By Shivani Khanna

Gargoyle assistant editor

Posted Wednesday, May 9, 2007, The OG, features

FOR THOSE OF you who did not remember to give your favorite teacher a bright red apple last week in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, the Parent-Faculty Organization made up for it by showing some gratitude of their own.

Their bright red apple came in the form of a lady with an English accent and magic fingers. Jane Flaxington is a massage therapist from the Body Therapy Shop in Lincoln Square Village in Urbana, who also pays visits every other week to the faculty lounge to give teachers massages, which they pay for themselves.

During Teacher Appreciation Week, the PFO paid the bill for Uni teachers, and Flaxington agreed to stay at Uni for an extended time to ensure that all teachers who wanted a massage were able to have one.

Flaxington, a Britain native and Urbana resident, originally had a degree in nutrition but eventually thought that it was time for a new career. While she was on sabbatical back to the United Kingdom, a course in massage therapy at the British Institute of Reflexology and training with a Chinese physician in traditional Chinese medicine convinced Flaxington that body work was her calling.

“I have been always interested in people's health and what they put in their body,” she said. “It's what got me to start thinking more about what happens outside the body — massage therapy.”

Flaxington has been doing body work since 1994 and has been coming to Uni as a masseuse for the past eight years.

“Some teachers were clients at Body Works Associates, which is where I used to work, who said they would love to have a massage very week, but time and cost did not permit them to do so,” Flaxington said. “We started offering massage in local schools. Instead of the teachers coming to us, we started going to them.”

For her school clients, she brings in a massage chair, which a friend of hers discovered at an airport where people were getting chair massages in between flights.

Assistant Director Sue Kovacs gets de-stressed.

(photo by Shivani Khanna) (click to enlarge)

“These are 10-minute massages that do not take time off from their day's work, but they are able to do something for themselves,” she said. “We found it is a great way to keep teachers happy and de-stressed. We felt we were doing something for the community.”

Flaxington uses a combination of Swedish and Shaitsu trigger-point work on their aching muscles. She charges $12 for 10 minutes because she considers that the optimal length of time for a midday massage.

“When you do table massage we slowly start the massage,” she commented as she worked on Assistant Director Sue Kovacs' back. “You lie on the table for about half an hour. If we give a chair massage for half an hour, we will have to peel Mrs. Kovacs from the chair.”

Ten minutes might not seem like much, but Flaxington would disagree.

“It is very relaxing,” she said. “We are using different muscle groups to do trigger releasing. We find 10 minutes is enough to relax the muscles, relax the person. When they get up within a very short time the body feels energized because the circulation increases. We call it the chair energizer. It is a great way of recharging your batteries midday.”

Faculty and staff members have enjoyed their massages with Flaxington. Twenty-four people took advantage of PFO's offer last week. During the rest of the school year, participation varies from five to 15 people, according to Kovacs.

“What we enjoy the most is the break and having someone work on our pressure points or the points that are hurting,” Kovacs said.

Flaxington is planning to move back to England at the end of this year, so Uni is looking for a new massage therapist for next year.

“We are not happy,” Kovacs sighed. “It's the end of an era.”

What about massages for students? Could we see that service offered at some point down the road?

“We've thought about it,” Kovacs said, “but you guys would have to commit for a weekly or a biweekly type of session, because you won't have a person with a chair come here if they don't have their time slot locked up. If you were able to come up with five or six kids who wanted a massage once every two weeks, we would certainly try to contact them [the massage therapists].”

Flaxington chimed in with an intriguing possibility.

“We could also give you a special student rate,” she said, “but don't tell the teachers.”

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— External link: Body Therapy Shop