Tension reliever not a normal massage

Gentle technique tells the brain 'it's safe to let go'

WAUKEGAN -- Anne Galbraith pursues an unusual calling. She teaches people the smarter way to move.

It started with her childhood pet, a Welsh terrier named Tinker who needed a haircut, which she administered with a pair of grooming shears that her parents purchased with S&H green stamps. Barbering Tinker led her to the dog-beautifying business that she made a success of for 27 years.

That success had a price. On her feet for 60 hours a week, Galbraith developed repetitive stress injury. She tried various therapies with little relief until she discovered the Trager approach, which uses natural movements like gentle rocking and bouncing to release muscle tension caused by illness, injury or stress.

"I got up from the table and I knew it wasn't a normal massage," said Galbraith, 55, who recalled her first Trager session in 1994. "The practitioner kept asking questions about how I was moving while I was working, and I didn't know. Then I realized I was standing on one leg all day, working with one arm."

Galbraith's pain disappeared as she learned to move and hold herself smarter, to shift her weight while standing at the grooming table, to use gravity to work with less effort, to "soften" her knees rather than lock them.

"The body sends out subtle signals most people ignore -- or we take an Advil," Galbraith said. "Back pain can be caused by how you're using your arms. Locking your knees can be hard on your legs. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn because it changed my life. Trager made such an impact on me, I wanted to share it with other people."

Galbraith took classes for several years through the United States Trager Association and became a certified practitioner in 2001. She sold the dog-grooming business in 2002 and took Trager to a long-term care facility as a volunteer, working with Alzheimer's patients and the wheelchair-bound.

"People in a nursing home get bathed, they get changed," Galbraith said. "This is touch communication. Even if they weren't verbal, I could understand them. They just melted."

Galbraith offers private sessions for $60 in her Waukegan home. She also makes house calls. She receives referrals from a local occupational therapist.

Bob Anderson, an artist, and Cheena Wade, a retired college biology instructor, of Grayslake, admit they are "pretty tightly wound." They said Trager is teaching them how to relax.

"I'm real tense in the shoulders and neck, and Anne actually relieves the tension," Anderson said.

"I think about how she makes me feel, and I try to recreate that," said Wade, who, with Galbraith's help, has become aware of when she tightens muscles during routine movements like walking down stairs, or drawing the bow across her violin.

Wade recently discovered something about herself while through a bad rain. She realized she had "a death grip" on the steering wheel."

"I can feel myself not being relaxed, and now I can undo that because of Anne," she said.

"I teach people to move in a different way so it feels more fluid," Galbraith said. "I don't force muscles to release tension. Trager works on the nervous system and sends a message to the brain that it's safe to just let go."