Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today From left: Estrellita Izquierdo and Raul Izquierdo Sr. were partners in dancing and now have continued as partners in massage work, recently entering the Massage Hall of Fame Published: July 28, 2008 SEBRING - Even premature babies respond favorably to massage therapy, according to a Frostproof couple. Married for 57 years, Estrellita and Raul Izquierdo Sr. agreed that everybody enjoys a massage, while preemies get healthier quicker. As massage therapists with the Touch Research Institute in Miami, the Izquierdos work in the neonatal care unit. The couple showed how they manipulate the tiny arm of a newborn, Tuesday, much like a smoker fondles a cigar. Babies receive 15 minutes of massage, three times a day, from the Izquierdos. "(With massage) they respond to sounds and their environment more normally," said Raul. "They have more color, sleep better, gain weight faster and go home sooner." The husband and wife team also works wonders with world class athletes. Raul uses his fingers, hands, fists and elbows, along with the weight of his body, to enhance another body's ability to repair itself and improve circulation. While using sports and Swedish massage, therapies including, neuromuscular, cranial sacral muscular, plus pain management, Russian sport massage and even a little bit of acupuncture, the couple help athletes perform better. Since 1981, the couple worked the massage tables at the New York Marathon for 19 years, the Boston Marathon every year since 1984, the Goodwill Games, the Pan American Games and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. After a strain or injury, the athlete is asked what happened, what is painful and when it happened. "There's more pressure used," said Estrellita. "Sports massage is deeper." We have to be careful," said Raul. "Worry influences them. They can slow down because of fear and thinking about the hurt." The pair will be honored next month at the World Massage Festival, at Panama City Beach, as inductees into the 2008 Massage Therapy Hall of Fame, created by Mike Hinkle. The two met from a distance in New York City. Estrellita watched while Raul was performing in a Broadway musical with the New York Dance Company. The New York City Opera dancer and native Spaniard was entranced. "I saw him dancing on the stage, and I said, "'Who is that bouncing ball, jumping higher than anyone else?" Estrellita remembered. "I auditioned for the company so that I could be near him." Whether it was Spanish dancing, folk dancing, Flamenco, or regional dances of Spain, the couple danced for 50,000 fans at the old Milwaukee stadium with Bob Hope and worked with Marlene Dietrich, Ray Bolger, Sammy Davis Jr., Jimmy Durante, Robert Goulet and Patty Paige. Estrellita described the thrill of live performance from an artist's viewpoint. "When the applause comes, it's like ocean waves coming in," she said. "When you are doing something and people react, and either laugh or cry, you know you have gotten through to their emotions. It's a wonderful feeling to know that you have created something." The world travelers and American citizens have lost count of how many countries they've visited, from Russia to South America, but value their adopted country. "You have to get out of the country and see how other people live," said Raul, who was born in Venezuela. "Then you'll appreciate how this country is unique in the world. Americans are the first to help when disaster strikes with medicine, food or clothes." The Izquierdos work from their home, and when not hitting the road in the camper, often visit homes and business in Highlands County. For information on a massage, call 863-605-3700. Bill Rettew Jr. can be reached at 386-5857 or at wrettew@highlandstoday.com
Raul Izquierdo Sr. & Estrellita Izquierdo
Couple Massage Their Way Into Hall Of Fame
Like many massage therapists, I have had other occupations first. I began in show business as a young boy. The theater always fascinated me. I remember making a show by stringing curtains across an archway and sitting the neighborhood children on chairs in the next room. I would open the curtains and play all the parts dressed in all sorts of improvised costumes. Soon I was studying dramatic arts, singing and dancing in zarzuelas (Spanish operettas).
At one point I ran away from home to be a bullfighter, appearing in plazas in Venezuela and Peru as a novillero. I ended up in the hospital with two broken ribs!
