David Lobenstine
David Lobenstine
BA, LMT, BCTMB
Nearly twenty years in, I still can’t quite articulate why and how I fell in love with massage. I was living in New York City, recently graduated with an English degree from Vassar College, and training to become an acquisitions editor at Harvard University Press. My days were easy and intellectually stimulating and… not enough.
I felt a longing, inchoate but persistent, for something that would enable me to work with mind and body and spirit at the same time. At a whim I attended an info session at the Swedish Institute, and that longing found a home. In 2005, after more than a thousand hours of study, I received my associates degree in massage therapy. Early in my career I threw myself at every opportunity. I worked at a wellness center, a chiropractor’s office, the US Open Tennis Tournament, a hospice, and more spas than I can count. Gradually I narrowed my commitments and grew my own private practice, Full Breath Massage
Along the way, in 2006, I took Carole’s 32-hour Pre- and Perinatal Massage Therapy workshop, taught by Linda Hickey. Linda’s charming Canadian accent and endless enthusiasm altered the course of my career. I had been curious about pregnancy massage, but after the four days of the workshop, I asked Linda if she needed an assistant for the next time she taught the course.
I started to assist both Carole and Linda, and then did the research for the second edition of Carole’s Pre- and Perinatal Massage Therapy, and eventually became an authorized instructor of the accompanying workshops. Meanwhile, I started developing my own continuing education courses, and now teach them at schools and conventions around the country. I also create streaming/home study CE courses, at Body Brain Breath Continuing Education.
In 2018, Carole’s work altered the course of my career once again, when she asked me to be a co-author of the third edition of Pre- and Perinatal Massage Therapy. She and Michele Holland and I updated and recreated this comprehensive guide, which was marvelously published by Handspring Limited in February of 2021. I am humbled and thrilled to work with this fabulous cohort of teachers, and to get to do this wonderful work.
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