Advanced Chair Massage brings tensegrity-based bodywork principles into a seated format. Moving beyond standard chair protocols, this class explores how lines of force, whole-body organization, and efficient load management can increase effectiveness while reducing strain on the practitioner.

Working in a chair places unique demands on both client and therapist. Limited time, partial support, and upright positioning require clarity, precision, and intelligent use of force. Participants learn how to apply Tensegrity & Bodywork concepts—including directional pressure, structural support, and global pattern recognition—within the chair environment.

Emphasis is placed on:

• Working with dynamic lines of force rather than isolated muscles
• Creating depth and effectiveness without heavy pressure
• Supporting the client’s structure while seated
• Maintaining practitioner efficiency, balance, and sustainability

Techniques are demonstrated by the instructors and explored through guided practice, allowing participants to refine palpation, pressure selection, and movement strategies that translate immediately into real-world settings.

Advanced Chair Massage is well suited for therapists offering chair massage in corporate, clinical, event, or community environments, and for those who want seated work to feel as skilled and satisfying as table-based massage.

This class is especially helpful for massage therapists who:

• Offer chair massage in workplace, event, or community settings
• Want to increase effectiveness without increasing effort
• Experience fatigue or strain during seated work
• Are interested in applying tensegrity-based principles in practical ways 

This ethics course invites massage therapists to explore professional responsibility through practical examples and thoughtful discussion. Topics include boundaries, scope of practice, informed consent, confidentiality, and navigating ethical challenges that arise in real-world practice.

Emphasis is placed on clarity, communication, and professional integrity, helping therapists respond skillfully to complex situations while staying aligned with their values and scope of practice.

Floating Joint is a signature LaFrano Massage Dynamics technique developed through decades of clinical practice and teaching. This course introduces a gentle, highly refined approach to joint work that emphasizes listening, restraint, and precise perception, creating conditions that support the body’s innate capacity for self-regulation.

Joints are commonly organized through muscular compression, and they can also be influenced through applied traction. Between these two conditions exists a narrow and refined space where neither force dominates. When supported in this balanced state, the joint is said to be floating.

When a joint is held in this floating state, the nervous system often recognizes safety and stability, allowing homeostatic and self-correcting responses to emerge organically. Rather than imposing correction, the practitioner offers steady, attentive support that invites the body to reorganize at its own pace.

Floating Joint is especially well suited for working with sensitive presentations, including trauma history, grief, chronic stress, nervous system overwhelm, and physical vulnerability. The work does not rely on force, verbal processing, or reactivation; instead, it supports regulation through felt sense, containment, and gentle structural clarity.

This approach has also proven effective in cases such as whiplash, joint irritation, and auto-immune conditions, where minimal force and nervous system awareness are essential. With virtually no contraindications and broad compatibility with other bodywork styles, Floating Joint integrates seamlessly into many therapeutic contexts.

Beyond its structural applications, Floating Joint often produces deep states of relaxation and settling, making it a valuable tool for both client care and practitioner sustainability. This course supports therapists in refining palpatory sensitivity, developing confidence with subtle work, and trusting the body’s intelligence rather than effort.

This class is especially helpful for therapists drawn to subtle, listening-based work, and for those supporting clients during times of vulnerability, transition, or nervous system overwhelm. Floating Joint offers a way to work with clarity and care—without force—honoring both tissue intelligence and emotional landscape through the body.

This course is trauma-informed and emphasizes safety, choice, and nervous system regulation through bodywork. The techniques taught are educational and supportive in nature and are not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace psychotherapy or medical care. The work does not involve verbal processing or emotional interpretation, and practitioners are encouraged to remain within their professional scope of practice.

LMD Myofascial Release is a physiology-informed, hands-on course that explores the dynamic relationship between muscle tone and connective tissue (fascia) through the lens of LaFrano Massage Dynamics. Rather than approaching fascia as something to be forced or mechanically “released,” this class emphasizes listening, pacing, and responsiveness as the foundation of effective myofascial work.

Through lecture, demonstration, guided practice, and open dialogue, participants develop a clearer understanding of how connective tissue responds to load, time, and intention. The physiology of fascia and muscle tone is presented in a practical, accessible way, supporting therapists in making informed choices about pressure, direction, and duration of touch.

