Karin Kiteley, LMT of Infinity Healing Arts: Master In The Craft of Healing Touch

Karin is a single mother of two beautiful children living in the Rogue Valley for 8 years. She spends time as a freelance graphic designer, art model, artist, and dancer. She loves hiking and just being out in nature. Her practice in yoga, meditation, and Qi Gong are her regular sources for vitality. These interests feed her practice as a body worker and bring light to each client that she works with.

How did you come up with your business name Infinity?
Ever since the beginning of my practice, more often than not, people reach deep relaxation and drop into a lucid dream or meditative state, a state in which the body’s essence is supported to rejuvenate and heal, a state of timelessness, of infinity.

How did you get started with doing bodywork?
I have been in this field for 15 years. I was compelled originally by doing foot massages for my co-workers while working in Antarctica.

You lived in Antarctica?
Yes, I worked for two seasons at McMurdo Station, hired on as the “first vegetarian cook of Antarctica.” Myself and five others on each shift cooked for 200 scientists and approximately 800 support staff. It was at the time when they were transitioning from Naval support to a civilian staff on the science base, so there were many people requesting more vegetarian style cooking. It was a radical experience and exciting time in my life.

Wow that’s amazing, so where did you go from there?
My first formal training started in San Francisco at the Shiatsu Institute and then I found the Breema center in Oakland. My licensure training was at the BodyMind Academy in Bellevue, Washington, where I continued Shiatsu training as well. My on-going training takes place at the Breema Center annually.

Please tell me about your practice and what makes it unique?
I am a hands (and/or feet) on healer, offering various modalities to help clients come into body-awareness, offering a centering and general grounded sense of well-being so that they can then release the focus on their symptoms and embrace the vitality of their whole being. This, I believe, is essential for healing.

What kind of modalities do you offer?
This is my blend of hands/feet-on healing. Aside from the more well-known Deep Tissue and Swedish massage, I also offer Breema: bodywork that is based on principals such as Body Comfortable, Mutual Support, No Force, Gentleness and Firmness. Loose clothing is worn and clients receive Breema on a floor mat– though Breema is always present as a base understanding during any of my sessions. In appearance it is similar to Thai Massage but the focus is different. It is like a dance, as I move through the form, I keep an awareness of my comfort at all times, the energetics of the practice inevitably creating comfort and deep relaxation for the recipient. It is a complete experience of whole-body vitality, a non diagnostic, non judgmental practice, keeping in mind whatever the particular ailments or symptoms are for each client. Reflexology is embedded into all of my work as well. Acutonics, use of tuning forks on points of the meridian system that work to bring the body into balance, and Shiatsu/Japanese acupressure: based on the same meridian system as studied in Chinese Medicine.

What is so alluring about Chinese Medicine?
Chinese medicine has a sense of Chi. Chi, or Ki in Shiatsu terminology, is vital force, and when blockage comes due to something like muscle tension or organ imbalance, then the flow of Chi is impaired.

Why have you chosen this as a career?
I am a practitioner of yoga and meditation and when I come into my own body flow of deep breathing and body-centered awareness, I feel healthier and there is a level of tension that disappears. My belief is that stress in our society is cause for depression, asthma, carpal tunnel syndrome, cancer, fibro myalgia, and many other diseases. Helping others to release dis-ease is my passion. I see people come into my studio with various descriptions of pain and discomfort. They walk out lighter and in touch with themselves in a way that even they find surprising.

What is it about you that pulls you into this direction as a practitioner?
The work that I do is treatment-oriented with a general perspective that the fullest treatment embraces the vital nature of the whole being. It allows the body to breath with ease while making space for healing. This level of healing, I feel, can help to facilitate the unwinding from the bondage of relating to the dis-ease.

For our conclusion to this interview, is there anything else you would like to share about who you are?
I have also co-produced two multidimensional dance and performance-art shows called Decadance, and Decadance 2, The Invocation of Pan, here in Ashland. People came in full regalia to enjoy a radical night of art, burlesque performance art, and DJ sets.

What secret element in your life work can you share with us?
Smiling and laughter are wonderful medicines. To release the diaphragm through laughter, and the small muscles of the face and head with simply a smile, help the body to breathe easier, nourishing the whole body system with fresh oxygen and essential Chi, and invite the mind into the present moment so that vital force is available for a true and deep sense well-being.

To contact:
Karin Kiteley, LMT #9377,
call 541-482-4188, or visit her website at: www.dropintoinfinity.com

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