Episode 139: Marty Fry – Bringing Movement and Breathing into Practice

Massage therapists spend much of their training learning what to do at the treatment table. Our clients, however, spend almost all their time elsewhere.

That gap helped shape the work of remedial massage therapist, movement trainer and educator Marty Fry. His interest in movement did not begin with a formal method or a desire to add another title to his name. It grew from his early experience as an athlete, the physical demands of building a massage practice and a growing curiosity about what therapists can learn by watching people move.

In Episode 139 of the Folding Towels Podcast, Marty speaks with David about bringing movement and breathing into clinical practice. Their conversation covers observation, normal variation, practitioner self-care, scope of practice, referral and the value of beginning with simple, useful ideas.

The coach who planted the seed

Marty first experienced massage when he was about 14. He was involved in representative football programs but had been told that his speed needed work, so his father connected him with a respected local running coach.

The coach helped Marty with his running technique, but it was his ability to observe athletes that left the stronger impression.

“He just had a knack of knowing how you felt by the way you moved.”

The coach would sometimes adjust an athlete’s session before they had said anything about feeling sore or fatigued. Like many coaches of that era, he also massaged the people he trained.

Marty remembers entering the treatment room, recognising the familiar smells of liniment and receiving treatment for muscle soreness. He left feeling as though he was “walking on clouds”. More than the immediate effect, he became curious about what had happened and why the treatment had changed how he felt.

That curiosity stayed with him. As a teenager, he used a bookshop voucher to buy a sports and remedial massage book so he could begin finding answers for himself.

The coach’s influence extended beyond massage. Watching him respond to the way an athlete moved gave Marty an early appreciation of observation and assessment, although he did not have those professional terms for it at the time.

Finding a way into massage

Knowing that massage interested him did not lead Marty directly into the profession.

He began his working life as an apprentice greenkeeper on a golf course before moving into horticulture with the Tasmanian Government. Outdoor work may have sounded appealing to a young person with a sporting background, but several Tasmanian winters encouraged him to reconsider his direction.

The shift began to take shape during a trip through the United States in 2010. With time away from work, Marty found himself repeatedly telling his partner that he might study massage one day. Her response was simple: he should do it.

Soon after returning home, Marty saw an advertisement for an introductory massage course in Launceston. He enrolled, travelled to the course and spent much of the first evening talking about what he had learnt. The college was offering massage tables for sale, and his partner told him she would collect him the following day, provided he came out with one.

He did.

Buying the table gave the idea some weight. Marty enrolled in a Diploma of Remedial Massage and qualified in 2011, at around 30 years of age.

Like many new therapists, he finished the course with a qualification and a much clearer sense of how much he did not yet know. He describes the diploma as providing a toolbox, but one that still needed many more tools.

That realisation became the beginning of his commitment to continuing education.

Building a practice and finding mentors

Marty began by renting a treatment room and seeing clients in the evenings while continuing to work full-time in horticulture. He would finish his day job at around quarter to four, travel to the clinic and begin treating.

His early clients included athletes and members of the general public, particularly people who needed appointments later in the day. Some were also new to massage, which meant therapist and client were both learning what the experience could become.

The business grew faster than Marty expected. After about six months of evening work, he decided to find out whether massage could become a full-time career.

“You never know if you don’t have a go.”

Working alone gave him clinical experience, but it did not provide the immediate guidance available in a larger team. Postgraduate courses and mentoring began to fill that space.

Marty identifies educators Dave Sheehan and Stuart Hinds as significant early influences. A conversation with Dave at a myofascial cupping course led Marty to attend workshops with Stuart and later join his mentoring platform.

That support helped Marty understand that therapists do not need to emerge from their diploma with a finished professional identity. They can find their way through practice, education, reflection and contact with more experienced practitioners.

For solo therapists, mentoring does not need to come through one formal arrangement. Marty also points to trusted colleagues, professional communities and educational conversations as ways to ask questions and test ideas without working in isolation.

Looking beyond hands-on treatment

Marty’s interest in movement initially developed through his own experience of clinical work.

As his business became busier, he felt that he was building a practice while placing increasing strain on his body. Between clients, he would find himself on the treatment-room floor using a roller or working on sore areas as he adjusted to the physical load.

Massage education had prepared him to treat clients, but it had not fully prepared him for the cumulative demands of treating all day.

This prompted two related questions. How could he protect his own capacity to work? And could some of the strategies he was exploring for himself also help clients away from the clinic?

Marty uses a simple calculation to explain his thinking. There are 8,760 hours in a year, while a therapist may spend only six to twelve of those hours with an individual client. Most of the client’s life, movement and adaptation occur beyond the therapist’s direct influence.

For Marty, movement offered an accessible way to extend the conversation beyond treatment. It could be introduced in small amounts, adapted to the person and practised without specialised equipment.

Breathing became part of that exploration through his own experience. As he paid closer attention to his breathing, he became interested in how it interacted with movement and how both might complement his clinical work.

This was not a sudden replacement of massage with exercise. Marty remained primarily a hands-on practitioner. Movement and breathing gave him additional ways to observe, communicate and help clients participate in their care.

Observing movement without pathologising difference

Watching someone move can provide useful information, but observation is not the same as diagnosis.