Returning to Caracas I became the comic tenor of the national zarzuela company. I was singing on the radio when I was chosen for the title role in a movie about Juvenile delinquency, written by the then-President of Venezuela, Romolo Gallegos, titled Juan de la Calle (Johnny of the Street). It was the story of an orphaned shoeshine boy. The theme song in the movie became very popular, and I went on to record it and many other songs for RCA Victor. I was sent to America to broadcast overseas from Schenectady, New York, on NBC.
Taking my movie with me, I traveled all over South America as a singer. In Peru I joined a beautiful Spanish Company of 50 singers, dancers and musicians called Cabalgata on its way to the United States. The inimitable impresario Sol Hurok took the company throughout the US, and then we opened at the Broadway Theater in New York City. At the end of the season the company was to return to Spain. Lou Walters, owner of the Latino Quarter nightclub on Broadway, asked us to organize a group of six girls and six boys to work in a production of a fantasy of the opera Carmen. A young lady by the name of Estrellita was dancing in the New York City Opera Ballet and was recruited to dance with us in our group, now called "Ballet Sevillano." Somehow(!) I made sure she was always my partner. Soon she became my permanent partner down at City Hall! After working in the Latin Quarter for six months, Mr. Walters sent the whole show to the Latin Casino in Montreal, Canada, and meanwhile arranged to have us re-enter the US as permanent residents (That famous "Green Card"). He became our manager for quite some time until the group disbanded.
After several years of dancing as a couple we started adding more and more people to our nucleus, until we had grown into Ballet Granada, a company which sometimes consisted of 24 dancers, singers and musicians. We did many concert tours; we played dinner theaters and hotel clubs. We appeared in New York City in Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, the Palace Theater and many television shows: Steve Allen, Paul Whiteman's Greatest Bands show, Xavier Cugat, even Glen Miller's band consisting of a reunion of his original musicians.
We appeared and toured with many wonderful artists: Bob Hope, Marlene Dietrich, Ray Bolger, Sammy Davis Jr., Jimmy Durante, The Mills Brothers, Van Johnson, Robert Goulet, Jose Ferrer, Eddie Albert, Eddie Fisher, Harry Belafonte, and Kathryn Grayson. We traveled to many countries in Europe, Canada, South America, Mexico and the Caribbean, even Havana (only days before the Cuban revolution.) We sailed around the world on many cruises performing as part of the entertainment staff aboard ships of different nationalities.
In 1980, our local personal physician, suggested I investigate the possibility of changing careers. Dancing is very hard work physically and emotionally and is not something one can keep doing forever. We had built a home overlooking a mountain-top lake in New Jersey the year I became an American citizen, but we still spent most of our time traveling.
A local massage therapist had retired two years previously. Our doctor suggested I might like to do massage as I had often mentioned giving massage to Estrellita and to a few of our dancers while on tour. Massage! We looked at each other. The prophetic words of our friend Eladio Fernandez came to both our minds at the same time.
Eladio Fernandez was a licensed New York State massage therapist who, although he seasonally toured with dance companies in Europe, also spent some time in the United States working in New York Hospital. Everyone called him Doctor Fernandez. I met him in his Manhattan office where he attended many dancers from Broadway shows and dance schools and companies. He took care of us and our dancers and we became good friends, having a common bond: he was from Spain and the dances and folklore of Spain were our company's specialty.
The reason I dedicate these lines to Eladio Fernandez is to pay tribute to a man who contributed very much to massage. During many years he built the reputation and credibility of massage and was respected and loved by all who knew him as a professional and friend.
Once, when we returned from one of our concert tours, we visited Eladio and told him that while on tour it was very difficult to find a therapist in some college town at night to take care of occasional minor emergencies. I would help as much as I could with ice and a bandage. Eladio interrupted and said, "Raul, why don't you really learn what to do. You can help until professional care is available." He gave me material to study and showed me what to do in this case and that - always explaining up to what point I could care for an injury - not to go beyond my limited knowledge, not to do more harm than good. He was a man with a conscience.
