Takshing Health Care and Beauty Center: Well-being inside out

I have friends who can’t live without a massage  they just have to have it at least once a week. Their week just isn’t complete without visiting their favorite massage clinic or having a masseuse visit them at home.  Now, this is a very touchy topic — literally speaking.  No longer a luxury, having a massage to untangle the knots caused by life’s assorted daily stresses has become a necessity. You need a good kneading after a long hard week. But sometimes, when you’re feeling low, all you really need is just an ego massage to lift your spirits, but that’s another story.

I thought I needed a massage badly to ease my aching feet caused by driving in horrendous traffic jams day after day after day. So, one balmy Wednesday, I opt to get a massage at the Takshing Health Care and Beauty Center in Greenhills, not far from where I live. If you travel to Hong Kong, you’ll find Takshing on Causeway Bay and you just might end up at its calm and relaxing doorstep to seek relief from sore muscles after all that shopping marathon. Better safe than sore, right?

Fernando King, a Cantonese-Canadian, was in Hong Kong when he first read about Takshing in a newspaper. “My father was a hypochondriac,” says Anna King, Takshing Health Care and Beauty Center general manager who brought in this Hong Kong-based premium wellness destination to Manila a year ago. “He had polyps removed from his nose plus his gallbladder and thyroid were removed in the same year. ”

Takshing is a Cantonese word meaning “glory be to God.” The man who developed this technology, Teddy Ang, is a devout Christian and he wanted to dedicate his life to helping people get better. He himself was no stranger to pain and suffering. “He couldn’t walk, something happened to him,” Anna relates, “and so, he was looking for some kind of doctor to help treat his condition. The doctor used some form of electric current that healed him. I’ve met him, he’s sixtysomething, and now, he’s able to walk.”

Anna describes the technology that has helped with a myriad of health (and beauty) problems and improved the lives of people: “Teddy developed the electrotherapy massage technology, where an electrical node is attached to the soles of your feet, and at the same time, a therapist is stepping on the grounding mat; she completes the electrical circuit, she’s the conductor. When she touches you, you can feel a bit of current (just 12V). While the current is passing through your body (with comfortable intensity), you get a tingling, like kiliti, sensation.”

Of course, you can tell your therapist to go easy and not apply too much pressure if you can’t bear the pain. “You don’t have to bear your cross in silence,” says Anna with loving concern.

The Center’s calming ambience relaxes instantly. Before any massage treatment, you’re asked to choose your scent. I choose lavender over peach and chamomile because it brings a whiff of Provence’s endless purple fields swaying in the summer breeze.

In bringing the health and beauty (but more on the latter later) benefits of Takshing to the Philippines, Anna sent four therapists for an intensive one-month training in Hong Kong to learn from the Takshing experts there. They’re the only ones licensed to practice Takshing in the Philippines.

How does this unique relaxation and healing treatment work?

“Takshing is supposed to unclog all the blood vessels in the area (where the current is applied) to improve your overall circulation,” Anna explains. “That way, the nutrients, the blood, the oxygen can circulate properly in your body. Otherwise, the barado in your body will cause diseases.”

If you know reflexology, you know that certain acupressure points on your foot correspond to certain organs in your body. If you feel pain when the therapist applies pressure on your foot, you’ll know which organ of your body has a problem. “But we tell our clients to seek their doctor’s advice first,” Anna stresses. “We’re only complementing whatever your doctor tells you.”

Electrotherapy is commonly used to help patients who have had a stroke and those suffering from arthritis, insomnia, migraine, sciatica (leg pain), and gout. It is also used in treating sports-related injuries by improving one’s peripheral blood flow, thereby helping the body heal faster. The massage treatment has likewise been proven to alleviate body pain, reducing muscle spasm and tightness, which are the main culprits of persistent body pain.

Anna has a lot of Takshing success stories to tell.  She shares one dramatic case, “We have a stroke patient in his 50s who was half-paralyzed and slurring. Despite our advice, he was coming every day. After a few months of treatment, he’s 70-percent recovered, he can now walk again, and he doesn’t slur as much anymore.”

Then there’s the case of an insomniac patient who was waking up to pee four times at night. After three months of treatment, he can now sleep a lot better. He was treated for his prostate problem, too.

Takshing has also helped enhance the workout of those who frequent the gym. “Recovery time is faster,” says Anna who used to go to the gym three times a week. “We also help athletes who’ve had injuries but only a year after they have recovered so as not to stress their bodies.”

An interesting footnote: Takshing has also helped a female client with an ankle problem. “She partied a lot and she was always wearing heels,” Anna recounts. “She used to go to a manghihilot, but she said the pain would come back so she tried Takshing. Now, she feels better.”

Anna asserts, “We’re not the last resort, we want to be preventive as well. We don’t want you to wait until it’s too late. But we can’t promise we’ll heal you completely, we’re not miracle workers; even western medicine can’t do that. Kahit papano, we help. You have to be responsible for your own body.”

Takshing’s clients include both young and old — as young as an eight-year-old boy and as old as a 95-year-old grandfather from Isabela. Anna adds, “We get a lot of the young ones, in their 20s, who have problems with their necks and backs from using computers and iPads or doing desktop work.”

Takshing is not for pregnant women, those wearing pacemakers, and those still recovering from their chemotherapy.

As Takshing’s Signature Electrotherapy Massage heals the body from within, it also works its magic as an anti-aging treatment. Clearly, it helps get rid of acne, making skin supple, nourished, and glowing. It helps effectively tone the body safely and painlessly. It works on burning fat cells, thus releasing unwanted body toxins and reducing cellulite.

Aside from the signature body massage, other treatments clients may treat themselves to are the Takshing Signature Facial with Neck, Shoulders & Arms Massage and Takshing Foot Reflexology.

Takshing’s Electrotherapy Facial works brilliantly in reducing wrinkles and skin blemishes while bringing out one’s natural inner glow. On the other hand, the Electrotherapy Foot Spa provides long-lasting foot muscle relief.

“By stimulating the cells in the skin, they’re renewed and you get rid of the wrinkles and fine lines, and skin will be tighter,” says Anna.

The tall and enviably slim Anna has such glorious wrinkle-free glowing skin that I tell her she probably gets her facial very often.  To which she replies with an impish laugh, “All girls have their secrets!”

You’ll probably be relieved to know that treatments at Takshing won’t cost you an arm and a leg. For instance, the signature body massage goes for only P1,000 for a one-hour treatment. (But if you have persistent low back pain, one hour might not be enough.) A 60-minute facial with neck, shoulder, and arm massage costs P1,200 while a one-hour foot reflexology is only P700.

There are treatment packages, too. If you decide to come often, buy the Pamper package at P10,000 for 10 hours with two free hours; the Indulge package at P20,000 with five free hours; and the Spoil package at P30,000 with 10 free hours.

“You can go anytime or transfer and share it with family or friends,” says Anna.

The Takshing Health Care and Beauty Center in the heart of Greenhills has eight treatment rooms, a female shower room, and a male shower room.

After a most rejuvenating foot massage (I could still feel some current in my legs I thought they have turned bionic), I feel I no longer have to painfully say this line again, “Pain, pain, go away (and never come again any other day)!”

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Takshing is a well-established international brand that hails from Hong Kong and is present in over six countries, including China, Thailand, Canada, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

In the Philippines, the Takshing Health Care and Beauty Center is located at Unit 103, Richbelt Terraces, 19 Annapolis St., Greenhills, San Juan. Call (632)705-7003 or (63999)967-3843 to begin your Takshing experience.