As of Monday Nov 19th our 1hour treatment prices will rise by $5. I hate doing this but unfortunately with the ever increasing running cost of small business we have no choice. This rise will also bring us into line with many of the other massage businesses of Hobart who staff trained, experienced therapists. Private health rebates are available with all of our therapists who offer the best in Remedial Massage services.

Nikki.

Following on from our recent post about running a couples massage workshop, I have done some homework and I am pleased to announce that I will be going ahead with this. The course will run over a 2.5hr time slot and will cover massage of the hands, feet, shoulders, back and legs. There will be 2 time slots available on the day with space for 2 couples at a time. These sessions are not just for romantic couples. If your partner in life won’t join you then find a friend who is keen to learn and come along together. If this first date fills then I will definitely run another workshop in the new year. This could be the perfect early Christmas present for your loved one. Full details are below.

Date: 25 Nov 2018

Time: 9:30am-12pm & 1pm-3:30pm

Place: Ellis Remedial Therapies

59a Albert Rd Moonah

Tutor: Nikki Ellis

What to bring: Large towels/bath sheets. I will provide an electric table, oil and pillows on the day.

Cost: $185 per couple

Spots are limited so book your spot today.

Please contact me if you have any questions on 0414 260 613 or email nikki@ellisremedialtherapies.com.au

It’s been a while since I have had the time to sit down and write a post to you all about what’s happening because things have been crazy! I have said it over and over again but our move to Albert Rd has been the best thing to happen to us, even though it means being super busy. It’s getting to the business end of the year and if last year is anything to go by it’s going to get even crazier.  November 2017 was our busiest month in our 5 years of operation by about 30 clients. It was insane and my appointments were booked out 3 weeks in advance. Jodie and Jimmy are now also starting to get busy and their diary seems to be filling up on a weekly basis as well. This is exactly what we need. It’s no secret that what we offer here is unique and professional. That continues to show by the amount of referrals we get from our clients. Without referrals a business like ours may as well be dead in the water. It’s the best compliment you can get when a happy client sends along a friend or family member to see you. One of my clients got referred by a random stranger in the spa at the Aquatic centre! I have said it before that we are not for everyone but 99% of clients who see us come back, that’s also a good indication we are doing something right.

I know Christmas seems like ages away but it is now only 3 months away. For those looking for gift vouchers for loved ones, please contact us to arrange purchase. I will most likely offer bulk discount massages in December for anyone looking to save on their regular treatment or any business owners looking for something a little different for their staff instead of the ole gift card.

That brings us to January. Throughout January I will not be on available for most of the month. Early Jan we will be looking after the players at the Hobart International. This goes from the 6th- 12th. I will also be getting married late Jan so the week between the wedding and the completion of the tennis I will be on the east coast doing wedding prep. Following this we will then be hiking the South Coast Track for our honeymoon so another week means that will see out January. Jodie and Jimmy should be on hand to help cover and also by then I am hoping to have a 4th therapist on board working as well. I will keep you updated as the time gets closer and staff availability becomes more clear.

That is about all for now. Keep an eye on our page for appointment availability each week and other important information.

Stay at your best,

Nikki

Some people think that being a massage therapist is all just nice smelly oils, candles and warm towels. At Ellis remedial that is far from the truth. The warm towels part is right but you won’t find many smelly oils or candles here. The reality of being a remedial therapist focusing on sports and deep tissue treatments is far from glamorous.

My day starts when the alarm goes off about 6:30 for my partner to get up. Of course there are a couple of snooze hits in there before anyone actually gets out of bed, it’s a ritual! While she gets up and gets ready for work I quickly check emails for any bookings that have come in overnight that need confirmation, any messages that may have come through on the FB page and finally who I have in for the day. After all of that I jump out of bed, shower, eat what I hope is enough to sustain me for the morning sessions, get dressed, stoke the fire, grab the kids and head to work. Just like any normal parent we are always 5-10 minutes later out the door than I would like! The drive to work is usually non eventful but on a day when you seem to encounter many not so good drivers on the way in, you generally get a feel of what the day is going to be like.

