ANNETTE STIFF SOOTHES ACHES AND PAINS

Stiff practices Swedish massage, which uses various hand motions to manipulate the blood flow.

Annette Stiff is anything but as she massages customers' aching muscles.

People fondly tease the massage therapist about her name, but the Tamms, Ill., woman has been massaging people from head to toe for five years now with Professional & Therapeutic Massage Services at Universal Physique fitness center. She is one of two massage therapists there.

Stiff will demonstrate massage techniques at 6 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Cape Girardeau.

The bookstore regularly brings in artists and musicians, but on the surface a bookstore and massage therapy seem to have little in common.

What Barnes & Noble has are a number of books on massage. "The only connection we need to have is a connection to books," said the bookstore's Krista Schafer.

Barnes & Noble, she said, offers cultural experiences. "It is a place to come and relax and learn."

Stiff was teaching aerobics and working as a fitness trainer when she decided to try her hand at massage therapy.

"It was just part of being healthy," she said.

She still teaches aerobics when she isn't giving massages.

With her blonde hair and model's figure, Stiff doesn't look like the husky masseuses named Olga in old movies. But beneath the All-American looks is plenty of muscle.

"You need to be strong," said Stiff.

"Really, your whole body needs to be strong. I am moving the whole time," she said.

A good massage, she said, involves more their your hands. "You move with your whole body. It is almost like a dance."

Stiff uses her hands and sometimes even her elbows to massage tight and sore muscles.

The customers aren't the only ones who enjoy the massages. Stiff finds it relaxing to give massages.

She said there are any number of massage techniques. Stiff gives Swedish massages. "It is a real common one," she said.

A massage therapist isn't a doctor, doctors do refer patients to her.

"We don't diagnose or treat. We just try to make you feel good," she said.

Mankind has practiced massage since ancient times. Greek and Roman doctors used massage to help heal patients and relieve pain.

In the fifth century B.C., Hippocrates, the father of medicine, wrote: "The physician must be experienced in many things, but assuredly in rubbing....For rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose and loosen a joint that is too rigid."

Pliny, the renowned Roman naturalist, was regularly rubbed to relieve his asthma. In 1813, a college in Stockholm was the first to offer massage as part of the curriculum.

Stiff said the legitimate practice of massage suffers from negative stereotypes that once associated it with prostitution and sleazy massage parlors.

First-time clients sometimes are uneasy about lying on a massage table, draped only in a sheet, she said, but the uneasiness ends almost as soon as the massage begins.

Massage is good for children and adults. It is good for the elderly and for pregnant women, she said.

"It is just really good for everyone."

Professional & Therapeutic Massage Services offers everything from a 15-minute massage to a full-hour session.

The cost ranges from $12 for a 15-minute session to $40 for a full hour.

A 15-minute session generally focuses on just a few areas, such as the neck and shoulders.

The half-hour session involves a massage of the back side. The hour session involves a massage of the whole body.