Marty is direct about the limits of this skill. There is no single recipe for movement, and deciding whether an observation is relevant can be difficult. People move differently for many reasons, and a visible difference is not automatically evidence of dysfunction.

He uses the squat as an example. One person may remain relatively upright, while another leans further forward. That difference may reflect technique, but it may also relate to individual proportions, including femur length. An observation needs context before it becomes clinically useful.

This distinction protects therapists from turning every asymmetry, restriction or unusual strategy into a problem that must be corrected.

Marty pays attention to whether a person appears comfortable, holds their breath, fears the movement or seems to work against themselves. He also considers qualities such as balance, coordination, proprioception, stability, strength and the ability to move into positions the person needs.

None of these observations should be interpreted in isolation. They provide questions to explore, not automatic answers.

A therapist might ask whether the movement is relevant to the client’s concern, whether it reproduces symptoms, how the person experiences it and whether another explanation is possible. The aim is to make a better-informed decision, not to perform an elaborate movement assessment for its own sake.

From stretching classes to Move–Stretch–Breathe

Marty’s group classes developed alongside his clinical work.

He initially taught stretching classes with his partner after they had both trained in stretch therapy. The early format focused primarily on flexibility, but the classes changed as Marty gained experience and observed what participants needed.

After pausing during the COVID period, he resumed teaching independently and broadened the content. Move–Stretch–Breathe now incorporates mobility, flexibility, proprioception, balance, cognitive challenges, dual-task activities and breathing. Isometric and end-range strengthening were added as Marty considered whether participants had enough strength to use the movement available to them.

This evolution reflects the same curiosity found in his clinical work. Rather than protecting an original format, he allowed the classes to change in response to observation and experience.

The participants have also influenced his development. At the time of recording, Marty was teaching two classes each week to approximately 30 people. Places had not become available for several years because the groups had remained committed.

Their consistency required Marty to continue learning, offer appropriate challenges and reconsider how he taught movement. In return, the experience of observing groups has informed how he works with individuals in the treatment room.

Scope of practice, referral and restraint

Adding movement or breathing to a massage appointment raises a practical question: where does remedial massage end and movement coaching or exercise prescription begin?

Marty defines his scope through three questions:

• What am I educated to perform?
• What am I competent to perform?
• What am I authorised to perform?

In his practice, movement strategies arise from his findings as a remedial massage therapist. When a client needs assessment or support beyond his competence, he refers them to an appropriate practitioner.

Referral is not an admission of failure. It allows the massage therapist to contribute their skills within a broader plan while the client receives input from someone with the required expertise.

Marty also cautions against adopting techniques simply because they are popular online. A breathing exercise may look impressive on social media but be unsuitable for the person in front of you. He gives the example of using hyperventilation-style breathing practices with somebody who is already anxious. Without appropriate judgement, a technique intended to help may instead move them further from what they need.

Movement and breathing require the same attention to red flags, contraindications and individual response that therapists apply to hands-on care. Sometimes the right choice is to simplify, modify, stop or refer.

Starting simply and protecting your career

A therapist does not need to become a movement specialist before becoming more curious about movement.

Marty recommends beginning with your own body. Explore different movement practices, notice what you experience and observe how different approaches may suit different people. Yoga, Pilates and strength training each offer different perspectives rather than a single universal solution.

He also suggests keeping client strategies simple. Sitting on the floor is one example. As a person changes position and fidgets, their hips naturally move through a range of positions. It can be paired with something they already do, such as watching television, rather than treated as another demanding exercise program.

Simple does not mean careless. Any suggestion still needs to suit the client, remain within the therapist’s competence and respond to the person’s goals and circumstances.

Marty’s advice for newer therapists extends beyond movement. He recommends developing consistent self-care, building a referral network, asking questions and finding mentors or peers who can provide professional support.

A massage therapist’s body is part of the equipment used to earn a living. If that body becomes unable to tolerate the workload, the consequences extend to income, career longevity and the ability to care for clients. Self-care cannot be reduced to an occasional treatment or a few hurried minutes with a foam roller between appointments. Workload, movement, recovery, clinical technique and professional boundaries all contribute.

Marty also encourages therapists to accept that they will never know everything.

“Knowledge has a beginning, but it doesn’t have an end.”

Continuing education is most useful when it helps therapists follow the kind of practitioner they genuinely want to become, rather than accumulating techniques because they feel they should.

Bringing curiosity back into practice

Marty Fry’s work offers a practical way to think beyond the treatment table without diminishing the value of hands-on care.

Movement and breathing can provide more information, help clients explore what they can do and create options between appointments. They can also be misinterpreted, overcomplicated or applied beyond the therapist’s competence.

Useful integration begins with observation, restraint and curiosity. Notice how the client moves. Ask whether the observation relates to their concern. Avoid treating normal variation as a fault. Offer simple strategies when they are appropriate, and refer when the client needs something beyond your role.

Listen to Episode 139 of the Folding Towels Podcast, Marty Fry – Bringing Movement and Breathing into Practice, for the full conversation. Follow the podcast for future episodes, and share this one with a therapist who is curious about what happens beyond the treatment table.

To Learn more about Marty visit www.martyfry.com.au