Today we’d like to introduce you to Alan Arnett.
Hi Alan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I have to laugh, because as a massage therapist in Winchester, what I mostly do any day is laundry! But I’m so grateful to have found two careers in this life, and although neither is known for being lucrative, both have given me deep feelings of fulfillment and a modicum of success. Not bad for a hillbilly from a small town in east Tennessee! The fact is I’ve always been a body person, and that is what links my careers. It first came out at elementary school age when playing meant tumbling outside with the girls in my neighborhood. Then the ’72 Olympics introduced Olga Korbut to the USA, and she was an inspiration. In Elizabethton, TN, my Appalachian hometown, the local dance school was the only place where I could achieve more advanced acrobatic goals. My teacher, Ann Watts, was an incredibly special lady who became like a mother to me. She led me into the world of dance, first jazz, then tap, and finally ballet. By the time I entered college with two years of ballet under my dance belt, I was determined to be a dance major at Radford University. Choosing dance was somewhat controversial because I was one of four valedictorians in my high school graduating class, and some family members hoped i would “use my mind.” But dance was the form of expression in which I was most happy and felt most unique and special. Kinesthesis and proprioception had me hooked. The feeling of moving my own body was beyond compare. One could argue that dance was the choice of a young and selfish ego, but regardless, I followed my dance dream through the academic system to achieve an MFA in Dance from SMU and become a university dance educator myself. Along the way, I also studied dance in major urban centers and performed professionally, most notably with Gus Giordano, a major branch of the American jazz dance tree. But teaching was my passion, and I did a lot of traveling as a young professor, eager to share my knowledge and pass on what had been poured into me. Thanks to an invitation from Erica Helm, a dear SMU classmate, my teaching life culminated at Shenandoah University’s Conservatory. Toward the end of my 18 years there, when my body began failing and the women who raised me began to die, I felt empty in my job and knew I had to create a next chapter to save my spirit. Then I remembered how much I had always loved bodywork, and how many incredible treatments I had been given on so many massage tables all over the world. I had some dance mentors who encouraged these interests. Dr. Pegeen Albig, my dance professor at Radford, shared approaches she knew and gave us opportunities to practice. Like her, I also interspersed occasional “massage days’ into my own jazz dance classes, especially on those days where I could see the effects of stress on my students. Throughout my dancing life, massage had also been there, on the back burner. So, at age 53, I made the decision to go to massage school. It was the only other thing I could think of that I might be good at. Cedar Stone School of Massage in Harrisonburg, Virginia, was the best place for me. In addition to the incredible multicultural breadth of their offerings, they put students in the right head space for service and foster respect for the science and art that is massage. I graduated in 2016 and opened Laughing Buddha Bodywork in 2017, very inexperienced in the world of business. Despite that, I learned what I had to as I went, relied on my common sense, and my practice really began thriving post-pandemic. Self-care has become more and more crucial, and aging means learning to adapt my schedule to what my body is able to handle. Bodywork has been its own journey; the amount of growth and change you experience as a practitioner is unexpectedly awesome. My past experiences had me entering massage school thinking I was already a hot commodity, but I had no clue how much personal growth was possible. I’ve even inspired others along the way to explore the joys of bodywork in their own lives.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I simply was not gifted with a good instrument for professional dance. and have always dealt with a body that is far from the ideal. I went to auditions alongside gorgeous bodies and proceeded to dance rings around them, but nothing could change my genetics. I firmly believe a state-supported dance program like Russia’s would have rejected my body! When I started dance, ballistic stretching was still part of the norm, and I just forced myself into a state of flexibility that was extremely unusual for my body type. It’s just what’s expected in certain dance and sport worlds. Despite all that unexamined abuse, my body served and continues to serve me well, accomplishing most everything I’ve ever asked of it. That paradigm changed drastically at age 50, when my mother passed and I had to have my first hip replacement. Inevitable maybe, but it’s still very scary when it’s your hip! Three years later, dehydrated and oblivious to the effects of dehydration, I tore an Achilles tendon teaching ballet class in my hometown dance studio. That was the final straw, the injury that nudged me onto a completely different path. I remember well the fear I had during that transition, but am also eternally thankful I leapt into the unknown. Taking away the demands of teaching dance allowed room for another body to emerge, one that now sometimes feels even more moveable, less stressed and inflamed. Replacing the second hip at age 58, after working 4 years as an MT, led to another whole can of body issue worms that I am still sorting out to this day. The struggle is real for each of us. Every pain and physical challenge I have helps me understand myself and my clients better. It makes me more compassionate. We all have our flawed vessels, and we must learn to treat them as well as we know how if we want to continue living with them as fully as possible.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I got to work with and/or dance for some very respected names in the field of jazz dance, but I am even prouder of my students who did more with their own dance careers than I did. Other former dance students have “crossed over” to become bodyworkers in their own right, and I’ve even inspired a few clients to pursue bodywork careers, too.