Techniques are demonstrated by the instructors and then explored through moderated participant exchange, allowing therapists to refine their ability to feel tissue response rather than rely on fixed protocols. Emphasis is placed on working with tissue behavior, not imposing technique, and on supporting the therapist’s own body through efficient use of structure and leverage.

This course supports a nuanced, sustainable approach to myofascial release—one that honors the intelligence of the tissue, respects the nervous system, and aligns with the broader principles of LaFrano Massage Dynamics.

Presence, Energy, Intention & Compassion explores the internal qualities that shape effective, ethical, and sustainable massage therapy practice. While technique matters, how a therapist shows up — physically, energetically, and relationally — often determines the depth and impact of a session.

This course invites massage therapists to examine how attention, intention, and awareness influence touch, communication, and client experience. Through discussion, guided exercises, and hands-on exploration, participants learn how presence and clarity can support both therapeutic effectiveness and professional boundaries.

Emphasis is placed on cultivating grounded compassion rather than emotional overextension, supporting therapists in remaining present without absorbing or carrying what does not belong to them. The course offers practical tools for working with energy and intention in ways that are respectful, ethical, and within scope of practice.

Presence, Energy, Intention & Compassion supports therapists in refining how they listen, how they touch, and how they care — for clients and for themselves — as an integral part of professional longevity.

This class is especially helpful for massage therapists who:

• Want to deepen presence without burnout or emotional fatigue
• Work with sensitive clients or complex emotional landscapes
• Are interested in the role of intention and energy in bodywork
• Want to strengthen boundaries while remaining compassionate
• Value professionalism grounded in awareness and integrity

Philosophical Physiology is a lecture and discussion-based course inspired by chapters 2–9 of Job’s Body by Deane Juhan. The class explores the intimate relationship between connective tissue, muscle tone, proprioception, and perception, inviting participants to consider how physiology and philosophy are woven together in lived experience.

As we move beyond a purely mechanical view of the body, we begin to encounter the concept of bodymind—a dynamic system in which tissue function, emotional experience, and perception continuously inform one another. Through proprioception, our internal sense of self and our external worldview are translated into muscle tone, movement patterns, and ultimately the organization of collagen fibers and fascial structure.

This course examines how values, beliefs, and emotional states subtly shape posture, tone, and structure over time. From a bodyworker’s perspective, this means that how a person perceives and responds to the world is not abstract—it is embodied, expressed through tissue quality, movement efficiency, and structural organization.

Philosophical Physiology offers a thoughtful framework for understanding why working with the body also means engaging perception, awareness, and meaning. The material is presented in a way that is directly relevant to massage therapy, deepening clinical insight and supporting more effective, responsive, and informed bodywork.

Scar Tissue Massage is a clinically grounded course focused on understanding and working with the physiology, behavior, and adaptability of scar tissue following surgery or injury. When healing is inefficient or incomplete, scar tissue can limit range of motion, alter movement patterns, and contribute to ongoing pain or dysfunction. Learning how to influence the organization of the scar tissue matrix is key to supporting functional recovery and long-term quality of life.

This course presents scar tissue work from a LaFrano Massage Dynamics perspective, emphasizing assessment, restraint, and tissue responsiveness rather than force. Lecture material explores the connective tissue processes of wound healing—both post-surgical and post-injury—including how scar tissue adapts over time and how remodeling can be supported safely and effectively.

The hands-on portion of the class includes instructor demonstrations of scar tissue massage techniques applied to a range of scar presentations and restrictions. Participants then engage in guided practice, working with scar tissue scenarios under close instructor supervision, with attention to pacing, pressure, and client feedback.

Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on working intelligently with tissue behavior, respecting healing timelines, and understanding when and how massage can support change without overwhelming the system. This class is appropriate for therapists seeking practical, ethical tools for addressing scar-related restrictions while protecting both client comfort and practitioner sustainability.

This class is especially helpful for massage therapists who work with clients experiencing post-surgical or post-injury scarring, including individuals recovering from orthopedic procedures, accidents, or medical interventions.

