There is a history in the Trager Heartland of Austin, Texas to monitor the State Legislature to make sure that The Trager Approach is not compromised by rules which limit our practitioners. It takes effort to monitor bureaucracy in order to protect our professional self interests, but I would like to share my personal experience in order to encourage others to do so by networking with others and have fun doing it.
Years ago, Bill Scholl and others worked hard to secure an exemption from restrictions under Massage Therapy, for Trager, as a stand alone, self regulating modality.
Two years ago, I joined a small group representing other stand alone, self regulating modalities such as the Asian Bodyworkers, Reflexology, Rolfing, and Alexander, to meet on a monthly basis to write a clear proposal to exempt ourselves from restrictive wording that might come up in the upcoming State Legislature. The bill to limit us never reached the legislative floor, so our exemption held by default. However, every legislative session, we face the same potential challenges of being regulated by others.
This Spring, the police department made a big push to be able to apprehend and curb prostitution and human traffickers through more stringent control of licensing requirements, testing and restrictive wording for those who use touch legally, For the first time, a massage therapy advisory board was selected by the State Department of Licensing and Regulation to help oversee wording changes in the legislation that would restrict illegal activity, but protect their profession (by far the largest group of bodyworkers in Texas). There was one person on the advisory board, who looked out for all the non massage, stand alone modalities such as Trager. Therefore, I thought it was a good idea to network again with other stand alone modalities, also looking out for themselves, by attending a meeting at the State Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) offices in Austin. I invited Jayne Belancio to come with me. We consulted Jim Noriega, who as USTA legislative representative, has monitored legislation around the country for years. He wrote us a wonderful letter explaining Trager as a stand alone profession, which was sent to the Executive Director, Brian Davis, before the meeting. I signed up to orally present the letter in the prescribed 3 minutes in front of the joint boards to give Trager “a voice” and a “face”. It was an exhilarating experience to do this in a public documented forum.
After the meeting , Jayne and I made an appointment to meet with Brian Francis, executive director of the TDLR to leave a deeper positive impression about The Trager Approach. Mr. Davis met us with a panel about 10 lawyers and state officials around a conference table. In our round table introductions, Jayne gave an inspiring account of her work in a holistic dental office to the point where someone said that could “feel” her work. They looked like they had just had a delicious meal. I followed up spontaneously with a stand up interactive experience of Mentastics; an impromptu “Trager for Daily Life”. This visibly deepened their appreciation, according to their feedback and turned out to be another heady experience for Jayne and myself.
I recently attended the State Board’s August meeting with a group of varied bodyworkers to monitor the lawyer’s report on the progress of the detailed changes in the current bills. Two major ones are requiring finger prints and photos for licenses. After the meeting adjourned, I got a hug of recognition from the executive director Brian Davis, who had been an athlete with plenty of injuries in his day. I took that as a sign that the Mentastics we presented at our meeting were still being recalled in a positive way. A couple of the Massage School owners on the Massage Therapy Advisory Board expressed an interest is presenting Trager in their schools in Texas. So, all in all, I encourage anyone to take advantage of opportunities such as these to enhance the public awareness and image of The Trager Approach, and have fun and satisfaction doing it.