Joanna Cashman

Massage Testimonials

 

Great concentration, sensitive hands, good pressure. Joanna provides nice, slow, long strokes, balanced with deep focused attention to detail on trigger points and problem areas. Great job, a real pro.
Wayne Johnson LMP
__________________________
Right away Joanna made me feel at ease with her wonderful presence and calm, confident demeanor. She had a treatment plan designed specifically for me and she explained it well. A+ Her experience working with people's physical and emotional needs is obvious. I feel so great right now.
Shera Schniter.
__________________________
The Acutonics work Joanna does on my insomnia points help me sleep through the night. The neuropathy in my feet is getting better each time she treats them with her tuning forks. After chemotherapy Joanna works on my kidney, liver and spleen points. I can sense the positive effects immediately. I feel less sluggish with more energy. Thank You!
Nancy Roberts
__________________________
After the massage I received from Joanna, I felt peaceful, relaxed, and warm. Several things stand out: her sense of respect, even reverence, for our human architecture, her depth of knowledge which integrates not only physical anatomy but the psychological and spiritual interconnections with physical symptoms, and her gracious presence.
Joanna used sound as therapy, Acutonics® tuning forks on vulnerable areas. In the past I have had muscle spasms after massage or physical therapy because the manipulations were too aggressive. Sound was a lovely, and effective, way of releasing tension. I came away thinking that sound is much underused therapeutically.
She provided education as she worked, and I am able to use that information in my daily self-care. I left the session with increased awareness of my body as an integrated system, and this time that awareness was joyful rather than the other attitudes that show up in response to my chronic musculoskeletal patterns. Thank you Joanna!
C.D. Psychotherapist
__________________________
Recently I had a therapeutic massage from Joanna Cashman. I have taken yoga classes with Joanna this past year and have found her to be a very healing presence. She articulates her deep knowledge of the body/mind/spirit with variety, humor, humility and an ability to laugh at herself. I think of her as my "yoga mama." My one massage with her was quite remarkable (I have had a few hundred in my life). It was a very comforting massage, and there was one unexpected result. My wrist had been quite sore for a few weeks from teaching and playing tennis. Nothing seemed to help. Joanna recognized that the inflamed area on my wrist was a grief point, as well. She worked on my chest and elicited some grief from me around my sister's death earlier in the year. The next day my wrist was pain free and the relief continues. I was very pleasantly surprised. I highly recommend Joanna as a massage practitioner and yoga instructor, she is a healer extraordinaire.
Jody Rush
Tennis Professional (Pacific Northwest Tennis Association Hall of Fame Inductee 2011)​
________________________________
Joanna focused on my areas of concern. She did great work on my QL, piriformis and legs. Good communication, sensitive adjustment of pressure, highly professional. I felt confident of her ability.
Charlotte Rock
_______________________________
I am an avid cyclist but riding so much was distorting my shoulder alignment and I had neck pain after long rides. Joanna assessed my postural alignment and treated me with deep tissue bodywork and taught me yoga stretches to help me recover from cycling. My posture has improved and I am now pain free. Great individualized work!
Adam Tate
_______________________________
Dear Joanna,
I haven't felt such ease in my hips for several years. Thank you so much for your adept, intelligent, compassionate and healing massage.
Blessings to you,
Carol Z.
_________________________________
Dear Joanna
I just wanted you to know that the classes and teacher training you shared with me
have taken me way beyond where I thought it would. They have helped me cultivate better communication, creative flowing movement, continued ease in muscle use​
and a constant reminder of how strong I can be from the inside out.
Blessings on your journey,
Dusty Yao
______________________________

 

Yoga, Dance, Neurodevelopmental Movement Testimonials

 

I am writing to think you for the fabulous array of services that Radiant Health Wellness offers the community. Your yoga classes come in a great variety of choices tailored too many different needs: from gentle yoga for folks with back problems or need for gentle workouts, to yoga for enhancing cardiovascular capacity with heavy duty sequences. I have participated for the last two years in a variety of classes and despite my extensive experience teaching movement I never cease to learn something new about yoga and the relationship between the body, meditation and healing. What also has been worthy of mention is your reverence and respect for the tradition of beliefs and discipline from where yoga derives. A truly respectful awareness of the tradition has been the centerpiece of your teaching method. I also appreciate enormously the seriousness and respect you bring to the classes without losing a sense of humor. Your experience as a registered nurse and as someone always current with the latest research associate id with yoga has added to the class is an element of trust and reliability as well as professional demeanor. The other members of the faculty have proved your preparation and professionalism as well.
On top of the great variety and success of your classes, you also have consistently organize Master Classes and short courses by teachers from many different backgrounds, healing practices and Yoga traditions, making your center veritable resource for the community.
Thank you so much for your wonderful work.
Ariel Goldberger
Faculty - The Evergreen State College / Com 301​
__________________________
Our recent private session for my sciatica has been proving very helpful. I've been doing the suggested activities every day along with the inversion table and some other exercises recommended by my chiropractor. I feel as if my body is beginning to stretch out, strengthen and realign itself.
Thank You
James Kozick
__________________________

