I think that curiosity and the desire to know must always accompany the existence of a man and that therefore knowing the past helps us to understand the present and prepare us for the future.
Four years ago when I started studying how to best realize my wooden instruments for the practice of Maderoterapia Manuel Casado® Method I started to research and I discovered something really curious ... .. THE HISTORY OF THE BIRTH OF PROTOTYPES modern rollers.
I saw a curious 1920s roll in a shop in Belgium and then bought it immediately to be able to look at it from life and to discover its history.
Later I bought a second, in a shop in England and the following is what I discovered.
In 1920 the PUNKT ROLLERS of the mark "Mark on the Brow" were born in Germany and were proposed as self-massage rollers. As you can see from the photos there were various models all with wooden handles: some had a central body made up of 4 or 3 rubber sections that had small holes in which interchangeable suction cups were placed, which had the function of creating a vacuum and set out to break up adipocytes and bring back fat into the bloodstream; others had knurled spheres in the central part and others were smaller and only two lateral sections.
THE ORIGINS OF THE MADEROTHERAPY MASSAGE ® MANUEL CASADO METHOD
In the advertisements of the time they promised miraculous toning results for men and women; achieving a perfect physical shape and even a cure for rheumatism, lumbago, gout, neuritis and all related diseases. Their use was also recommended to models to achieve the desired thinness.
The Punkt Rollers could be found in almost all stores: from Harrods, in grocery stores, in pharmacies and in Boots stores and they had a great success and as you can see from the attached posters there was a real marketing operation with lots of explanatory images on self-massage maneuvers.
Over the years, around 1940, other companies started producing tools, sometimes very imaginative, to massage and lose weight. In addition to the Punkt-Roller from Germany, the Knead-Away (left), was produced by Sears Roebuck and presented as "the scientific way to remove fat, " and the "Redusaway" (right), which when connected to the current vibrates and blows hot air (cit. Roger Collier)
THE ORIGINS OF THE MADEROTERAPIA® MASSAGE METHOD MANUEL CASADO
The life of these tools was actually relatively short and their use lost, but in my opinion this was mainly due to two reasons. They were meant for self-massage and therefore there was no good manual technique at the base of the treatment, a fundamental element for the success of any massage technique that uses instruments as adjuvants to the treatment, and secondly they were made with unsuitable material (gum).
During a period in which I lived in Costa Rica I also learned that in the nineties a massage technique was used in South America using wooden rollers similar to those of 1920s Germany. I decided to apply the basic mechanics of the ancient rollers, to the philosophy of the TAOGARDEN school which uses only natural elements, such as stones, wood, bamboo, organic oils and therefore to create rollers with completely natural and unpainted wood elements to which I have applied exclusive structural modifications to allow manual skills otherwise not possible (for example asymmetrical handles).
The "wood" element in contact with the body transmits harmonic vibrations that tend to create obvious benefits for the body and the mind and restore energy balance. From my experience as a researcher and operator of holistic massage, I am convinced that the current instruments made of wood, a natural material, combined with an excellent manual massage technique represent the winning formula and destined to last over time, unlike their predecessors.
source: //www.taogarden.it/index.php/it/blog/82-l-origine-del-massaggio-maderoterapia
Manuel Casado Pulido
