Don’t be guided by a client’s demands for different types of pressure to be used on them in massage.

Instead, listen to what your hands and fingers tell you about what your client’s body needs.

Take, for instance, a client who asks for hard pressure.

And take for example, when you are massaging that client’s lower back.

Do the muscles warm, soften and release when you massage them gently or when you massage them with hard pressure?

If the muscles release when you massage them gently, then your client needs gentle pressure, even if they ask for hard.

If they relax when you use hard pressure, then, yes, your client needs hard pressure.

A client who asks for hard pressure when their body responds to gentle pressure may reveal a client who has experienced a lot of emotional pain in their life and in order to escape this pain has begun to live more in their head and less in their body, making them less sensitive to gentle touch, even if gentle touch is the right touch for them.

So, the rule for pressure in massage is: be guided by what your hands tell you.