Meet Keo Opton, M. Ed., Licenced Massage Therapist and
Watsu Practitioner, Gainesville, FL
'I have you scheduled in my contact manager for a call.' Keo (Kathryne E.) Opton has a talent for effective networking. Last year, I was honored to be included in her call list for long-distance chats about anything related to our shared passion for aquatic bodywork based on Watsu.
While I do most of my networking in cyberspace from a little cabin in a forest in midwest US at present, Keo is out-and-about in North Central Florida and beyond, 'harvesting and creating and planting joy in my life every day, loving people and being in service to myself, my fiancé, family and community'.
Her commitment to community work is clear; she has served on Boards for the Gainesville Area Women's Network and the FL State Massage Therapy Association. Keo is the coordinator for the FSMTA Chair Massage Team in her area, and notes that she's affectionately referred to as the 'Chair Chair'.
'Watsunami' Keo has the kind of energy that could never be chair- or desk-bound for long. She was once an amateur bodybuilder. It was her own injuries as a competitive athlete that started her on the aquatic healing path. In her first Watsu session, she knew without a doubt: 'I wanted to do this work'.
Back then, Keo says: 'I was suicidal and couldn’t find a way out of the imbalance in my life. I was over trained and had fractured my hand after winning a national title. I couldn't rain and gained 50 pounds and became clinically depressed.' She doesn't hesitate to say that Watsu turned her life around.
In addition to being a licensed massage therapist, Keo has been a registered Watsu practitioner since 1998. She is also a Watsu assistant instructor. As a continuing education provider for the National Certifying Board of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB) and the state of Florida, she offers a 2-4 hour Introduction or Basic Watsu experience.
With characteristic humility and enthusiasm, Keo says, regards her plans for further training: 'I am progressing very slowly through instructor training. I enjoy teaching the introductions to Watsu to inspire others to learn from teachers I love; I would like to take more classes and improve all of my skills.'
Keo has maintained her certification through the National Academy of Sports Medicine as a personal trainer and she often prescribes exercise for all her clients and patients. She says: 'I am a surf and turf bodyworker!' Her personal journey in seeking relief for chronic pain gives her an insider's appreciation of just what that takes.
Her self-healing journey has been a process of trial-and-error; the answers haven't always been what she expected. Though she loves receiving massage, she finally had to admit to herself that it offered only short-term relief. Certainly, working in the water herself has been helpful since it relieves the effects of gravity.
Through the detailed approach of Paul St. John, who developed Integrative Neurosomatic Therapy, in December of 2009 Keo discovered a leg length discrepancy that seems to have been the ultimate source of her body pain. Her foot prothotic has provided immediate and ongoing relief from pain.
Following the trail of her own healing, and then sharing that insight and experience, is probably more key to the power of Keo's healing work than she gives credence. She's been excited to find that St. John is patenting a hydrotable for massage on a table, in the water, and says:
'Some day I will no longer be a surf and turf body worker. I will be surf and surf: aquatic body work/ massage and Watsu.'
Watsu in practice
Keo's credentials enable her to accept Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance for her Watsu sessions. Currently, she rents a saline pool at Fit for Life Physical Therapy. The pool is 9 x 12 ft, heated to 94 degrees. Designed specifically for aquatic therapy and rehabilitation, she is grateful for the space and offers complimentary sessions for all those on staff at the clinic.
Like many in her position, she'd love more hours of access to the pool. She says: 'I wish I could offer more complimentary sessions!' Low light and more privacy for her sessions would also be ideal. So Keo looks forward to building her own pool: 'I want to win Publisher's Clearinghouse so I can build a teaching and resource center here in Gatorville'.
Aside: The Aquatic Therapy University (ATU) sponsors the training course 'How to build and profit from your own aquatic facility' in the US. Go here to see more.
When asked to describe her aquatic practice in one sentence, Keo wrote: 'I float people in my arms using a gentle sequence of movements and holds, called Watsu, as I am bringing their bodies into a deep state of relaxation.'
The most useful thing she learned in training was 'To listen with my whole being'. The most valuable thing learned in practice was : 'That I am not ‘doing’ anything to anyone. That I am a facilitator and a guide'. She says 'Slowing down and finding my breath and my client's breath' is key to the effectiveness of her work.
With her drive to succeed, it's not surprising that in response to the question 'What were your most challenging lessons in [aquatics] training and practice?', Keo said: 'I needed to learn to stop making myself 'wrong' if I didn't 'get it' right away. I needed to learn to accept the moment and present for what it is. It just is.'
Until recently, Keo worked as a massage therapist in a rural, federally funded hospital at a Family Clinic run by Dr Dale Block who has been very supportive of alternative and preventive health practices such as massage and Watsu. She believes it is important to build credibility for Watsu in healthcare settings.
Watsu research
For several years, Keo has been endeavoring to collaborate with others in securing a grant to do a pilot study on Watsu that she hopes will lead to funding for more research. In fact I met her through the AquaticNet Social Network, where we are seeking to share ideas about this, and more, with aquatic colleagues.
