163: A Master in Plain Sight (with Art Riggs)

🎙 A Master in Plain Sight (with Art Riggs)

Art Riggs is a Certified Advanced Rolfer™, massage therapist, and creator of some of the most influential instructional video courses in our field. His recordings were among the first truly comprehensive video trainings available to bodyworkers. Decades later, practitioners still return to them again and again, finding new insights each time. They age well because they’re packed with technique, yet grounded in principles that never go out of style.

Here’s the paradox of Art’s work: he shares a staggering wealth of techniques, yet what he emphasizes most isn’t technique at all. It’s listening, allowing, and refining your touch. “Deep tissue,” he explains, isn’t about pressing harder. It’s a conversation with the body, where pressure is just one word in the vocabulary.

At 80, and still seeing clients most days, Art brings warmth and infectious enthusiasm to everything he discusses. He’s humble about his contributions, generous with credit to his teachers, and genuinely delighted by the craft he’s practiced for decades. This conversation is a joy from start to finish.

✨Topics discussed include:
Whether you’re early in your career or decades in, this episode is a masterclass in how to think with your hands.
• Why Art chose “deep tissue massage” over a proprietary name — and why that made his work more accessible
• The difference between deep tissue and “pressing harder”
• Touch as communication: pressure, speed, angle, and reading the body’s response
• “Refine your touch” — the three words that changed everything
• Allowing vs. forcing: offering something for people to take
• Why his first video set covers techniques while his second shows integration into a fluid, full session
• The limits of online learning — and why hands-on classes and receiving work still matter
• The overlap (and differences) between massage therapy and Rolfing® — and what each can learn from the other
• Movement, getting clients off the table, and working in real-world positions (not just neutral on the table)
• The skill of knowing where to work — and when you’re done
• Acknowledging Helen James, who Rolfed until 95: choosing a profession where you can keep learning until you drop

✨ Resources:
• Art Riggs’ video courses (now also eligible for NCBTMB-approved CE): https://advanced-trainings.com/artriggs
• Art Riggs’ book: Deep Tissue Massage, Revised Edition: A Visual Guide to Techniques – https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/deep-tissue-massage-revised-edition/

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✨ Watch the video / connect with us:
• Til Luchau – https://advanced-trainings.com | https://www.youtube.com/@AdvancedTrainings/podcasts | https://facebook.com/advancedtrainings | https://instagram.com/til.luchau
• Whitney Lowe – https://academyofclinicalmassage.com | https://facebook.com/WhitneyLowe | https://twitter.com/whitneylowe

📧 Email us: info@thethinkingpractitioner.com

The Thinking Practitioner Podcast is intended for professional practitioners of manual and movement therapies — bodywork, massage therapy, structural integration, physical therapy, osteopathy, and similar professions. It is not medical or treatment advice.

Rolfing®, Rolfer™, Rolf Movement®, Rolfing Ten-Series™, and the Little Boy Logo are service marks of The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration®, Boulder, CO.