How to Give Hot Stone Massages

Video Transcript

"Hello there. If you've ever wondered about the basics of giving a hot stone massage, I'm going to let you in on a few secrets. I'm Sundae with Natural Sundae. Now when you give a hot stone massage, it's, the most important thing I can tell you is please get one from a licensed professional. If you're not a licensed professional, it's not a good idea because bad things can happen. You don't want to burn anybody, you don't want anything bad to happen. So always really do a, do your due diligence and find a good massage therapist that can give you a good hot stone. But what happens during a hot stone is this. The therapist will start out, they'll heat their stones and they will have a crock pot or a roaster pan. And you can use basalt stones, which are lava stones, and they're used specifically for their ability to hold heat very well and transfer it to the tissue. So what you're going to do during a basic hot stone massage, of course, you're going to uncover your client's back and you're going to start to rock them very gently. Make sure they're relaxed. Then you want to put some oil on your hands and just start giving them a very general, relaxing routine the way any massage would start. But then what's really special about hot stone is now you can pick up your hot stones, they're very nice and warm, and there are very many different sizes that you can choose. You can choose little ones, you can choose bigger ones or just the medium size ones for the back. And there are many different ways you can use these hot stones, always making sure to use oil so that the stones don't stick or burn to the skin. And you can just start gliding these stones, these warm stones, all along the skin. You can use them flat, you can use them on their edges, all along the spine being careful not to get on top of the spine. That's not recommended whatsoever. It can hurt your spine and not, it won't feel good at all. You can rotate the stones around according to where they are on your body, where they fit. You're just going to gently glide the stones around, and of course they're going to cool off after a while. So you want to go ahead and discard those and pick up some new stones. And you can use these all over the body, of course, on the back, the lower back on the side, all along the shoulder blades, the neck and shoulders. And then of course, just like any massage, you're going to transfer this kind of movement to the arms, shoulders and hands and to the legs and feet. And then of course when you're ready to flip your client over, you will flip them over and repeat these movements on the front of their arms and their legs. And it's always a good idea when you're finished doing your massage, to end with the neck and head. It's always a really nice idea to take some smaller stones that are heated up, not too hot of course, place them right underneath their shoulder blades when they're lying on their back. And that's a really nice way to say, "okay, when your stones are cool, then you can go ahead and get off the table." So those are some very basic ways to give a hot stone massage. I'm Sundae with Natural Sundae. Take care."