Elicia graduated from the Colorado Institute of Massage Therapy in Colorado Springs, CO in 2005 with 1030 hours of training. Her medically-based education prepared her to work in any kind of therapeutic setting.

After gaining experience at Spa 2000 in downtown Sioux Falls, SD, performing massages, body treatments, Vichy Hydrotherapy, Endermologie cellulite treatments, and Nutrition and Lifestyle Education, she spent another year and a half of rewarding work expanding her repetoire at Vivaz Medical Spa, focusing on applying Trigger Point and Neuromuscular therapies to address chronic pain.

She is spa-certified on a variety of body wrap, body scrub, and aromatherapy body treatments, as well as Pre-Natal Massage, Trigger Point Therapy, Sports Massage, Hot Stone Therapy, and introductory Lymphatic Drainage techniques.

 

In 2006 she completed Level One, and Advanced Postures in Thai Massage training from Al Turner II of Two Souls Thai Massage in New York, as well as education on the Trager Approach, a movement therapy utilizing gentle, non-intrusive, natural movements that release deep-seated physical and mental patterns and facilitates deep relaxation, increased physical mobility, and mental clarity.

More recently she took several seminars in Orthopedic Massage, studying with James Waslaski of the Pain Management Center in Texas. Orthopedic Massage is a technique designed to gently and deeply release postural inhibitions and restricted movements, re-pattern scar tissue, and restore movement to stiff joints.

 

Sessions are based in Swedish techniques to relax, knead, stretch and loosen tight muscles, and pay special attention to muscle knots. Sessions also can include a number of muscle energy techniques for specific areas of concern, including Myofascial Release, some Neuromuscular Re-Education, Postural Release and Scar Tissue and Adhesion Release, in order to address specific areas of injury and help interrupt the body's pain cycle.

She takes pride in offering a peaceful, beautiful massage setting in which to use the power of therapeutic touch to alleviate pain, increase ease of movement, and encourage clients to learn to reconnect with, and listen to their bodies, while allowing them space in which to mentally unwind, ground their emotions, and lay aside the external burdens and stresses of modern life.

As her career unfolded, she was also experiencing her own increasingly chronic health issues. With no help or answers for "why" from doctors in the medical establishment; except the modern pharmaceutical approach of medicating and suppressing symptoms; effectively silencing the body's cries for help- she went in search of education on how nutritional deficiencies and stress impacts our physical functions and mental acuity. She met a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, who helped her identify the root causes underlying her declining health, and supporting her body's weaknesses by applying traditional, ancestral wisdom of nutrient-dense, whole food nutrition, and specific supplementation to reverse damage done to her body by the modern lifestyle.  After dramatic healing and restoration, she knew she had to share this wisdom with clients, friends and family who were also seeking the "why" behind their health challenges.

She enrolled in the Nutritional Therapy Practioner program with the Nutritional Therapy Association of Olympia, WA, and received her certification in the fall of 2013, and returned to the 2014 class as a Group Leader. She works with individual clients to create customized, bio-individual nutritional programs to help restore vibrant health, as well as offering classes on a variety of traditional food preparation, fundamental nutrition education, food activism, understanding functions of digestion, supporting immune health, and reducing toxic burdens in our environments.

 

In her spare time, Elicia enjoys expressing her artistic side by restoring vintage furniture, sewing and creating unique decor items, as well as charcoal drawing.  She never misses an opportunity to travel or attend concerts with her husband, Rob. They are avid boxer-lovers and fostered many through the Northern Plains Boxer Rescue. Elicia also volunteered for the Avera McKennan Dougherty Hospice House for a number of years, sharing touch therapy with patients. They have been some of her most memorable and rewarding clients.

Recently, she has been focusing her volunteer work on her nonprofit Reclaim Community, (reclaimcommunity.org) which is working to restore and renovate a historic Quartzite high school in Jasper, MN, now listed not the National Register of Historic Places, in order to revitalize a local rural economy and provide community services and arts and cultural events for the region. 

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