Therapist knows her way around muscles

EOWYN LeMAY IVEY-Frontiersman reporter

Occasionally when people come to Palmer Therapy Center for the first time, looking for someone to massage an especially tough kink out of their back or neck, they'll see Yvonne Hall and be skeptical. They'll notice her soft voice, striking white hair and small hands that don't look like they'd pack much of a punch and ask, "Don't you have a man to do this?"

Clearly they have never had Hall work on them. Once they have, they'll know those small hands hold the potential to exert more pressure on muscles than most people can stand. And the hands are just the start. Hall uses her elbows, knees -- she'll climb right up on the massage table if she has to.

"We do aggressive therapy," Hall explained. "We don't just do that nice, fluffy massage. We can, and it's fun … but we do specific corrective therapy."

For the past 11 years, Hall and her daughter Rebekah have run Palmer Therapy Center. Their customers are as diverse as laborers with Workman's Compensation claims, office professionals with sore shoulders, recovering surgery patients, pregnant women with tired backs, car accident victims and children with medical problems.

Hall's techniques are as varied as her clients. She uses a hot-water bath, sauna, hot rocks, aromatherapy and electric acupuncture, to name but a few. And her office does have a softer side. Floral scents waft through the air, mixing with the calming music. Vases of fresh roses and eucalyptus add to the d/cor. And for those who want a softer touch, there are gentle massages, facials, seaweed wraps and other indulgences.

But Hall herself seems particularly interested in the medical aspect of her work, the ability to ease people's pain.

Hall originally came to Alaska in the 1960s to commercial fish. During the years she taught school, fished and raised a family. But Hall was an apple that didn't fall far from the tree, a tree laden with medical professionals. Her grandmother was a midwife, "and the local person who went around and helped everybody," in a town in Washington. Throughout her family others have also pursued medical careers, including a cousin, Don Hall, who has a Ph.D. in natural medicine and has been featured on the cover of Time Magazine.

Early on, Hall realized this was her calling, too. Not long after coming to Alaska, she went back to the Lower 48 to be trained as a nurse and got her first taste of massage therapy.

"It used to be that all nurses were trained in massage," Hall explained. But Hall did not immediately recognize massage therapy as her future occupation, and instead spent a year in Guatemala as a midwife then started a birthing center in Arkansas. In 1978 she and her children returned to Palmer, and later she began to work as a medical assistant and decided to pursue her PhD in natural health and therapy. With credentials in hand, she worked in doctors' offices until she decided to open her own therapy center. Hall is clear on that point -- she calls it therapy, not massage.

"Massage has gotten a bad rap, an unfair rap," Hall said. While many of her clients are doctor referrals, she admits there is still some skepticism in the medical field about the role of massage therapy.

And "massage" has another reputation, a rather unseemly one. For a while, Hall's business was listed in the phone book under massage, and men would come in search of more than just corrective therapy.

"We don't get those kind of calls anymore," Hall said. "And if we do, we just give them a really torturous massage and send them on their way … They don't make that mistake again."

More often, though, people know exactly what Hall does and want her to work on their muscles, too. If she makes the mistake of revealing her occupation while on vacation, Hall is likely to be bombarded with requests and questions. She said she's had people sitting next to her on airplanes ask her to work on their sore hands or shoulders. She was even approached on a beach by someone who had heard there was a massage therapist in the area and thought Hall looked like she fit the bill.

"I just say, 'No way, these hands are on vacation,'" Hall said with a chuckle.