Michaela's Song
There is no other way to say this: Joanna's is work with Michaela has permanently altered her life in such a significant way. Let me explain: at age three and a half Michaela still ran only with her legs, her arms held rigidly at her side. Doctors had belittled our concerns and said not to worry. When we pursued further evaluation, we discovered that her brain had difficulty processing sensory information. They told us it was called "sensory integration dysfunction". This midbrain difficulty manifested itself in many ways. Besides her difficulty in large motor activities, balance, climbing, and running, she had great difficulty sleeping and riding in a car without getting sick from the motion. She woke every two hours and simply could not put herself to sleep. She was afraid to go on playground equipment without one of us holding her hand. She has many injurious falls because she didn't put her hands out to stop herself from falling. These concerns and others lead us to find an alternative that could help her manage her body.
Joanna Cashman agreed to work with Michaela on neuro-developmental integration. Her integrative work included developmental movement sequences. Michaela had never crawled and immediately went to walking. Movement exercises were offered in a specific sequence to stimulate brain activity in midbrain functions.
I simply cannot express an emotion that adequately conveys the gifts that Joanna's work has been in all of our lives. Joanna listened and offered a form of therapy that has changed Michaela's life and ours forever. We still do the exercises. Now Michaela intuitively chooses the movements that she needs in everyday life and play. For example, before she begins to write, she does exercises that help her with "crossing the midline". She says that this helps her with her work. Amazing. Joanna's fingerprint in Michaela's development and growth remain and always will. Thank You Joanna
Warmly,
Claire McGibbon
__________________________

I so appreciate Joanna's experience, her respectful instruction and her ability to keep classes updated and fresh. I've attended her classes for more than 10 years and learn something new during each session.
Thank You so much.
Catherine Rucker
__________________________

Dear Joanna,
I just want to let you know that this spring marks my 10th year of yoga with you! You were my first ever yoga teacher in my life, and after I had other teachers I realized how fortunate I was to have first experienced/discovered yoga with you. I was just turning fifty and getting a bit rusty in my joints. Something inside me said to do something about this age related stiffness I was experiencing. I did not want to be one of those old ladies backing out of the driveway without being able to turn my head.
I am convinced that due to my yoga practice I have retained a lot of flexibility that would have been lost otherwise. I had a shoulder surgery and within months I was back to 90% use of its use. My Orthopedic doctor was pleasantly surprised! Lower back pain has become much more endurable with some form of daily yoga stretches. No matter where I am, sitting on an airplane in front of the computer I know how to relieve the pain that those activities can cause. Not only has my body thanked me for the practice, my mind has learned a lot as well, especially about how to stay grounded in the present moment.
Thank you so much for all that you have taught me! I hope I will be able to enjoy my yoga with you for many years to come.
Namaste
Marianne Hopile
__________________________

I am enjoying and definitely benefiting from your outreach yoga classes given at Saint Peter's Hospital. After being diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my left knee, I found this class offered and have not missed a class in months. I am now taking less pain dedication and my flexibility and muscle tone is not only returning but is better that it has been in years. My goal is no pain medication and being able to use the stairs again without favoring my left side. I am already beginning to notice the improvement there.
Thank you so much for offering these classes, as it is at a time and place that suits my work schedule and pocketbook.
Janice Long
__________________________

Joanna Cashman has created a sacred space at Radiant Health Wellness. It has become the Matrix of the yogic spiritual community in Olympia.
The practice is taught in a setting that is deeply spiritual, yet ecumenical, honoring each person's unique spiritual unfurling. There is no dogma here for any to quarrel with; only a spirit of joy, diversity, and harmony.
There is a delicate balance of music, dance, and yoga built on a sound scaffolding of neuro-developmental principles and medical science artfully woven into the ancient yoga of India. The teacher training is very eclectic, thus I was exposed to many ideas that were new to me.​
One of the most precious experiences was learning a bit about a great lady of Saint of India; Amritanandamayi. She is the Matron Saint of Radiant Health Wellness. Her benevolent grace watches over us form several photographs. Because women has been marginalized in spiritually in many traditions, including my own childhood of tradition of Catholicism, the balance of Amma's presence at Radiant Health Wellness was profoundly healing for me.
Thank You
Namaste
Cat.
__________________________

Late Tuesday afternoon. I'm tired and in a dark mood because of the day's events. I arrive at the Radiant Health Wellness studio for the class, and as I walk down the hall to the studio entrance, something begins to shift. My body and spirit already anticipate what's ahead, and indeed, when I emerge and hour and half later, I am relaxed, smiling, and reinvigorated. I've been a student of Joanna's for 13 years now. My body move more fluidly, and I regularly incorporate yoga poses and movements sequences into my daily life. I keep coming back to her Gentle Yoga class in particular for its depth within simplicity.
I find myself deeply nourished by Joanna's work in many dimensions. I'm an amateur musician and an avid dancer. I've always been moved by the way Joanna's background in the arts, particularly dance, informs the whole inner shape of her teaching. I'm caught up in an aesthetic experience when she leads a class, as if yoga were translated into a simple and eloquent dance, and it's a dance spiced with humor and eased by Joanna's bright and gentle concern for our welfare.
I've spent many years as a trainer in mediation and communication skills, and I noticed the nuances of other trainers work. I would give Joanna an A+. She does a very thorough job of introducing us to each pose or flow sequence, paying a lot of attention to small details. Often she uses imagery, a powerful way to convey this information. I carry her teachings into other classes, such as the regular group workouts I participate in, and I must say I haven't found anyone else whose coaching is this thorough and thoughtful, all the while framing it in a relaxed and friendly manner.
All this is built on a powerful foundation, Joanna's more than twenty years of training in the healing arts. She weaves a beautiful tapestry for her students to promote their health, drawing upon nursing, kinesiology, neuro-developmental movement, contemporary dance and advanced studies in yoga.
The spiritual quality of her work is "Work is love made visible."
Thank You
Judy Olmstead PhD.



​