Scar Tissue Massage may be particularly supportive for therapists working with clients following cancer-related surgeries, where scar tissue can affect movement, comfort, and body awareness over time. The course emphasizes respectful pacing, informed consent, and sensitivity to both physical and emotional aspects of healing, without requiring verbal processing or disclosure.

This class is well suited for practitioners who want to:

• Improve range of motion and functional comfort in the presence of scar tissue
• Work more confidently with complex or long-standing scars
• Support clients through recovery and reintegration phases
• Refine assessment and hands-on skills while honoring healing timelines
• Apply scar tissue techniques with clarity, restraint, and professionalism

If you or a client has a scar tissue case that may be appropriate for in-class demonstration and is open to being worked with in a supervised educational setting, please contact the instructors in advance. All demonstrations are conducted respectfully, within scope of practice, and with informed consent.

This course is taught from a trauma-informed perspective and emphasizes safety, choice, and nervous system awareness when working with scar tissue. The techniques taught are educational and supportive in nature and are not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace medical or mental health care. The course does not involve psychotherapy or emotional processing, and practitioners are encouraged to remain within their professional scope of practice.

Oncology-aware principles are woven into this course, honoring the complexity of healing after cancer treatment through respectful pacing, consent, and tissue sensitivity.

Self Care for Massage Therapists is a practical, profession-specific course focused on supporting longevity, resilience, and sustainability in massage therapy practice. The class is informed by nearly four decades of hands-on clinical work and teaching, reflecting what it actually takes to maintain a long, healthy career in bodywork.

Rather than offering one-size-fits-all wellness advice, this course addresses the real physical, mental, and emotional demands of massage therapy. Topics include body mechanics, movement awareness, breath, rest, boundaries, nutrition basics, and nervous system regulation, with attention to how daily habits and in-session choices accumulate over time.

Participants are encouraged to notice how their own bodies respond to work demands and to identify patterns that contribute to fatigue, strain, or burnout. Emphasis is placed on self-care as an active, ongoing practice, not something reserved for recovery after injury or exhaustion.

This class draws from years of clinical experience working with a wide range of bodies and practice settings, offering practical strategies that support therapists in working more comfortably, more clearly, and with greater sustainability over the course of their careers.

This class is especially helpful for massage therapists who:

• Want to support long-term career sustainability
• Experience physical fatigue, pain, or repetitive strain
• Feel mentally or emotionally taxed by their work
• Are returning to practice after injury or time away
• Want to prevent burnout rather than recover from it

Somatic Bodywork explores the relationship between perception, emotion, breath, muscle tone, and connective tissue, offering massage therapists practical ways to work with the body as a living, responsive system rather than a collection of parts.

Thoughts and emotions are reflected immediately in muscle tone, posture, and breathing patterns. Through this lens, the body becomes a direct point of access to a client’s neuromuscular and myofascial organization. Breath, in particular, serves as a moment-to-moment indicator of internal state and a powerful entry point for regulation and settling.

In this course, participants explore somatic concepts and hands-on techniques that can be applied within a massage session to soften protective patterns, expand breathing capacity, and support parasympathetic nervous system responses. Emphasis is placed on listening through touch, pacing interventions, and recognizing how subtle changes in pressure, position, and awareness can influence global organization.

Somatic Bodywork is especially supportive during periods of transition, including grief, chronic stress, illness, recovery, and end-of-life care. The work does not require verbal processing or emotional analysis; instead, it offers a way to meet the body with presence and steadiness, allowing clients to feel supported, oriented, and at ease within their own experience.

This approach is well suited for therapists offering hospice massage, grief-informed care, or work with vulnerable populations, as well as for any practitioner interested in refining their ability to stay present, responsive, and grounded when working with sensitive nervous systems.

Somatic Bodywork is not about correcting posture or fixing emotion. It is about meeting the body where it is, creating conditions that allow the nervous system to settle and reorganize in ways that can extend beyond the treatment room—supporting greater ease, adaptability, and self-regulation in daily life.