After returning from a long tour, during which several dancers had had minor injuries, I reported to him. I was so happy to hear that what I had done was correct. He took me by my arm and said, "Come with me to the other room." A dancer was lying on a massage table with a sprained ankle. "Tell me, Raul, what is the first thing you would do in a case like this?" I explained how I would care for the ankle. He approved of my explanation and said he thought I had a good start.
When we returned from another tour we visited him and recounted my adventures with some injuries. He didn't comment but took me and Estrellita to his office. "I want to talk to both of you very seriously," he said. "I have been observing you for some time and I think you have something sleeping in you that maybe you don't realize. That something is massage." I asked him what he meant. Did he think I did well helping my dancers? "What I meant was that I would like you to come watch what I do. At the same time you should go to the Swedish Institute to study massage and get your New York State license. Then you can work with me for a few years. Maybe soon I will be retiring. If you do as well as I think you will, you can continue here for me. I want to go back to Spain. I want to have a farm."
I felt wonderful to hear him express his confidence and trust in me. I looked at Estrellita, my partner in dancing and in life. For a moment there was silence. Then I told him with sadness that I appreciated his offer very much but at that particular moment we were very involved with our dance company, having several important contracts pending in London, Las Vegas, Boston and Canada, and the whole company depended on that work. He said he was sorry, that he understood our situation, "But I want to remind you that you cannot go on dancing forever, and then one day this profession is going to get you. And remember, you have a gift."
After several more years of dancing we found ourselves in the doctor's office remembering the words of Eladio Fernandez. I heeded our doctor's advice to get into massage, and as Eladio had suggested, I did go to the Swedish Institute in New York City.
After graduating and getting my New York State license, I immediately became an AMTA member. I also joined the New York State Society of Medical Massage Therapists. (At that time its name was New York State Society of Medical Masseurs. As a matter of fact, we were then licensed in New York as masseurs/masseuses; and after many years of hard work by our massage organizations, we had the satisfaction of having the government sign a bill in 1990 making our license now read "Massage Therapist".)
I opened an office in West Milford Township in New Jersey under the shield and guidance of AMTA. When I graduated, I had said to my wife, "this is just the beginning. I am going to put into practice what I have learned, and I am going to learn as much as I can."
I took many post-graduate courses at the Swedish Institute: Shiatsu, Advanced Medical Massage, Reflexology and Applied Kinesiology. I believe that constant study keeps the professional abreast of advancing scientific knowledge. I continue to take workshops and seminars with many prestigious and knowledgeable people including many from our AMTA and other outside the association, including subjects such as: Sports Massage, Neuromuscular Therapy, Cranial sacral Therapy, Muscular Therapy, Pain Management, Acupressure, Russian Sports Massage and Rehabilitating of Musculoskeletal Injuries.
Meanwhile, I had become an AMTA Registered Massage Therapist and also a member of the National Sports Massage Team at its inception in 1985. I was selected to go with them to the Pan Am Games in Indianapolis and the Goodwill Games in Seattle. Both were wonderful experiences! Enjoying this kind of activity, I have worked with the New York Road Runners Club at the New York City Marathon every year since 1981, five years at the Boston Marathon and many other athletic events.
In the first part of our lives together, Estrellita and I were partners in dancing; now we continued as partners in massage work. When I first started studying, she also studied anatomy and physiology, massage and first aid. At each athletic event (including all of the New York City marathons and other international events), she has worked as a medical recorder or other necessary job.
Since we opened our office, we have shared the work. I give massage, Estrellita does the evaluations, attends the clients and is my office manager. Where once we shared the applause in the theater, now we share the appreciation and smiles when our clients leave the massage table.
How wonderful it has been to have been in the theater, dancing and singing in a profession that I loved and then how lucky to find a complementary second profession that I love and enjoy so much.
I feel that one who becomes a health professional only to make a profit from the pain and suffering of others is a discredit to the profession. Learning your profession to work with dedication, to help others, with loving care, understanding, compassion and honesty is an honorable way to make your living.
God be in our hands.
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