.

One day after working on 5 stuntmen in a row, my legs started to give out with shooting pain down my low back and arms. My table was set up inside of a wide electrical /prop truck. I noticed directly above the table, a metal grid that was fastened to ceiling. My mind was flooded with memories of Bangkok and the Philippines.

I thought; what if I could climb up on his back, hold onto that grid and do with my feet what those women did?' It would give him the deep pressure he craved and I might be able to finish the session without causing more trauma to my back.

I must have filed that vision away into my memory banks, saving it for this day because that's exactly what I did. And after a few minutes of getting my weight balanced and with the help of my upper arm strength, I began to flow up and down his posterior back and leg muscles with gliding pressure. It came so naturally and with such an intuitive feeling of being safe and right, that I couldn't believe this was my feet…neither could he. He was amazed and a barefoot fan after that session. He thought I had been doing the work for years.

As my feet progressed with expanded protocols and sequences, my client based expanded as well. Little did I know that summer that I was really on to something? That something turned into a little barefoot modality and technique that would resonate with thousands of body workers all over the globe.

I guess you could say establishing the Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy program is the gift I got from going to massage school. Helping others to stay pain free is the gift I got from my parents.

Ruthie Piper Hardee was inducted into the first World Massage Festival Hall of Fame in 2006 as a pioneer in the advancement of barefoot massage. She will have daily demonstrations of Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy® in our exhibit hall and is on our panel. Join her next year in Kentucky for a 6 CE hour class on the fundamentals of Barefoot Swedish Efflurage.

For more information on this modality go to: www.deepfeet.com or email: ruthie@deepfeet.com