me on. I continued to learn. And the more you learn, the more you understand what you don’t learn what you don’t know. And then you keep learning you can one modality turns into another, and other therapists start talking about another type of modality. So you take that workshop, and I guess I’ve always had a thirst to learn. I don’t feel I’ve ever arrived so

 

Manon Bolliger  04:58

well. I think you know all. Modalities evolve as well, you know, with the eyes of another type of therapist that takes on that modality without changing it completely, you know, just more or less working with it and then adding their knowledge. And then it sort of transforms, and it becomes a little bit, you know, unique to the way they’re doing and and I think that’s the nature of, you know, such a simple technique, you know, I think compared to so many things out there, it’s a it’s fairly straightforward and simple, and people are shocked at how it could work given, you know how little you do, right? But you you’ve worked with with whom? Now, how many different people that have sort of done that to the technique, I’ve taken it and then moved it onwards and added their spin and understanding

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  06:00

Well, I’ve taken it with Ron Fallon, who’s come to Vancouver several times. Watching him is amazing, watching his technique of assessing the TMJ and seeing how that relates to other parts of the body. I’ve also gone to John Garfield’s workshop. Alistair McLaughlin, his specialization is the scar tissue release. And I’ve taken classes also with Graham Pennington. His assessment for me, changed everything. That was probably the one workshop that changed the way I did Bowen the most, probably starting from him, and then adding to that, I began to become interested in ROSS Emmett technique, which is a very light touch muscle release therapy, different than Bowen, but you can work together with Bowen. In fact, Ross Emmett was a bone instructor. He started Bowen therapy and developed his own

 

Manon Bolliger  07:14

technique Exactly. I think he was one of the summon or whatever.

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  07:18

Well, he Yeah, he was one of the Yeah, original guys,

 

Manon Bolliger  07:24

yeah, interesting. And then your, your, many years ago, you did psychology, and you were saying, when we talked that you’re going to complete this. And I was wondering, given that you’re doing Bowen, what is it, why psychology and how does that make sense to where you’re at in your practice? Now,

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  07:50

well, I actually have just started the psychology degree. It’s not something I mean, I’ve taken many courses in mental health. I believe that the way we think about our health affects our healing, even the belief that we will get better. You can see a person’s blockage when they think that they’re not going to be healed. In fact, you can even see it from a biblical from a spiritual perspective, too. If you look I’m someone that reads the Bible, and one of the questions that Jesus asked someone was, do you want to be healed? You know, it was a sort of a challenge, because sometimes our thinking is such that we actually prefer to be sick because it adds another, you know, people might pay more attention to us if we’re sick or, yeah, it adds a different dimension to our identity. So, yeah, I think there’s a there’s a lot of people that come into your practice that are struggling with a lot of internal, just trauma, and it’s more I would say that taking psychology, how I would blend that in, is just having more of an understanding, maybe, and just probably, from a professional point of view, you can also provide counsel. Maybe, I mean, it could be included. I’m not sure I would do this, the two therapies at once. It could be, it would probably be a separate visit, yeah. Well,

 

Manon Bolliger  09:37

I it’s an interesting because when you mentioned that at Bowen College, what I do is I teach not psychology, but I teach how to LISTEN to your body, which means you know, also observing your thoughts and how they interfere or or not you know, in in. How you see things, or what you believe about healing, or what you believe about the name of your so called condition or disease, you know. So you know, our symbolic stuff. We were very symbolic as people, when we get down to our roots, you know, when the way that one describes facial pain can be very indicative of what is needed, as far as Bowen therapy. So what I have found training, because I’ve trained now over about 2500 students, I found that when they understand a person better, that’s all it is, is that actually being able to listen, which gives the space for the person to to share what it is. But when you have that, that ability, you’re going to be in a very different position in helping them, you know, and so I, I incorporate that in that way. It’s more as I guess, a simple way would take color would be bedside manners. But it’s not. It’s more than that. It’s just that, that presence, that knowing presence and knowing that you don’t know more than they do about their body, right? So that I have found that to be really helpful. When people tend to think that it’s just a physical therapy, or it’s just a physical therapy, there’s nothing more to it, and it’s like, Nah, you know, I hate to differ, but it’s not just a physical therapy. It helps on every level, you know. And I find that the most fascinating part anyway. So that’s been my my angle, you know, at Bowen college is making sure that that students have that holistic perspective. You know, the body is the temple, right? But there’s a temple. So, anyway, so, so you’re, you’re moving, or you’re currently in, in Canada, within BC, actually, right, right, yeah. And you mentioned, oh, I’ve started over so many times because you’ve had to move, or you had to move from Australia, right? And then you you were in Mexico, like, so tell us a little bit what it’s like to be in that position. And how do you start up again.