I arrive at work about 9 with the first client due in at 9:15. The treatment room is already warm thanks to those brilliant things someone invented, I think they are called timers! I have enough time to re check emails, run the vac over the floor, put the heat pump on, open the blinds, take or return any calls that I have missed during the morning and greet my first client for the day. They will be followed by 2 more to complete the morning session from Monday to Friday. In the 15 minute gap that I have between clients (usually 5 minutes by the time they get dressed, pay, re book, have a quick chat etc) there are always towels to be washed, more calls and messages to be returned and emails to be checked. Lunch time hits around 1pm. If I’m lucky I might have time to do some exercise but for most days it’s off to the laundry to dry the towels, run any errands that need to by done, try to catch up on some paperwork, return to collect and fold towels, have a bite to eat and be ready to go for the afternoon shift by 2:45. 1hr45 seems like heaps of time but when you are running here and there and everything is timed, it soon flies by. The afternoon session is repeated as the morning, clients, towels, phone calls, emails, etc etc. On top of all of this there is the actual physical aspect of what we do. It doesn’t matter if our bodies are sore and killing us, we still have to provide our clients with the treatment they come to expect from us. My day generally raps up at 6:15 with clients. By then I’m exhausted and just want to get out the door. Last calls are made for the day and emails etc are checked and replied to once again. It would seem a lot of emails get the delete response, how much spam can a person get in one day? I walk in my door at home around 7pm most nights. Mondays I actually finish early and it’s nice to be home with the family in daylight hours to cook together and eat at a decent hour. Eat, sleep, repeat. Add to that the stresses of running a small business and a head that never really switches off and you have massively exhausting days.

Now I’m not complaining, I love my job, it’s what I trained up for and the opportunities that have come my way through my work have been nothing short of amazing. We are very lucky here. We very rarely have no shows or late cancellations but when we do it can really put a dampener on your day. Especially when they come in multiples. Imagine going to work all ready to earn your keep and the boss says ‘oh, I forgot it was a work day, I’m not coming in for a couple of hours and I’m not going to pay you either’. It’s unfortunately a really hard side to our business. So cancellations and no shows are a down side and washing what feels like a million towels every week is not much fun either but here at Ellis Remedial, we care. We care about you, we care if you are comfortable during your massage so if keeping you warm means I have to wash a mountain of towels every week then that is just what I will do. We love our work, we love our clients and as exhausting as it is, I love my life. Massage therapy, the not so easy job!

At Ellis Remedial we have always offered a discount for emergency service personnel as a way of thanking you for the awesome work they do. Police, Fire and Ambulance officers all risk their lives to help us every day, even more so these days when there is such a massive drug problem in our society. I would like to say a big fat thanks to all of you and please let your colleagues know about this if they do not already. We see many wonderful clients from across these fields and always welcome newbies.

***Save $10***

Any new clients who book a 1 or 1.5 hr massage with Jodie or Jimmy throughout the month of September will receive $10 off their original massage price. Clients will also still be able to claim health benefits making it the best time to pop on in and let our team get you back to your best. Book online or call Nikki on 0414 260 613.

For those of you who have yet to see Jodie but are seeking an amazing massage from a current world class athlete, take a read of this. Jodie has been with us for 12 months now and is gaining a good client base. Would you like to be part of that? This is a little sneak peak of Jodie’s massage and training career. We offer something unique here at Ellis Remedial, a clinic run by people who understand athletes, Jodie is an exceptional mountain biker and multi sport athlete and is also a mountain bike coach. For those who are not athletes don’t be scared, we cater for everyone and are more than happy to adapt our treatments to suit the individual need. Jodie is at the clinic on a Wednesday afternoon and all day Fridays so book your appointment and come and experience one of Hobart’s best therapists.

Jodie’s profile

Previously living in Brisbane, I have been a remedial massage therapist for more than 10 years and worked with a wide range of people with occupational conditions and sports injuries. From the swimmer contending for an Olympic medal to the recreational runner hoping to complete their first marathon – I enjoy assisting people to reach their goals by maintaining their physical health. As a mountain biker and adventure racer I have a particular interest in cycling and running injury treatment. Recently moved to Hobart I’m looking forward to getting involved with the amazing outdoor scene here!

Work history

Maintenance and recovery treatment for teams such as the British Swim Squad, Queensland Reds Rugby Union, Brisbane Lions AFL team and the Victorian Bushrangers cricket team. Also in 2018 Jodie looked after the international tennis players at the Hobart International alongside Nikki and 3 exceptional Physiotherapists.

