Heather Black is a licensed massage therapist (LMT) in Tacoma, Washington. She has completed over 1100 hours of massage training at one of the top schools in the country, the Boulder College of Massage in Colorado. Her training was in Zen Shiatsu, Swedish, Normalization of Soft Tissue (Deep Tissue & Trigger Point Therapy) and Integrative Massage. She completed her training in 2002.

She became interested in massage when she was at a crossroads in life. She would joke that she wanted to massage dogs for a living. Then one day someone told her that there was a school that taught that. A short time later she decided to check out the school and realized she was interested in helping people with their healing journey.

Yes, she did learn how to massage dogs, as well as horses. Although she had a healthy respect (and maybe a little fear) of horses, she admits that animals taught her a lot with how to work with people. Animals can't speak words, but they most certainly communicate what they like and don't like with their actions. Many times people won't communicate verbally, so it's important to feel what the body is trying to say.

Heather recently completed her training in Manual Lymphatic Drainage & Combined Decongestive Therapy at the Dr. Vodder School International in Victoria, British Columbia. Through this vigorous and intense training, she learned to help people with lymphedema due to surgery, injury, and/or damage to the lymphatic system. And also how to help with wound healing due to injury, surgery and venous insufficiency.

She is excited to implement what she has learned through the Kinesio Taping Association International. Kinesio Tape® is a great tool to help people heal more quickly from their injuries, surgeries and/or lymphedema. It can also help decrease pain and provide support to muscles.

Heather uses a blend of all the techniques she has learned and tailors each massage to her client's needs. She asks just enough questions to make sure her client's massage meets their goals. She gives added value to her clients by providing stretches and/or self-massage techniques to help her clients to help themselves between massage appointments.

She has suffered with chronic pain due to a car accident she was in when she was 18 years old. She knows what it feels like to be in pain and be dependent on others to help. That is why she enjoys helping people feel better and empowering them with tools to help themselves. She enjoys learning new things to pass along to her clients to help them manage discomfort and pain.

During her time off, she enjoys hiking, yoga, cooking and movies.