Many make resolutions in a new year to align themselves with the goals and plans they have moving forward.
Erin Poovey is no different. She moved to Colorado Springs 15 years ago and wanted to make her mark on her new city through wellness. At that point, she had been a massage therapist for seven years and had specialized in working deep tissue massage with athletes. Having just recently started working with physical therapists and introduced to myofascial work, she sought a way to incorporate this into her practice.
The Power of Feet
Focusing on muscles is what massage therapy taught her, but the myofascial work helped her to focus deeper on the connective tissue that supports the muscles throughout the body that often holds on to tension or become strained due to repetitive activity.
“This was the work I had been trying to do with my hands–and I found it happened effortlessly with my feet,” she says.
Ashiatsu massage is a form of massage that uses the therapist’s bare feet instead of their hands to apply pressure. It allows deep, broad strokes using the therapists body weight to distribute consistent pressure using long gliding strokes while incorporating assisted stretching. Clients who struggle to find massage that is deep enough—or when it is, it feels sharp—will usually appreciate ashiatsu.
Poovey goes on to explain how this type of massage also provides nervous system deregulation as the pressure shifts the client into the parasympathetic, allowing them to relax and let the body resume focus on vital functions.
From Student to Instructor
She found this practice to be so effective that eight years ago, Poovey became an instructor of ashiatsu. She wanted to teach other therapists the benefits of this type of massage in hopes to extend the reach to more of her community. She not only trained her own therapists, but invites therapists from all over the U.S. into her classroom to learn the benefits of ashiatsu.
Poovey recently expanded the downtown location. In addition to a classroom, and a couples’ massage room, she has also added a recovery room which incorporates a cold plunge, a sauna and a shower.
In 2025, Poovey plans to expand classes not only to massage therapists, but also to the rest of the community. These classes started out of necessity during 2020, when she was offering online classes to the community on self-massage and corrective exercise. She plans to expand these classes both online and in person to clients and community members wanting to know how to maintain the effects of their massage through self-myofascial release, or how to massage their partner. She is planning mommy-and-me classes to introduce safe touch and communication to promote relaxed, co-regulated states. And workshops around relaxation through floating sound-baths or suspended meditation.
Camino Massage has evolved as a business and grown with Poovey throughout the years. To better reflect all of the options Camino now offers, Poovey recently rebranded. Camino Wellness Sanctuary is developing a community around wellness and offering clients incredible massage.
Website: https://caminomassage.com/
Facebook: @CaminoMassageColoradoSprings
Instagram: @CaminoMassageTherapy