Ruthie Piper Hardee is the founder of Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy® and created the first nationally approved course-study for a western barefoot effleurage technique using bars on the ceiling. Her modality-technique has enhanced the careers of thousands of therapists, especially those who suffer from lumbar pain, wrist and hand problems. Hardee is the pioneer of gravity assisted barefoot-bar massage used in the spa and massage industry today. She invented the Hardee-Ashiatsu Portable Bar apparatus which is used world wide today. Denver, Colorado is home to the corporate headquarters. She also holds seminars and receives clients year round at her training studio.

Ruthie Piper Hardee grew up in Tampa, Florida and first studied massage therapy in California in 1990. She later became National Certified and licensed through the state of Florida in 1995 and the state of Texas in 1996. She was drawn to powers of ‘healing others” before she had ever undertaken professional training in massage.

Her grandfather, Arthur Piper, affected thousands of lives of Congolese, Europeans and Americans when he built the first medical hospital in a native village called Kapanga in Congo, Africa . Ruthie's father was a doctor and her mother a nurse; they too served in Africa as medical missionaries and traveled all over the world specializing in treatments for tropical diseases.  Ruthie and her sister had the good fortune to travel with their parents on numerous occasions. Ruthie was exposed to many sightings of healing bodywork being performed indigenous to particular regions of India, Africa, Philippines, Thailand, Japan and China .

Ruthie recalled having the good fortune to accidentally stumble into a situation in the Philippines where she saw something that would change her life forever.  “In a public gathering place, there were many padded cots and an assembly line of small Asian women massaging as many as five men at the same time. All would hold onto a long, wooden bar spanning the whole ceiling, sometimes engaged in very loud conversation with each other as they pummeled and rocked through the men’s clothing.” One of the women working even had a baby on her back. On a different trip to the Far East, she remembered seeing a man holding two white cloths hanging from a bar while his foot swirled around a very well oiled body in India . It was not until a decade later that these two visions would creep back into her memory, provoking her senses and challenging her creative processes to uncover what she experienced visually on those days.

Seventeen years later in California , she became a massage therapist, and the deep tissue techniques that she was famous for took a toll on her hands and lower back. She was born with scoliosis and mild spondylitus and the constant bending at the waist while pushing pressure through the hands was aggravating her lumbar situation.

The brain child for Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy® came to her on a location movie set during 1990. She had a portable table set up in an electrical “grip” truck and she would deliver massage sessions on the cast and crew during the long shooting schedule. Late one afternoon when she had nothing left in her hands to give, a large 250 pound stunt man came knocking on the tail gate of her make-shift studio. He told her he was in a great deal of discomfort and to please not make him wait to come back the next day. Reluctantly, she agreed to give him a 60-minute session. She knew from the first push that she was not going to effectively relieve the stiffness and soreness for this big man without injuring her wrists, thumbs and back even more. While she was massaging, she gazed up at the roof of the truck only to see a metal grid with small holes in it. This grid was secured on the ceiling like a roof-rack and was part of the equipment used for lighting the movie set. Her mind was suddenly flooded with memories of what she had seen in her travels as a young girl. A vivid flash back with details of watching both the woman in the Philippines and the man in India perform with their feet inspired her.  

Ruthie instinctively got up on the massage table unbeknownst to the client and fit the tips of her fingers through the tiny holes in the ceiling grid. She began to deliver and combine Swedish effleurage strokes instinctively with her feet. The grid was strong, and she could use it for leverage and balance as she approached endangerment sites and delicate areas where veins and arteries were unprotected. The huge mountain that laid beneath her commented that he was amazed that she had enough energy left to work this deep at the end of the this long day and  deliver such a wonderful deep flowing experience. Little did he know that she was NOT using her hands! She explained at the end of the session that she was using her feet on him the entire time and in amazement, the stunt man professed it was the BEST professional massage experience he had ever had. The next day when she arrived back to her little trailer, notes were posted all over the tailgate from cast and crewmembers to come find them so they could experience the rumor buzzing around the set. By the end of the day, a small waiting line had formed for “a-buck-a-minute-sessions”, and the “Deepest Most Luxurious Massage on the Planet” was born.

Ruthie knew she had really stumbled onto something here but how on earth was she going to find out where anyone in Los Angeles was teaching barefoot massage with bars on the ceiling? Where could those people in the Far East have received their training? Did they make it up? Was it handed down from generation with no formal training? Online internet was completely new and unattainable in 1991 for Ruthie. She had nowhere to go but the Santa Monica library. She found a book on Shiatsu and was introduced into the world of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She took a few introductory classes in basic Shiatsu and Barefoot Shiatsu but found that she was spending more time using her thumbs and hands, and this was not the training she was searching for. She read up on Thai and took a weekend seminar but again, it was not the gliding movements against the skin she had hoped to discover. She wanted to focus on western science and the deep tissue techniques she had already been trained in. However, from 1991 to 1995, she could not find one course in the United States that was dedicated to Swedish effleurage done with the feet or was accredited by a massage board or agency.

She later returned to her birth place of Tampa, Florida. The decision to case study her own barefoot effleurage techniques with gravitational forces was encouraged by her male clients and all were “more than willing” to be her students and provide feedback. The rest is history. After months of research, encouragement from a handful of medical professionals at Tampa General Hospital , and plenty of trial and error…she was the first person to bring barefoot Swedish massage using bars on the ceiling into mainstream America .

Many doors were slammed in her face while trying to research “bars on the ceiling” and many regulatory agencies considered it “massage parlor activity”. But with determination and her “aching back” she created Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy®, and she is now one of the most popular massage instructors in the country.

Ruthie's course study is completely different that any barefoot course on a mat through clothing, and her company has reserved the rights to set high standards in the massage industry for safety and liability for this style of massage. Ruthie has presented her work all over the country and went international when introducing her workshops in the Dominican Republic in the fall of 2002. She was chosen to be a presenter at the 2005 AMTA National convention and was spotlighted as an approved provider by the NCBTMB.

Ruthie, in addition to her non-stop barefoot seminar schedule, is also a certified Hatha Yoga instructor. Her work has been featured in Massage & Bodyworks Magazine, Massage Magazine, American Massage Journal, USA Today, Massage Today and has appeared on many television shows. She feels the best part of being 50 is the confidence that comes with knowing what you have created has actually changed people’s lives in a positive way.

Ruthie is a resident of Denver, Colorado and was previously the owner of the Beach Park Wellness Center & Day Spa in Tampa, Florida from 1995 to 1998.