Most people have a working mental image of muscles. Fascia is a different story. Think of it as a thin, three-dimensional web of connective tissue that wraps around and runs through every muscle, nerve, bone, and organ in your body. If you've ever peeled an orange and noticed the white membrane underneath the skin, that's a decent approximation of what fascia looks like in one small spot. Now imagine that material covering and connecting everything inside you, all the way from head to toe, in a continuous structure with no real beginning or end.

Before your first hot stone massage, it's natural to wonder exactly what you're signing up for. A new client asked me recently, settling onto the table with genuine curiosity rather than nerves, "How hot are they, actually?"