Training

UCI, AIGLE, SWITZERLAND
LEVEL 2 MOUNTAIN BIKE COACH CERTIFICATE
 Live-in course at the World Cycling Centre specifically mountain bike coaches seeking to work in high performance

CYCLING AUSTRALIA, ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA
LEVEL 2 NCAS COACH CERTIFICATE

HOLISTIC HEALTH, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
DIPLOMA OF REMEDIAL MASSAGE

What are you waiting for? Give us a call and book in today.

As a small business owner, time out is definitely a luxury. Unlike working a normal job, we don’t get 4 weeks paid leave every year, we don’t get sick pay and we certainly don’t get any super. In a small business where your income is maximized by the amount you can charge or more to the point what your clients are willing to pay, the luxury of time off is few and far between. I chose to be a massage therapist. I chose to run a small business. I want people to know who I am and what I do in a professional manor. With that comes the overheads, loss of pay when clients don’t show or cancel and the windows for holidays to be minimized. Don’t get me wrong, I love the flexibility of this job but some days I also miss someone paying me to take time off, paying me for my retirement and leaving work without a worry in the world. As massage therapists we will never be rich. Despite the common conception, that if you have a business you must be loaded, we also live week to week like most other folk.

Last week I took a week off to spend with my partner. School holidays meant she was also off so we could actually do stuff together without dropping on the couch at the end of the day asking how each others days were, totally exhausted and literally falling asleep. We got stuff done! We planned wedding stuff and worked on our property and even took a trip over tot he big smoke to see some mates and of course the one and only P!nk who once again put on a magnificent performance. That woman is amazingly athletic, I wonder if she needs a tour massage therapist?

I returned home to Hobart yesterday after my week off and it had honestly felt like a month. This tells me one thing, I was way overdue for some time off. Although tired today from a long day yesterday, I feel refreshed and recovered. My body stopped hurting for a whole week. I had a $4 massage in the massage chairs at the DFO and could have stayed there half the day had I more coins! It was amazing and when you miss out on your fortnightly massage it sure helps take the edge off a stiff back.

I guess what I am getting at here is to make sure you are looking after you. Make sure you take those paid holidays, you earn them! If you have long service built up, use it, don’t cash it in, that is time you should be taking for you. Take a trip on a plane, in a car, on a boat. Stay in bed, stay up late, eat the yummy food. For those who have used up all their holidays and have none left in the bank then do the next best thing and book a massage! Let us take you away for an hour and pretend you are on holidays.

Remember when you were a kid and all you wanted was to be a grown up and do grown up things? How did that work out for you? How good would it be to be a kid again and have the knowledge we have now? Growing up, our elders would say that and we would be like ‘yeah yeah’. And now, well I don’t know about you but the adult version of me would have done a lot different. However, we can’t turn back the clock, nor can we stop it, but we can slow down. We now live in such a fast paced world where everybody wants something yesterday that it’s hard sometimes to check into ourselves and give ourselves some us time. Let’s look at your average person who works full time and has a family that includes children. Before I go any further though I would like to applaud all those who are full time parents. Maybe it’s a maternal thing that I don’t really posses but having children 100% of the time is a crazy task. You are all superstars! Right, back to my average person. You wake up, sort yourself, wake the kids, sort them. Possibly 60+ % of the time they don’t want to cooperate in the mornings or maybe they left their brains in bed and continually do things that make you leave the house feeling more frustrated than ever and you telling yourself your day can only get better. Some people do this on their own and others have their partner to help. Often you get in each others way and frustrate each other just as much as the kids but you manage to eventually get out the door on time and off to work. You work all day, return to pick up children, cook dinner, clean the house, referee a million fights before bed time, and eventually fall in a heap on the couch with about as much energy as a snail in a pool of peanut butter! You are mentally and physically exhausted. You eventually go to sleep and repeat for the whole week. Weekends come and you spend that entertaining the kids or running them to sports. So, when do you check yourself out and what do you do? It certainly isn’t easy to find that time regardless of weather you have kids or a partner because life still gets busy. For me personally, I am at my happiest when I am being creative. Not art and craft type stuff, I love being in my workshop. I love turning nothing into something or making something old new again. I have a massive admiration for beautiful timber, so much so that I get frustrated when people call it wood. You burn wood, you create with timber! It’s when I can let my imagination flow and just tune out to the world. I’m a very visionary person so when I know what I wan’t to do and I can see it in my head it makes me excited when I can bring it to life. On the health side of things, I also enjoy time exercising but most importantly getting my  fortnightly massage. It’s total me time. As soon as I lay on my therapists table I feel my body relax. The phone gets put away and I have the whole hour for just me, bliss. Happiness on the whole comes when you get the mix right. You need time for work, time for play, time for the family, time with just you and your partner and time for yourself. When you go home tonight, ask your partner what makes them zone out and relax. Try to make time to enable the both of you to have ‘your’ time. Just a couple of hours once a week to do the thing that makes you totally happy. If all else fails. book a massage with us and at least let us get you back to your best.

