This bodyworker tries a novel approach to massage: using her feet - Frederick News Post

[massage]

The not-quite 5-foot-1 bodyworker Andie Devynck, despite all her elbow grease, could not dig in deep enough when massaging her clients, even when using a blend of Thai and Swedish techniques and deep tissue work.


She wasn’t satisfied, so she tried something novel.


She started using her feet.


She bought some rope at Home Depot, braided strands of it together, and hung it from the ceiling above her massage table at her practice in Washington, D.C., where she worked for 23 years. She held herself up with the ropes while using the soles of her feet to apply pressure, essentially maneuvering around the backs of clients, and finally achieving the results she wanted.


Her clients loved it (among her successes was being named one of 12 “Best Massages” in a 2003 Washingtonian article).


She called it “back walking.”


It wasn’t until years later that she came across information online about her technique and realized it had another name — Ashiatsu, or barefoot massage. She began to study it formally through Deepfeet Bodyworks at various locations throughout the country. In 2005, she met and trained under Ashiatsu Deepfeet Bar Therapy founder Ruthie Hardee in Florida. She replaced her ropes with bars and continues using the Ashiatsu technique with clients, though she combines it with other forms of massage.


After she and her husband moved from the D.C. area to Poolesville recently, Devynck, 55, began seeing clients at the Center for Integrative Healthcare in downtown Frederick, a stone’s throw from Frederick Memorial Hospital. The space, in a cozy, old building, is shared with psychotherapists and another bodyworker, which is a good fit for the work Devynck does, which she says extends beyond the physical.


One of her clients, Helen Gordon, followed Devynck to Frederick after seeing her for several years, driving nearly an hour from her home to receive treatments at Devynck’s Frederick office.


“I’m a believer in massage,” Gordon said, adding that while she’d never experienced Ashiatsu prior to a session with Devynck, she thought it was smart of the masseuse to use her feet to add strength and pressure without the long-term damage other massage therapists might experience from repeated use of their hands.


Using her feet “corresponded to how deeply I wanted to go into people psychologically,” Devynck said recently, sitting in her massage room in Frederick. The space is warm and inviting, with subdued lighting setting the tone for relaxation.


Devynck, meanwhile, is full of life — engaging, enthusiastic (if a bit scattered), emotional — the kind of person you can imagine saying “to hell with using my hands” and instead innovate a barefoot dance on her clients. Her demeanor ranged from fun to tearful to studious, temporarily putting on glasses and pointing out bodywork lessons in a nearby textbook, throughout the course of our interview.


You might say her interest in bodywork and psychotherapy, and the relationship between the two, has always been with her. Even as a child, she was a touchy-feely person, she said, always compassionate, always curious about people — who we are, how we work, how we relate to one another.


Though she is a certified life coach and currently working toward a master’s in clinical mental health from the University of the Cumberlands, massage has been her primary vessel with which to explore those issues in people and ultimately help clients to process and heal their wounds.


“Certain types of wounds are frowned upon and others … are deified in our culture — like narcissism,” she said. “It’s horrific.”


In high school, she watched a film on the famous Harlow wire monkey experiment, which became one of those life-changing moments for her, she said. In it, infant monkeys routinely choose to cling to a wire “mother” monkey with cloth over it, rather than affix themselves to another wire monkey that provides food but no comforting cloth exterior.


“There wasn’t the right kind of love ... in my family,” Devynck said. “We learn through the body ‘is the world a safe place’ … and if you don’t get the right love and touch, you’ll spend your life looking for it. … It pains me to see people not be able to live to their potential.”


Before her work as a masseuse, Devynck studied political science at George Washington University and worked briefly on Capitol Hill in the ‘80s. After a short stint as a horseback riding instructor in Los Angeles and then D.C., Devynck began what would become her life’s work when she enrolled as a student at the Baltimore School of Massage in 1994.


From there, she began studying under Barbara Goodrich Dunn in 1997, her therapist, group leader and trainer at the Washington Institute for Body Psychotherapy. There she studied body psychotherapy techniques for four years.


Through working with the physical body and studying various body types, Devynck found that behavioral and emotional patterns can be unlocked and undone through massage, she said. For instance, she can see how a body carries a specific trauma based on its stance and movement.


She continued studying various massage techniques after learning Swedish and deep tissue massage through the Baltimore School of Massage, specifically Thai yoga massage at Omega Institute in New York and later at the Institute for Thai Massage in West Palm Beach, Florida.


For Thai massage, Devynck moves the client’s body through a series of guided yoga postures, like a dance.


About 10 years ago, she went to Thailand and experienced the country’s massage firsthand. In the middle of the day, she’d go to market and see people clear a table for bodywork, she said; a massage cost $10. “It’s so ingrained in their culture. In Thailand, people got medical massages at temples for 26,000 years. … East really needed to meet West, as far as I was concerned.”


Her treatments now start with Ashiatsu, to loosen the body, then move into Thai massage, all the while incorporating life coaching and body psychotherapy throughout the session and mixing in customized work the client might need. She’s created a unique combination of all she’s learned up along the way.


Actually, after learning multiple massage philosophies, each system claiming its own meridian lines and points, Devynck, a self-described “devout atheist,” stopped focusing on the specific lines from each school of thought. “Eventually, it was like, what’s not a point?” she said. “I believe energy runs through you. I think I’m touching energy systems in the body all the time.”


Want to try a barefoot massage? Andie Devynck works from the Center for Integrative Healthcare, 340 Park Ave., Frederick. Call 301-346-5716 for an appointment.


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