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Magdalena Regdos — celebrating the art of healing

"To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear." ~Buddha There's no denying the fact that western medicine made huge leaps in healthcare in the 20th century.
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Magdalena Regdos

"To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear."

~Buddha

There's no denying the fact that western medicine made huge leaps in healthcare in the 20th century. Whether fixing broken bones or eradicating debilitating diseases, its practitioners revolutionized the way humans interact with their environment. But given western medicine's unhealthy obsession with separating body functions from those of mind and soul, it also engineered some spectacular disconnects. Yes, we abandoned the myths of our superstitious elders for the science-based dogma of our contemporaries. But how much did we lose in the process?

Fortunately, the pendulum is swinging back some. Indeed, the whole idea of health care in the 21st century — at least in the west — is about trying to find ways of re-connecting body to mind and soul. It's not like we're dismissing what science has wrought. But that's not enough anymore. Yoga, meditation, marshal arts and physiotherapy, the slow (and local) food movement... these are all manifestations of a newfound appreciation for a more holistic approach to health and wellness.

Now I know this doesn't come as news to most of you. After all, the Sea to Sky corridor is a virtual nexus for this this way of life. What fascinates me, however, is the proliferation of passionate young people who are setting themselves up in this valley as healthcare providers for a new age.

Magdalena (Magda) Regdos is one such person. She comes from a long line of caregivers — her grandparents were doctors, her mother was a dentist — and she always assumed that she would follow in their footsteps. Alas, the science-based pre-med courses she encountered at university didn't resonate with her. She was far more interested in dealing with people than with theories... hence her decision to switch to a more hands-on profession. Which totally shocked her parents.

But I'm getting ahead of myself again. Let's go back to the beginning.

"I was born in Poland — in Krakow," says the thirtysomething massage therapist. "But my family emigrated to Canada when I was five. Times were tough in Poland in the early '80s, and my dad, a mining engineer, was able to find work in New Brunswick." The town where they settled is called Sussex, and that's where Magda would spend the next thirteen years of her life. "It wasn't all that big a town — probably around 30,000 people — and everything revolved around the mine..." She stops. Smiles at the memories. "But it was a really safe place to grow up."

Soccer was Magda's first love, and she was good at it, really good. But in wintertime, when it got too cold to play, she and her friends mostly hung out at the local ski hill. She laughs. "It's called Poley Mountain. And it has all of 12 trails and 600 feet of vertical." More laughter. "It even has a black run called 'Fanny.'"

Celebrated as the "biggest ski resort" in southern New Brunswick, Poley might not have much of a profile on the national level, but for Sussex teenagers, explains Magda, it was all they needed. "Getting a ski pass was the thing to do back then. Sure, we'd go to hockey games and stuff, but skiing was the biggest thing."

Magda graduated from high school when she was only sixteen. But her education, she says, was just starting. With no college in the immediate area, she decided to move to Halifax so she could study kinesiology at Dalhousie University. Why kines? "It sounded like sport medicine to me," she explains. And smiles. "But really, I just wanted to play soccer..."

She lasted three years. "The courses I was taking didn't suit me, and due to a change of coaches, soccer wasn't all that fun anymore..." She sighs. "So I decided to take a year off and get my bearings."

Still it was during her years at Dalhousie that she first got a taste of what her future might look like. "I got my first massage from a girl who was also called Magda," she says. And laughs some more. "She'd just earned her diploma in massage therapy... it was crazy!" She stops talking. Let's a few beats go by. "You know, that first session really inspired me. It really piqued my interest too."

Magda made the leap in the fall of 1999. "The school's in Halifax — it's called Northumberland College. They have a two-year massage therapy program there that turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be." But that was the least of her worries. "I was taking a risk; taking a stand for something that wasn't yet 'accepted' medically," she explains. And shrugs. "Even my parents... they were far from convinced. From medicine to massage? That was a big leap for them."

Magda loved what she was doing. "It was so cool," she says, "I was learning how to take care of myself... and learning how to give it back to others. It felt right to me."

But Halifax and the Maritimes were just too small for the ambitious young woman. And on graduation, she was faced with the existential "Now what?" "During high school," she explains, "a bunch of my Sussex friends had headed west to ski... and never came back. And that was kind of sad. Then my older sister moved to Vancouver... Hmm, I thought. Maybe there's something out west for me too."

She arrived in Vancouver in the fall of 2001, spent the first night with her sister, and on a whim decided to visit Whistler for a few days. "Wow! I think I got three job offers in three days — one at a clinic and the other two at spas." She laughs. "So I thought: OK, I'll stay for a while. Give this Whistler thing a whirl."

She became a regular at Blue Highways. "The owner, Janet, had studied at a sister school to mine, so our massage techniques were similar." She pauses. Sighs again. "The wonderful thing about Janet is that she totally understood why we lived at Whistler. She was super-supportive that way." She had to be. For Magda was one busy gal. "I wanted to spend as much time on the mountain as I could," she says. "So I got my instructor's certification and got a job teaching snowboard. She smiles. "It was a balancing act for a while there — part-time teaching and full-time massage."

Still, Magda's wanderlust was far from satiated. "I think it was around 2003," she begins, "when a friend of mine announced she was headed to Thailand for a scuba diving trip and asked if I wanted to come along. Thailand? Really? To me, it sounded like Pluto..." But then it hit her. "I could mix business and pleasure on a trip like that. I mean, I could learn all about Thai massage while she was doing her diving thing..."

And so was launched the next segment of Magda's life. "I spent my winters snowboarding in Whistler and my summers scuba diving in Thailand." It was a worthy lifestyle for a while (somewhere along the way, Magda managed to earn her Dive Master ticket as well), but even she admits it wasn't all that sustainable. "At first, the back-and-forth travel thing is fun. Then it gets tedious. After a few years of it, I realized my double life was starting to wear on me. I had to set down roots."

She chose Whistler. "So there I was — another September in the valley, trying to get ready for ski season and trying not to think too much about Thailand. A friend of mine suggested we attend this new fitness class that combined Brazilian capoeira and yoga. So I said sure."

The instructor was a guy called Cole Manson. "The course was really fun," she says. It was the first time I'd even done exercises with a martial arts theme." She laughs. "So there I was with my massage therapy background, trying to take the teacher down, and apologizing for it every time. It was very awkward for me..." A long pause. "So OK, I said to myself. If I can stick with this, I'll definitely get fit."

Something had obviously clicked between the martial arts master and the massage therapist. "At first, he was the teacher and I was the student," she says. "But as we started learning new techniques together, that relationship subtly changed."

By the next spring Cole and Magda were a couple. And while both pursued their careers independently, they'd sometimes fantasize about the future. "Cole really wanted his own place to teach and train. 'Wouldn't it be awesome to have our own dojo,' he'd say. And I'd agree. I mean, I needed a space to train so I could be strong for my clients. As for getting my own treatment rooms... that would be great too!"

It all came together last August. "Cole found this space in Function Junction. At first, I couldn't see it, but he had this vision and I decided to trust his instincts." So what were they going to call their business? "That was a tough one," she admits. "Cole is into martial arts, I'm into the healing arts and we had all these artist and dancer friends who needed space too. So we decided to be inclusive." And thus was born the Awesome Arts Academy. In the company brochure, Magda defines "awesome" as: "Being, feeling and seeing yourself in perfect health." Sigh... we should be so lucky.