We had the good fortune of connecting with Heather Karr Johnson and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Heather Karr, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
As a massage therapist I worked on a lot of people with VERY tight muscles and found that doing deep trigger point work was very painful to my hands and thumbs. I wanted my clients to benefit from the good deep work, but also wanted to protect my hands. I tried using a golf ball and although a golf ball is perfectly shaped for smoothly and deeply massaging hard-to-reach muscles, it was damaging to the palm of my hand when pushing deeply. I wanted a way to push the ball deeply into muscles but also disperse the pressure of the hard golf ball in my palm, yet still be small enough to allow my hands to glide on the client’s skin so it doesn’t feel like a tool is being used on them. I made the first SPABALL Massager prototype in my kitchen from a mound of Sculptey clay. After many modifications, not only did my unique design protect my hands, it made the ball more controllable, and allowed me to remain “in-touch” with the client. This enabled me to perform many deep massages with trigger-point work without injuring my thumbs, a common injury for therapists.
I proceeded to get it patented and manufactured in the USA … and now they sell all over the world.
Read on at shoutoutarizona.com
