A Natural Transition

Patricia Reidy (’02), LMT

Patricia (Trish) Reidy’s abbreviated list of gigs as a dancer is a page long, and includes the touring companies of Chorus Line, West Side Story, and Wizard of Oz. She performed on stages around the world, including Monte Carlo, South America, Korea, Mexico, Aruba and the Bahamas. “I truly was a gypsy,” Trish confessed. “Knowing when to hang up their dancing shoes is different for all dancers, and for me it was something I eased into.” Each time Trish returned from a tour, she would investigate her options, looking into teaching dance, Pilates instruction, aerobics or pursuing various graduate degrees. It was a counselor at her union, AFTRA, who first suggested she consider massage therapy.

“Dancers are so acutely aware of their body,” Trish explained. “How to move, how to protect against injuries, which muscles to use. So it seemed a natural transition to then learn to apply that knowledge to help others.” With movement of one’s body at its core, massage therapy is a magnet for people who love to dance. There are at least ten teachers who are former dancers. Some of them, like Russ Beasley, specialize in treating dancers in their private practices. And every class has its own cast of dancers.

When Trish started the Massage Therapy Program she admits she was nervous about returning to school. “Fortunately, the school put the more mature people together,” she recalled, “so I felt I was with a group of peers. That helped me. I’d also been put at ease at the Open House, when the speaker told us we could give the program a try and shouldn’t feel locked in if we thought it wasn’t right for us.” However, Trish felt right at home. She loved the classes and her teachers, from whom she learned to breathe with awareness and relax into her body more.

Today she practices at a couple of locations, providing relaxation massage at bliss spa, a more therapeutic massage at a physical therapy office, and filling in the remaining hours she has with sports massage at her local gym. “I could be busy 24/7 if I wanted to,” she said about the spa opportunities. But doing that wouldn’t leave her any time to dance, which she still does of course, but now with the good fortune to do it to “feed her soul.”

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