This class is especially helpful for massage therapists who work with clients experiencing:

• Chronic stress, anxiety, or nervous system dysregulation
• Grief, loss, or major life transitions
• Illness, recovery, or end-of-life processes
• Long-standing holding patterns or guarded breathing

Somatic Bodywork is well suited for practitioners who want to:

• Support parasympathetic responses through touch
• Work skillfully with breath, tone, and nervous system cues
• Offer grounded, compassionate presence without verbal processing
• Deepen listening skills and refine subtle palpation
• Integrate somatic principles into existing massage styles, including hospice care

This course is taught from a trauma-informed perspective and emphasizes safety, choice, and nervous system awareness. Techniques are educational and supportive in nature and do not involve psychotherapy or emotional processing. Practitioners are encouraged to work within their professional scope of practice and collaborate with or refer to appropriate licensed providers when needed.

LMD Sports Massage is a comprehensive, physiology-driven course developed from Chuck LaFrano’s decades of clinical experience, including seven seasons as head of the massage team for the Chicago Bears, extensive work with professional and recreational athletes, and more than 30 years of teaching sports massage.

This course approaches sports massage as problem-solving bodywork, grounded in biomechanics, proprioception, and efficient force transmission rather than rote protocols. Participants explore how athletic performance, injury patterns, and recovery are influenced by global structural relationships—particularly the sacroiliac joints, tibia–fibula relationship, and shoulder and knee complexes.

Key areas of focus include:

• Structural relationships critical to athletic function
• Injury prevention and resolution strategies
• Pre-event techniques that support cardio-pulmonary efficiency, with clear contraindications
• Detailed approaches to common athletic challenges, including rotator cuff and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) issues
• Practical application of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF)
• Use of reciprocal inhibition to support functional change
• Assessment and correction strategies for leg-length discrepancies

Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on clarity of assessment, economy of effort, and clinical reasoning—helping therapists choose appropriate techniques based on tissue behavior and functional demand rather than force alone.

While rooted in athletic performance, the techniques and principles taught in this class are widely applicable. Sports Massage methods translate effectively to non-athletic clients, offering valuable tools for addressing a broad range of musculoskeletal conditions and movement-related concerns.

Style, Rhythm, and Breath is a 6-hour continuing education course introducing core LaFrano Massage Dynamics (LMD) principles with a focus on pressure sensitivity, patterns of force transmission, and tissue responsiveness. This course explores how awareness, intention, and structural support work together to create effective, sustainable bodywork.

Participants learn to recognize and work with dynamic lines of force, refining how pressure is delivered through the body rather than applied to the body. Emphasis is placed on listening through the hands—using rhythm, breath, and pacing to gather information directly from the client’s tissues.

Central to this course is the concept of the Window of Effective Pressure: the optimal range of pressure that supports tissue release without overwhelming the nervous system. Because pressure thresholds vary by individual, region, and moment, therapists are guided to continuously adjust their touch in response to real-time feedback from the client’s body.

This course provides a foundational framework for several LMD offerings, including Tensegrity & Bodywork, Sports Massage, and Floating Joint techniques. It also refines essential LMD landmarks—subtle, practical reference points that help therapists fine-tune their work while protecting their own bodies.

Style, Rhythm, and Breath supports therapists in developing clarity of touch, efficiency of effort, and confidence in pressure selection, leading to more effective sessions and greater career sustainability.

22 CE Hours • NCBTMB Approved
(Includes 2 Ethics CE hours at no additional cost)

Marathon 24 is an immersive continuing education intensive designed for massage therapists seeking depth, integration, and continuity in their learning. This multi-day experience weaves together Advanced Tensegrity & Bodywork, Philosophical Physiology, and Sports Massage, offering a cohesive exploration of LaFrano Massage Dynamics principles across structure, movement, and function.

Rather than isolated techniques, Marathon 24 emphasizes patterns, perception, and intelligent application, allowing participants to experience how LMD concepts build upon one another over extended study. The intensive format supports deeper understanding, hands-on refinement, and meaningful integration of material into clinical practice.

Marathon 24 may also be completed as 22 hours of LMD-focused education, with Ethics CE hours included to support licensure requirements. This offering is ideal for therapists who want to step fully into the LMD approach and strengthen both their skill set and professional foundation.