The 15-Minute Revolution: How Chair Massage Took Over the World

Today's blog comes from our new Connected100 member, Adam Reeves of Reset Wellbeing, a mobile chair massage service for workplaces, conferences, events and organisations across Brighton, Sussex and beyond. In this blog, Adam traces the surprising history of chair massage, from its roots in Japan to its rise in Silicon Valley, and shares why after a career spanning journalism, documentary film and musical theatre production, he's returning to his massage practice to launch Reset.

They pop up most unlikely places: airports, comic conventions, film sets, shopping centres, music festivals, corporate offices, conferences. A person sits face-first in what looks like an oddly engineered bicycle saddle while a massage therapist silently performs a sequence of graceful, flowing movements. Performs being the key word; chair massage done properly has a theatrical element: a choreographed sequence of rhythmic movements, including percussive sound effects, that has an oddly hypnotic effect on the bystander as well as the recipient.

I first encountered chair massage in the late 1990s when, as a somewhat directionless twentysomething, I met one of the young entrepreneurs responsible for bringing the concept from California to the UK. I saw an opportunity and seized it, enrolling on a diploma course in Tui Na, traditional Chinese massage, followed by specialist training in chair massage. Within weeks of completing my training, I was buzzing around London offices as a mobile chair massage therapist, weaving between the worlds of publishing, fashion, music, finance and tech.

Summertime opened up a whole new set of possibilities: working at Glastonbury, the Big Chill, Bestival and a succession of other festivals, where fifteen minutes in a massage chair could be a surprisingly effective antidote to mud, noise and endless hours of standing up. One of my most memorable experiences was being in a line of massage chairs at a concert in Hyde Park as Shirley Bassey tore the place apart.

After moving to Brighton in the early 2000s, I trained in journalism and embarked on a circuitous path, taking in documentary film, indie comics publishing and now musical theatre production. Somewhere along the way, my massage practice quietly faded into the background.

Now, with a couple of creative projects ticking away in the background, I decided it might be time to wake up those old massage hands. This autumn, I'm launching Reset Wellbeing, a new mobile massage service for workplaces, conferences, events and organisations in Brighton, Sussex and beyond. Preparing to launch, I found myself wondering how such a seemingly simple idea as seated massage conquered the world, making therapeutic touch accessible to millions of people who might otherwise never have gone near a conventional massage couch. Chair massage isn't simply a smaller version of conventional massage. It was the end result of a soul-searching question: how to take massage to the people?

Modern Makeover For An Ancient Art

The answer to that question begins long before the first massage chair appeared in '80s California. Anma, a traditional Japanese form of massage, has roots stretching back more than a thousand years, with connections to the much earlier Chinese massage tradition, Tui Na. From the 17th century onwards, Anma became closely associated with Japan's blind community, as blind acupuncturist Sugiyama Waichi established schools teaching acupuncture and Anma, helping to create an established profession at a time when opportunities for blind people were severely restricted.

During the Allied occupation of Japan after the Second World War, Anma was among the traditional practices targeted for restriction. For blind practitioners who depended upon it for their livelihoods, the consequences were potentially devastating. On a visit to Japan, pioneering deaf-blind author and activist Helen Keller forged connections with the country's blind community and reportedly persuaded the US authorities to overturn the proposed ban, allowing Anma to continue unhindered.

The 15-Minute Reset

In the early 1980s, a young massage teacher, David Palmer (great name for a massage therapist!), was running the Amma Institute in San Francisco, the first school in the United States devoted exclusively to traditional Japanese massage, having inherited the directorship from his teacher, Takashi Nakamura. Massage therapy was still a relatively new profession in America, and few practitioners made a reliable living from it. Palmer was concerned that there weren't enough work opportunities for graduates of his school and began to think laterally. What if massage didn't have to happen in a treatment room? What if the therapist went to the client? And what if the treatment could be short enough to fit into the working day?

He and his students began experimenting with seated massage in workplaces and at events. Eventually, they evolved into the specialised, lightweight massage chairs now used worldwide.

In 1983, Palmer's team brought on-site massage to Apple Computers. The tech company became an early adopter and supporter, helping Palmer and his team refine a sequence that could be delivered efficiently within a working environment. The massage itself was designed around a simple proposition: fifteen minutes was enough. Short enough to fit into a working day; long enough for the body to let go. Crucially, there was no need for a temperature-regulated treatment room, oils, towels or a change of clothes. Chair massage suddenly propelled skilled therapeutic touch out of the clinic and into everyday life, making massage available to people who might never have considered booking a conventional massage treatment.

From Silicon Valley to the Workplace

The 1980s saw a massive change in workplace culture. It was the era of the 'yuppie' — the Young Upwardly Mobile Professional — with pay packets getting fatter as working weeks grew longer. The office became a place where people spent the majority of their waking lives and with that level of demand came a new phenomenon: 'burnout', as overworked high-flyers crashed and burned.

Enter on-site massage: an effective way for bosses to be seen to be doing at least something for their staff as they extracted their pound of flesh. But rather than simply floating off into Nirvana, bosses noticed that staff came back re-energised and ready to press ahead with the task at hand.

By the time the 1990s rolled around, seated massage was catching on across the pond. The first walk-in chair massage bars appeared in London in the early 2000s, and I was part of the team that launched RELAX, a stylish shop right in the heart of Theatreland where mesmerised passers-by gazed through the shop front window, their curiosity often getting the better of them. It was a great moment for chair massage in London and we all felt a part of something genuinely groundbreaking.

But there's nothing particularly esoteric about the chair massage success story. We now have a growing body of research into the effects of massage and therapeutic touch on stress, anxiety, pain and relaxation.

Looking after staff doesn't necessarily require a yoga studio, gym, or a company away-day involving blindfolded trust exercises. While it's far from the be-all-and-end-all, fifteen minutes away from the screen, relaxing in a massage chair, is as good a place as any to start making a difference, whether its fully or part-subsidised, or whether staff cover their own costs.

If you'd told me at the start of this year that I'd be relaunching my on-site massage practice, I wouldn't have taken you seriously. But as I started contemplating my next career move, I realised the answer had been staring me in the face. Connecting with great people all day, seeing the look on their faces as a more relaxed version of themselves steps out of the chair, it's a lovely way to make a living. It's the only work I've ever done whereby people express gratitude all day long.

Launching RESET feels like coming full circle for me, but this time it's an older, and hopefully wiser, version of myself taking it forward. It's a completely different business landscape in Brighton and Hove than it was 20 years ago, exactly the kind of place I'd want to be starting again: full of friendly, forward-thinking businesses led by people who want to make a difference in the world. After a rather long journey, it feels good to be back.

To find out more about Reset Wellbeing, connect with Adam on LinkedIn, or follow his brand new Instagram account. If your workplace, event or conference could benefit from on-site chair massage, Adam would love to hear from you.