I see so many parallels in the work of my two careers, most obviously in the role played by creativity. The most blissful moments of dance art and massage art are when you manage to get out of your own way and trust yourself enough to allow art to pass through you. Both involve elements of improvisation, sustained periods of heightened awareness, staying open to new discovery opportunities. Both also involve organization, structure, preparedness and clear communication, because running a large dance class and running a massage business require maintaining an environment where I can practice a creative service.
As a dancer and dance teacher, I kept copious notes and had an extensive library of movements, exercises and combinations I could pull from to create my class. This ability to synthesize my own unique approach from vast, detailed memory also appears in my massage work. Relaxation is a by-product of my work, something that naturally happens as the client allows accumulated myoskeletal stresses to unwind. But my mind is not focused on relaxation. I am thinking about achieving some positive change in the tissue, some greater ease in the connected whole, a more equal balance of load felt in the various parts. I am responsible for choosing the most effective tools for a wide variety of problem-solving challenges. When working manually with the body, I feel, listen, explore and ultimately respond in a way that becomes an energetic conversation. The ways I respond and the nuances of those responses are different in every situation, certainly informed by my historical experience with different kinds of touch, and always striving to be mindful and compassionate in the moment.
In my area I believe I’ve become known first and foremost for hot stone massage, as well as integrating multiple other techniques and bringing body movement into the session in different ways. My goal is to deliver therapeutic value through client-centered deep tissue work.
How do you think about luck?
In my experience, good luck shows up in the people in my life who become angels by somehow easing the path or propelling me onward. For most of us, I think those first angels are our teachers. In grad school at SMU, my teachers decided to bring Gus Giordano to campus as a guest artist to teach master classes. Because they also chose me to be Gus’s chauffeur from the airport, I was given a “foot in the door” to make an impression on an influential man and potential employer. I mentioned seeing his choreography for “The Rehearsal” televised by PBS, and it what an impact it had made on me as a young dancer. That “lucky” driving opportunity literally changed my life, and that same year I was hired to dance professionally in Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. I later had an older more experienced Giordano dancer tell me that Gus probably liked me because I used my spine and torso like he did.
My story includes the transition of bad luck (surgeries, injury, deaths) into good luck (a new profession where I eventually found unexpected financial success).
In my business life, luck continued to appear in the guise of people, the sometimes random personal connections who helped greatly. For instance, I had friends of friends who happened to be on the Board of Directors of Shenandoah Arts Council, my first landlords. Because that personal connection existed, I was first in line when a commercial space became available to rent, I also negotiated into my contract a lower rent for the first few years. That was a crucial moment, because I hadn’t yet established a clientele, and an expensive rent would put me out of business fast. But the Arts Council also won because any rent is better than no rent at all.
Luck definitely plays a role in terms of timing certain things, such as finding premium used massage supplies at excellent prices on Craigslist. At different times, almost everything I currently work with came from a “lucky” find on Craigslist. I am especially happy with my collection of stones. Big stones for big man hands! I periodically check online and know that my stones are better than what is usually offered.
Moving to my second location also involved an element of luck. While walking our dog downtown, my partner pointed to a sign near our house, “Legacy Wellness Center,” and said “Too bad you can’t work there, you could walk to work.” I remembered that one of their owners had been a client who appreciated my services, and again it was a personal connection that eventually put me into a beautiful new location.
It was the rising expense of that beautiful second location that led me once again to Craigslist, where I stumbled upon the third location for my practice. I really wanted to hate it, but I would have been a fool to pass up the opportunity to cut my overhead by more than half. So now, ten years later, I’m paying a rent that is not far off from where I started! Serious downsizing was required, but that had already begun happening naturally in other ways, as I downsized the amount of work time my body could handle. I have all the space necessary for my work. None extra, but enough for that.
Pricing:
- Currently, I offer only two options:
- 40-minute treatment session for $70
- 60-minute treatment session for $100
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.laughingbuddhabodywork.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laughingbuddhabodywork
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/laughing-buddha-bodywork-winchester
