Massage therapist Darsea Closson, of Ottawa, recently celebrated her one-year anniversary of business ownership in the village where she grew up. Although she performs several types of massage, she specializes in the therapeutic side of the business.
John Bush | The Lima News
SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY
Business: Darsea Closson — Licensed Massage Therapist
Address: 133 N. Court St., Ottawa
Phone: 419-615-9507
Facebook: facebook.com/darseaclossonlmt
Hours (by appointment only): 4:45 to 8 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays
OTTAWA — Darsea Closson doesn’t have any medical training, but she does know how to make people feel better.
The longtime Ottawa resident is a licensed massage therapist who recently celebrated her one-year anniversary of business ownership in the village. For the first nine years of her career, Closson worked for other local businesses before deciding to branch out on her own in April 2016.
She offers several types of services, including relaxation, therapeutic, pregnancy, infant, hot stone, chair and sinus massage. Though she has experience in each type of massage, Closson specializes in the therapeutic side of the business.
“If you come to me with sore, aching, knotted-up muscles, my goal is to try to make you feel better,” Closson said.
Her interest in therapeutic massage started with her great-grandmother, whose doctor recommended she receive massages to help with the pain she was having.
“She really didn’t like massage even though she needed it, so I was like, ‘This is what I’m going to do,’” Closson said. “I went to the Institute of Therapeutic Massage for a 15-month program, I graduated, and now we’re here.”
After she realized how beneficial a massage could be for people like her great-grandmother, Closson decided she would dedicate her career to helping people with their physical ailments.
“I realized that if I was going to do massage, I wanted to actually see an outcome,” she said. “I wanted to see my work progressing somebody in the right direction and making them feel better.”
Closson said most people she massages are repeat clients who have come in for a specific issue and have stayed on because they felt better after each session.
“They always tell me, ‘As long as I keep getting massages, I continue to feel better,’” she said. “They tell me they don’t have any of those past, reoccurring pains or injuries. It keeps them on track, so that makes me feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.”
To understand the best way to approach each massage, Closson will meet with clients prior to their session. She asks them where they are feeling pain and what areas she should work on. She said knowing each client’s goal is vital in determining the approach she should take.
“Some people just want to relax, so it’ll be a calm, soothing massage — nothing too vigorous,” she said. “But if somebody comes in who is having trouble turning their head to the left, I’ll know I need to focus more on the right side of the neck, the right shoulder area and down the right back. That’s when things get a little more vigorous.”
For anyone who has never experienced a massage, Closson said there is nothing quite like it.
“You feel like a million bucks when you get off the table,” she said. “They say there’s no such thing as bad pizza, and there’s really no such thing as a bad massage either. You always get up feeling so much better than when you initially got on the table.”
Massage therapist Darsea Closson, of Ottawa, recently celebrated her one-year anniversary of business ownership in the village where she grew up. Although she performs several types of massage, she specializes in the therapeutic side of the business.
Reach John Bush at 567-242-0456 or on Twitter @Bush_Lima.
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