Alright my lovlies, did y’all do your homework last week and memorize the different massage strokes? If not, you can always refer back to that post.
Today we are talking about EFFLEURAGE.
Effleurage is a french word that means, essentially, to skim or to touch lightly. In massage therapy we open our massages, close our massages, and often transition between other strokes by using effleurage. It is used to spread cream or oil and to warm the tissue in order to prepare for deeper strokes. It is what I like to call the Jack of all trades of massage strokes; an entire massage could be given using nothing but effleurage*. It wouldn’t be the most dynamic of massages, but it could be done.
Alrighty, are you ready to learn? Grab your oil**, grab your partner, and let’s get rubbing.
Effleurage is performed with with relaxed, open-palmed hands. (Variations can be performed with knuckles, forearms, and only fingers, but we’re going for basics here.) Make sure you are contacting with your full hand – palm and fingers – uniformly. You don’t want excess pressure coming from any one spot. If you are finding uniform pressure to be difficult, err on the side of putting extra pressure on your fingers, as they lead the stroke.
Keep your strokes long and rhythmic (and get your minds out of the gutter, you little Dirties). Effleurage feels the best when it encompasses the entire length of the muscle. If you’re not an anatomy buff and therefore don’t know where muscles begin and end, just try to stroke the entire length joint-to-joint while working on arms and legs or as much of the back as you can in one stroke. Even better than that, once you get the hang of how to move around during a massage and can do so without making your strokes choppy, is to massage the entire length of a limb in a single stroke. And, yes, this means if you are working the back of the leg, you will massage all the way from the foot to the TOP of the butt. No being shy here, people. Just think of the butt as an extension of the leg. (Point of note: the back of the thigh and butt is the BEST place on the body to practice effleurage.)
Whenever possible keep contact with your massagee. Nothing makes a massage feel disjointed and awkward quite like a therapist whose hands keep leaving your body and then returning all willy-nilly. It’s easy to keep contact, so just do it, m’kay. But – and this is important – while you should keep contact always, only put strong pressure behind strokes that are directed toward the center of the body. On the return stroke you can just glide lightly on the skin. (This is for limbs…on the back, do whatever works best for you – generally using pressure for strokes going away from you and not so much on the return.)
Alright, kids. There’s a lot more that can be said for effleurage, but we’re going for basic here. This is enough for you to give a great massage to your Valentine tomorrow. 
Come back next week to learn about petrissage!
*This is assuming you are massaging skin-0n-skin. Effleurage is fantastic for a skin massage, but kinda fails hardcore if you are trying to massage through clothing.
**If you don’t have massage oil, lotion will work just fine. Or, if you are able to shower afterward, olive oil. It is fantastic for the skin and provides great lubrication. Just don’t go out without showing after because, while it doesn’t have a bad smell, it does have a very distinct one.
