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Greetings from David Palmer
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![[David Palmer Picture]](https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8bcd4258cdc4b963ffe1e52fd/images/DP_Headshot_2.1.jpg) First, just a quick note of thanks to all of you who viewed the History Channel program and emailed kind words. The production company did a surprisingly accurate job of tracing the history of contemporary chair massage and the development of the massage chair. I personally would have not used a dial telephone to recreate a 1986 telephone conversation because a) touch-tone was the default by then and b) anyone under 30 may not know even recognize such a device.
![[History Channel Program]](https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8bcd4258cdc4b963ffe1e52fd/images/d4a505a2-516d-45e9-a212-d3f02a7c2a88.gif) If you haven't yet seen the 12-minute clip, you can always find it here. I recently played the clip as part of a new presentation I put together for a group of 30 seniors on the importance of touch. I called it The Future is in Your Hands and they loved it.
Nostalgia corner
Just a month ago I spent a weekend at the Connecticut Center for Massage Therapy (CCMT) teaching TouchPro chair massage to 18 students. A beautiful school; beautiful classroom; beautiful students. CCMT was the first school where I taught chair massage 30 years ago outside of California. One of the students in the 1986 class, Russ Borner, eventually became a Senior Trainer with TouchPro and actually assisted me in the class last weekend. What a great reunion and anniversary.
![[CCMT Class Picture]](https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8bcd4258cdc4b963ffe1e52fd/images/2a1bad87-9094-4a53-8cf9-1f42509679f0.jpg)
One of the students, Lori Steinmetz, sent me a wonderful email afterwards describing the impact the weekend had on her. In the process she highlights many of the unique aspects of the TouchPro approach to massage in general and chair massage in particular. You can read her email here.
I have also been getting some requests to teach a seminar in the San Francisco Bay area. There is a growing shortage of TouchPro-trained practitioners and a couple of chair massage entrepreneurs have said they would like to upgrade the skills of their practitioners. If you are in that category, please drop me an email so I can find a date that works best for you.
Normalization of touch
As the role of positive touch slowly gets normalized in our culture we are seeing more research, books and articles aimed at the general population. One you will want to read appeared in The New Yorker this month discussing in depth "the new science of touch." Ten years ago no one was talking about the science of touch, except in robotics laboratories. I still have some hope that the massage profession might finally begin to embrace touch as the center-post of our profession as I wrote about in 2011.
The 30 year anniversary continues
MASSAGE Magazine continues with its thorough coverage of the chair massage anniversary with a one-page interview with me in their May print edition and an extended version of the interview onlline. Thanks to Editor-in-Chief Karen Menehan for making sure that chair massage gets the attention it deserves.
See you next in the Summertime!
In touch,
David
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