Keo presented Watsu at NIH's Office of Cancer and Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) conference in 2007 with Dr Bruce Becker, and has been networking actively since then with the allopathic and alternative allied healthcare practitioners in the Gainesville, FL, area where she lives.
Her attempts to reach the oncology community in Gainesville met with limited success at first but her friendly, consistent networking enabled her recently to complete a circle of potentially very good contacts from Keo to a breast cancer survivor to doctor to oncology expert and back to Keo.
She has for some time been offering free Watsu sessions to people facing cancer in her local community. She wants to extend this kind of outreach to end-of-life care; and is also affiliated with a local Birth Center where she offers massage. Keo hopes her connection with local acupuncturists will be valuable too.
I think Keo is modelling just what is possible through passion for your work and networking. She feels strongly that Watsu 'deserves recognition as a valid clinical modality to the world and that we need to design a methodology to do this'.
Regards research, she says: 'I believe if we train practitioners how to use research protocols, or at least inform them and teach them to allow outside data collection from like-minded trained research practitioners, we will be able to collect evidence-based medical information that will substantiate the modality.'
'There are certainly more quality of life scales and case study information that could lead to publishing in realms other than our own crunchy granola newsletters.... I believe we all need to work together and contribute to a longitudinal and/or cross-sectional study as we all weave our data together.'
Hopefully, with time and funding, clinical research will continue to progress; especially since aquatic physical therapists have seen the value of Watsu, and some incorporate it enthusiastically in their work. To be involved in this arena, like Keo, you'd need to develop strong clinical allies however.
Even if you are not currently part of a 'large grant-funded collaborative research study', I believe it's valuable to trust in your own experiences of this work, and to keep anecdotal records (accounts in your own words and those of your clients) of your sessions. (Read more here.)
Keo wrote me: 'I've created more play time for myself than journal time, so I have no pages to share. I always wanted to share my story, and believe I do this by staying on the path of Watsu education for myself and offering introductions for others.'
In fact, Keo - like all practitioners who are passionate about what they do - does have some wonderful stories to tell. Four are hinted at here in some anecdotes gleaned from the draft of a recent article she put together for Massage Message (the official publication of the FL State Massage Therapy Assoc. due to be published this spring):
I watched my own little brother almost drown when I was 6. Paralyzed by fear, I never forgot this as I matured. I didn't learn how to swim until I was 22! There had been a traumatic experience in the water for me for certain, and Watsu helped me to come to terms with it.
I watsued with my own mother when I was 37. We both agreed we had not bonded at my birth, and that the Watsu helped us to do this. It was an incredible gift to share this with her!
The most profound experience I have ever had offering a session was as I cradled a client who was paralyzed on one side of his body. At one point during the session, I noticed that the color of his cheeks and face were becoming quite rosy and red. I gently lifted his head so he could hear my voice and I asked him if he was OK. He said yes, and that he ‘felt like a sacred being’ for the first time in his life.
I opened my eyes after my first session [from Beth Imhoff at Healing Waters, Newton, MA,in 1997] and looked at my practitioner. The first words out of my mouth weren't thank you! I asked a question. Those who know me would smile….for I am the one who always asks why. This time I didn't. I simply asked "Where do I go to learn how to do this?"
I watsued with my own mother when I was 37. We both agreed we had not bonded at my birth, and that the Watsu helped us to do this. It was an incredible gift to share this with her!
The most profound experience I have ever had offering a session was as I cradled a client who was paralyzed on one side of his body. At one point during the session, I noticed that the color of his cheeks and face were becoming quite rosy and red. I gently lifted his head so he could hear my voice and I asked him if he was OK. He said yes, and that he ‘felt like a sacred being’ for the first time in his life.
I opened my eyes after my first session [from Beth Imhoff at Healing Waters, Newton, MA,in 1997] and looked at my practitioner. The first words out of my mouth weren't thank you! I asked a question. Those who know me would smile….for I am the one who always asks why. This time I didn't. I simply asked "Where do I go to learn how to do this?"
Obviously, Keo found out and went!
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Please feel welcome to contact Keo Opton (details below). Also you might like to join us on the AquaticNing (membership is free) as we continue to share ideas and support each other in a forum that serves both clinical and aquatic practitioners. Let us know your thoughts about this post below also.
Kathryne E. "Keo" Opton
Website: www.starwaterwatsu.com
Profile on AquaticTherapistNing
Email :Keo@starwaterwatsu.com
Telephone: 352.870.9800
*If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I think that the scientific/ clinical focus is important but that it is inevitably limited in ways not often discussed. There are beneficial aspects of aquatic bodywork that science doesn't recognize and can't study. You can read more about this here.
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Other Aquatic healers profiled on Aquapoetics:
Compassion through action: Susun Wilmot
Personal transformation on the aquatic healing path: Tara Anstensen
The Yin and Yang of aquatic bodywork: Kim Chamberlain
If you are an aquatic bodyworker and are interested in being profiled here too - see this page for more information.
