I’ve been waiting a long time to write this review. Today I booked a 90 minute deep tissue session, so let’s cut to the chase and answer the question ya’ll want answered: NO, there didn’t appear to be any hanky panky going on, and this Oriental Massage business in Kalispell doesn’t feel like a front for prostitution or human trafficking. Not that it isn’t happening, but I didn’t see it, and I didn’t feel it. The business first came to town about 4 years ago, originally called Best Chinese Massage, and was located on 1st Ave. E. Now located in Kalispell on 5th Ave. W.N. and called Oriental Massage, the same people or family are probably still in charge, but the business has toned down the risque marketing that got local LMT’s and the general public stepping out of their own hula hoops.
We’re all familiar with these types of businesses, we’ve all been in nail salons or restaurants that feel like an oriental family affair, where it seems like the staff or family has been brought in from overseas and they work for next-to-nothing to send money back home or just not have to live on the other side of the world.
So let’s get down to my review of the massage therapy I experienced on Jan 27th, 2020. I’d give the session and experience maybe a 2.5 out of 5 stars. When I called that morning to schedule, the girl who answered and booked my session had very poor english, as did the girl who worked on me. As a massage therapist in Kalispell myself, I can tell you that communication is key to learning why a client is there, what they expect, and how best to help them. When I arrived for my session, there appeared to be 3 therapists in the building. Without being asked to fill out an intake, medical history, or waiver form, and not being asked if I needed to use the bathroom, or “what brings you in today?”, I was ushered into a room very near the front of the building. It had walls that went almost but not quite to the ceiling, so semi-private. I could certainly hear some of what was going on in the rest of the building during my oriental massage session, and others who might be in close proximity could certainly hear the details of my session should we be talking above a low level volume, ya get me??
I gathered the girls name was Lucy. She didn’t introduce herself. But I did, I tried to explain that I too was a Kalispell massage therapist. The room was a bit chilly and there was no table warmer gizmo it seemed. The table itself was nothing like any massage table I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been doing this gig since 2011. It was very wide, on a solid wooden frame, and not height-adjustable for the therapist. It had a cut-out built into the table for a face rest, rather than a removable face cradle and cushion most of us Americans are used to. There appeared to be ashiatsu bars on the ceiling above the table, but they were never used, and I don’t see that modality listed on their website. (To see short videos of me doing ashiatsu at my office, click HERE to access my Youtube channel.) I paid $100 for a 90 minute deep tissue session, but I’d hardly call any of what I experienced “deep tissue” work, more like a busy swedish session. This price was fair by local standards, click the link HERE to see my pricing page. Busy quick strokes, and lots of them, over and over. I swear, the same oriental type instrumental song played the whole time I was on the table.
Lucy obviously had some training in massage, she worked smart instead of hard, using lots of forearm and knuckle strokes. Like most Kalispell massage sessions, she started me in the prone position, or facedown, warmed me up with some brief compression strokes before starting on my neck and back, then working my glutes, hamstrings, calves, and arms. Americans are used to draping that usually consists of a fitted sheet on the table, a flat sheet on top of you, and some sort of light blanket on top of that, for warmth. The draping in this session could accurately be described as minimal, a medium size bath towel was all I had to cover up with. When it was time to work on my glutes, she positioned the towel on my upper hamstrings, completely exposing both glutes at the same time. New to me, ha ha!, but I’m not prissy or shy, so it didn’t bother me much. And from a massage therapists standpoint, the less draping, the easier our work is, and the client feels more of a continuity in the full body strokes. If you’ve had massage therapy in Europe, or experienced a traditional Lomi Lomi massage session in Hawaii, you might have experienced minimal draping. Draping has 2 purposes: warmth, and modesty, and if neither is an issue for client or therapist, using less draping CAN have some advantages.
When she was finished with the prone work, she left the room, without a word, so I assumed it was time for me to turn over for the supine, or frontal body area part of the session, but I was wrong. She returned, told me to turn back over onto my stomach, then proceeded to completely undrape me, and scrub me all over with a warm towel, which felt great. Then she asked me to turn over, and she kept me covered with the bath towel as I did. She placed a bolster under my knees, a nice pillow under my head, then proceeded to begin working my face, scalp and head before working her way down my body. This is opposite of how most Flathead Valley massage therapists arrange their sessions, beginning the supine portion of the session by working on the legs first, and finishing at the head and neck. She undraped my chest and abs, and the work to my core was quite pleasant. Then as she worked on my quads, she undraped one leg at a time.
Her final strokes of the session were some heavy percussion type to my feet, kind of a wake up call that we were done. She then used a new warm towel and scrubbed me down, working around the towel draping my groin. She indicated the session was over, gave no real instructions about what next, and left the room. The session lasted about 80 minutes, 10 short of what I’d paid for. I got dressed, exited the room and went to the small front counter where she was waiting. I gave her my $100, took one of their business cards, and gave her one of my own. THE END.
(My new clients must book their first session online, click HERE for my website, and text 406-871-9885 with questions.)