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  12:42

That’s a good question. Well, first of all, right, now I don’t have my even my tables. Usually I have my massage tape, massage tables. And, you know, I’ve got all my my books and, you know, just all the physical things that you need to give a therapy. And so, because I don’t have all that, all the equipment today, actually, I spoke with someone called someone that I think owns a treatment space. And, you know, I call in to see how much I can, you know, the availability of renting a room, and, you know, all that marketing, and you have to start from scratch. And so, because I’m also going to be studying, I’m trying to see when the best time is to start. And at first it’s very overwhelming when you start in a new place, because you’re thinking, how is this going to happen again? But usually what I do is I start by giving therapy. I actually give therapies for free to friends, and usually word gets around when something changes, yeah. I usually start like that, and then after the first session, usually they’re very willing to pay whatever it is that I’m charging, because there’s the results are there,

 

Manon Bolliger  14:22

So, yeah. Well, I’ve moved, I guess, with Bowen three times, you know, which that’s basically what it was. I gave treatments, you know. And I know when I moved to Ontario from Nova Scotia, I did it on a beach at night, just at anyone you know, later now, I was a little more agile there, up and down, right, right.

 

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Manon Bolliger  15:59

Stick the feet in the sense that, you know, they had the right, you know, position to be comfortable, right? I mean, the results were there, like, Oh, wow. How can I get this again? And it just escalated. Yeah,

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  16:16

it just evolves. I remember, I gave I had to do Remedial Massage sessions for free for sports massage that was in Melbourne a few years ago. And as I was doing the sports massage, all the technical things, I could see that this person was not aligned. And so I asked her if I could use add the bowen therapy technique, and she told me she’d always had hip pain, and I was able to see that the problem stemmed from the TMJ, so I made a few changes there, and around three weeks later, I got a Message from her saying her the pain that she had for years disappeared. She was just amazed. So, yeah, exactly,

 

Manon Bolliger  17:08

yeah. And you also took a, now, it wasn’t a Bowen course, but

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  17:15

a course kinetic therapy. That’s right, yeah, yeah. That’s about that, yeah, that’s also, that’s a really good technique to add, and I took it last year here in at the, actually, at the Westminster massage school. And I forget who the instructor was, but it was a very interesting course, because it shows when it’s a process of figuring out which muscle is inhibited and which will inhibited and facilitated, or that’s what, What the terms they use, basically is a muscle functioning, or is there tightness in another part that’s not allowing it to function in the range that it should? And so what you do is you do a lot of muscle testing, and it’s a technique that show that that you have to use muscle testing in order to see, do I activate this muscle or do I release it? And that’s what you’re doing through the whole process. It for me, it was a little bit tricky. It is for many people, it’s the first course is challenging, but as you practice and you have to practice it on others, so that’s something that I’ve incorporated to at times, and with my limited knowledge, because I just at the very beginning, but that opened my eyes to to seeing how even the scalenes affect the psoas. So scalenes are around your neck. They’re the neck muscles, and your psoas is a core muscle. And how, if one’s tight, your psoas in, and if your psoas isn’t working, there’s it could there could be, not necessarily, but there could be a relationship between the two muscle groups. And so you’re testing that,

 

Manon Bolliger  19:19

right? And it, does it change the way, like, in, other words, you know, there are moves that we know for scaling, so, right? So as does it change the way the moves are done, like in, you know, in Chinese medicine, you might tonify or sedate, right, right? Is there a concept where, with Bowen, you go, Okay, this is the move, but doing it differently in order to

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  19:50

Well, I think what happens is sometimes with Bowen, I know in the past, when I was first learning, you just throw every bow and. Move on the person, and you hope something sticks at the beginning, that the beginning stages. Sometimes bone therapists will do that. You know they’re what this does is you become like, extremely specific about how you’re going to treat if you’re releasing the scalene and you can tell that the psoas is inactive, you’re not going to release an inactive muscle. You’re going to exercise it. So I’m not going to use the bow and move on the so as maybe, because that’s not the area that I need to release. And so it’s understanding that relationship not giving the body too much, right? Because if it doesn’t need to be released, you’re not going to release it. Yeah, it’s just what needs releasing. Otherwise you over work at least, yeah, muscles that don’t need to be released, yeah? Well,

 

Manon Bolliger  21:05

I mean, that’s another concept in Bowen, you know, less is more, right, right? More, you know, the the less you do, yeah, which it’s kind of, you know, funny, because you’re, you can be more specific then, right? But in in this, it sounds like you’re incorporating it with the understanding that there’s some sort of exercise that could help. Yeah, yeah. Which is, which is interesting, because when I learned Bowen also, that was in 1992 with Ozzy and Elaine, they had exercises. They didn’t make much sense to me, you know, so I didn’t make those exercises. But they the notion that sometimes you need to work a muscle

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  21:58

strengthen it. You need to strengthen it makes

 

Manon Bolliger  22:00

sense, right? Yeah, yeah. Mm, hmm. So this gives you that understanding of, okay, these need strengthening. These need releasing, releasing exactly which, when you look at how, at least, according to Graham Pennington and many of these people, they say, when Tom Bowen worked on people, he he he used the basics as a a touching guide of what was tight and what was not. You know, which, again, is that idea that you don’t do it all right? Interesting. Yeah. So, so what were or do you have, like, the one or two stories that really stand out, yeah, stand out and made you go, wow, this is not something I’m going to stop.