Nikki

In a world where there are so many options to choose from, how do we know what or who is right for us? When it comes to massage, it is such a personal thing. There are many reasons why a client will return to you and also many reasons why they wont. For me, my therapist is not only my therapist. She is a friend, a mentor, a confidante and a therapist all rolled into one. I see her because not only do I like her massage style, but I know I’m guaranteed to have a good laugh, get my grumps out and get some good advice in return as well as walking away feeling 100% better than when I went in, physically and mentally. Hev (my therapist) doesn’t put on what I class as ‘oogie woogie’ music for me, she knows better. Many years ago when I woke from a 2 week coma, I had some ‘issues’ giving a certain sample. I called on Hev, she came and gave my tummy the treatment it needed and bam sample is granted. She knows me and she knows her stuff. But you see Heather isn’t for everybody the same as I’m not for everybody. There are many questions you need to ask yourself when trying to find ‘your’ therapist. Firstly what are you looking for? Are you looking for someone to ‘fix’ an injury or are you looking for someone who can provide you with regular maintenance of the body? Do you want fluffy and light or do you need deep/sports style massage? Are you comfortable with your therapist or do you find yourself feeling anxious and uncomfortable during a treatment? Do you trust in their knowledge and are they showing you their level of knowledge by the way they provide treatment? There are so many questions that only you can answer. I now have 2 therapist working alongside me here at Ellis Remedial. They are both brilliant and yet we are all different. We all have different styles but from all feedback so far, our clients are happy to see any of us for their treatment. That’s a great dynamic to have in a practice especially from an owners point of view, knowing that our clients trust us all. There are clients that started out with me and are seeing my other therapists more regularly now and that is absolutely fine. It isn’t up to a therapist to demand who a client sees for treatment, it is completely up to the client. After all, they are paying for the service. I have absolute confidence in my staff to provide excellent service to everyone who walks through our doors and that’s the way it should be. Let’s say you have an injury that has been ongoing for quite some time. You are seeing a health professional but nothing seems to be improving. That professional insists you keep coming back, even though you are not gaining any benefits from the treatment. This frustrates me! As a health care professional it is in my opinion paramount that you look beyond your own realm of knowledge and refer when needed. Lets look at Fred (we will call him Fred, not his real name). Fred presented to me a few weeks ago with chronic pain in his groin whenever he lifted his leg up to step e.g walking up stairs. Fred has put up with this pain for the past 5 years. Never having massage in his life he thought he would give it a try as scans and doctors sent him around in circles achieving no results for the ‘injury’. His first visit to me was tough for him. He was nearly jumping off the table with even the slightest of touch to his effected area. I released his back, which was like concrete, and the rest of his limbs, making a start on unraveling the mystery that was before me. The important thing here is that I knew I could not help this man on my own. I am not a machine or a physiotherapist and I was baffled at what was actually happening. In saying that I referred him onto one of Hobart’s best physios to help me out. He came up with a diagnosis and together we had some idea what was going on. Fred came back to me after the Physio visit and we worked his Hamstrings. Same result, nearly jumped off the table! What was going on? His next appointment was back with the Physio who performed some dry needling on him (not to be confused with Acupuncture). Feeling like there was some improvement, we had him back in last week for another massage. We massaged his Hamstrings, nothing! We worked on his Quads and Groin, nothing. He didn’t leap off the bed and he didn’t complain at all. We are winning the battle. Now Fred is aware that we can’t undo a lifetime of problems in a few sessions and will continue to see me for massage. He has also seen Wendi for Acupuncture. I guess the important thing about this story is that sometimes you need more than one professional to get to the bottom of an issue. Fred is super happy, he is getting some relief. If your therapist isn’t prepared to look outside the box and refer you on when needed the question remains, are they the right therapist for you?