Michael Tonetti

Michael Tonetti has accumulated over forty thousand hours of hands-on bodywork time in the past thirty three years. He has extensive experience working with professional triathletes, bicycle racers, long distance runners, pro footbag players and a variety of other competitive athletes. He is just starting his fifth season working with the Chico Rooks professional soccer team. He also has been doing rehabilitation work for the past twenty years with people suffering from whiplash, strokes, traumatic brain damage, shoulder, back, hip, knee, and foot injuries, chronic headaches, arthritis, fibromyalgia, flexion contractures after coma, and repetitive strain injuries with referrals from Physiatrists, Physicians, Chiropractors, Podiatrists, and Neurosurgeons. When Michael ran a body awareness program for 500 workers in a manufacturing facility two days a week for two and a half years, his duties included: safety assessment, work station design, teaching body mechanics classes, and massage therapy. In the 90's Michael was California certified to teach post-secondary school anatomy, kinesiology, and massage. He has taken numerous groups through 100+ hour courses in structural integration/deep tissue massage. In the late 90's he also received AFAA certification as a personal trainer/fitness counselor. Since 99 he has been working on a book, MAKING PEACE WITH GRAVITY, about movement efficiency and joint preservation.

Michael began his study of bodywork in 1970 with yoga and within months he was studying and practicing massage as well. He has continued to practice yoga, but not to the degree that he has practiced massage. He has a volume of information about how one's yoga practice can be refined for safety and effectiveness. After ten years of extensive massage practice as a hobby, he decided to make a career of it. With that choice, Michael increased his study in earnest. He has been exposed to and influenced by the structural integration work of Ida Rolf, the Alexander technique, Trager rocking, Feldenkrais awareness through movement, myopathic muscular therapy (19th century osteopathic techniques), myofascial release, Swedish massage, symmetrical movement, Reiki, tai chi, bioenergetics, assisted stretching, pumping mobilization, cross fiber friction, exercise training/fitness counseling, and Applied Kinesiology.

In addition to his love of bodywork, his lifelong participation in athletics and music has continually inspired him to study and learn about the human body. The recurring theme of better performance through better form, which he learned from coaches in swimming, baseball, football, basketball, running, archery, as well as from teachers in singing, bass guitar, and drumming has influenced Michael's work from early on. He has done extensive form work with bicycling, running, hiking, weight and resistance training as well as with basic movement. His ideas on exercise and movement form were developed through years of careful study, observation, experimentation, and success with thousands of clients, as well as with his own body. His distinct contributions to the field are his many joint stabilizing exercises and his development of whole body exercises for repatterning movement. He continues to study, write, ride bicycles, dance, kick a footbag (a.k.a. hacky sack), practice decompressing movement, and massage. Personal experience as an athlete, dancer, musician, and dedicated bodyworker has given Michael a vantage point that can benefit virtually everyone.