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  22:51

Oh, well, that happens a lot So, and there’s also times when I can’t help there’s, like, sometimes family members, especially, very hard to difficult to sometimes work on certain family members. The good thing is, my husband’s a good sport. My my immediate family is fairly open, and I’ve been able to help them, which is great. But sometimes, you know, other family members don’t respond, and it’s better they go. It’s it’s actually sometimes better to let them go to someone else, just more professional. And yeah, but anyways, what just this year, a friend of ours fell out of a tree and could, could have died, but he didn’t. He’s amazing, and his ribs were affected. I think I’m not. I don’t think he broke, oh yeah, he did break a few ribs, and he can had continual rib pain. And so in that situation, I told him, You know, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to help but get just, let allow me one session. Just, let’s see if the procedure, and I’m not quite sure what it’s called, because it’s in the special it’s a specialized procedure that we do in Bo tech, and it is one of the quote, unquote recipes where you’re not assessing anything, you’re just giving them a standard set of moves. Well, I applied that that I applied that procedure, and I would say there’s about maybe six to eight moves. That’s it. I mean, it might take you five minutes to do the move. I

 

Manon Bolliger  24:34

think they used to call it chest procedure or scoliosis procedure. It

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  24:41

was a scoliosis procedure. I think it wasn’t the chest one. Anyways, I did that on him, made him wait 15 to 20 minutes. He got up, didn’t really feel any difference. I said, Just wait a few days. Sure enough, a week later, his pain that he’d had. Since the accident completely disappeared, and he he couldn’t believe that he could feel so good, so he made me redo it, just to be sure. I said, you don’t really need it, but sure I’ll redo it. And he’s been fine since, which is amazing, because he could have died. He was in that better shape, like 20 feet out of a tree is,

 

Manon Bolliger  25:24

but also with ribs, you I mean, they can’t do much with they can’t so it’s a, yeah, it’s a godsend. I know in homeopathy, there’s a few like remedies that help the body heal, you know. But here I do think using the fascia, you know, also really resets it, so that the body knows what to do, right? We’re programmed to heal it,

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  25:52

and that’s where, in that situation, I would not want to use neurokinetic therapy. Neurokinetic therapy, you’re moving, you’re you’re doing different moves, you’re comparing. It’s a lot of making the client do a lot of movement that could put them in pain. And so maybe, you know, there’s a chance that you might apply that technique, if, if, if the regular recipe doesn’t work, let’s say, you know, then maybe you start using other techniques, because that’s, that’s usually what what happens? But in this situation, just the regular future that we were taught worked, which was great, so simple. Didn’t even do it. I didn’t do an assessment. I mean, I did the regular assessment that I do, but not I didn’t have to. I didn’t do any muscle testing or anything,

 

Manon Bolliger  26:52

yeah, but I don’t think it’s always necessary, right? It’s no guide, right? It’s a guide to what’s going right? It is just a guide, right? Exactly. So, makes sense. So, so what? What are your plans then, with bow your with

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  27:11

Bowen? Well, I’m trying to figure that out right now. My desire is to continue practicing Bowen to some capacity. So I’m looking at how I would do that, renting a room. I’m wondering, do I, you know, you there’s, there’s many different ways to do Bowen, you can go to people’s homes and set up your table. You know, do I want to do it that way? Yeah. So, yeah, I’m just trying to decide, but yeah, I’ll never stop doing well, and it’s just part of me now. So,

 

Manon Bolliger  27:49

I mean, there’s several, you know, naturopaths. I mean, a lot of naturopaths left BC as well during, okay, the last few years. So, but there are Nacho pass that are likely looking for somebody who can do Bowen, because some of them have trained in it, right? Haven’t kept it up, because they have all these other skills that they also use. And, you know, and so often it’s, it’s a perfect situation to have one, you know, right? Dedicated bone therapist that, yeah.

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  28:25

Well, I Yeah. I’ll be contacting naturopaths as well. Yeah, play a good yeah. Usually they prefer because of the because they don’t know, some of them don’t know much about bone therapy. So they prefer that you have done the RMT program. I mean, that’s been my experience, but that could be different. Now, I think it’s different because they can’t direct bill but, you know, I mean, so I haven’t ventured out. You know, it’s been Christmas, and so I’ve kind of waiting for Christmas to end before I start knocking on doors. My desires to continue to try. Yes,

 

Manon Bolliger  29:05

great. Okay, well, um, and any other questions you have otherwise, um, I mean this, it’s, it’s a great sort of overall, you know, show of what Bowen is, and all the different varieties what one might or starting a practice in a new place. I’m trying to think, is there anything else that we’ve missed that people might be interested in?

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  29:33

Well, I would just say that any opportunity you can learn some sort of body technique to add to Bowen, and you learn it, even if it’s just to understand why Bowen works, it just helps understanding the body. Yeah,

 

Manon Bolliger  29:50

yeah, definitely. Okay. Well, thanks very much for, you know, spending some time having a conversation about. Boat therapy.

 

Anne-Marie Ferguson  30:00

Oh, no problem. It’s been great. Thank you, Manon,

 

 

ENDING: 41:33

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