Aloha! My name is Tenisha Ruidas and welcome to my world of massage therapy! I discovered my calling to become a massage therapist back when I was in high school during my anatomy class. Despite not being very fond of school, learning about the body always caught my attention over my other classes. After graduating high school, I attended college on Maui but quickly realized that it wasn’t for me. In July of 2016, I started my path as a therapist at Aloha School of Massage Therapy on Maui under Trina Kuailani. I graduated in June of 2017 and officially became licensed in September 2017. My defining reason for becoming a massage therapist was my strong sense of wanting to help people. As a former soccer athlete, I sustained many injuries along the way; however, I always remembered the feeling of being taken care of by the trainers and therapists.  Now, I want to be the one to help people recover from injuries, or just to make them feel better.  When I graduated and got my license, I applied to many hotel/ day spas and got rejected by all of them. Then I got my first job in a small hole in the wall day spa on Maui two months after getting my license. Being rejected by so many job was discouraging but also motivating to do more. The reasoning for being turned down was because nobody wanted to hire a brand new therapist and looked for therapist with two years of experience. Well, I was nowhere near that, SO I thought "since I don't have the years of experience under my belt, why not get more experience on my hands?!".... and I did just that :) Since graduating from Massage School in 2017, I have taken 21 advance classes to further me into this career to date as of January, 2023. Rewinding back to 2019, I moved from Maui to the island of Oahu to further my career and for better opportunity. I have worked in the north shore at North Shore Ashiatsu and Massage with Abby Parker and found my passion. I have discovered a modality called Ashiatsu, which has completely changed my game. Ahsiatsu utilizes the foot to massage the body, giving a broad surface, consistent pressure and smooth flow throughout the session. Being a soccer player, my feet is more consistent than my hands and forearms! No more tired hands and sharp boney elbows! 99% of my clients tell me that they can never go back to hands and elbows anymore! You will have to try it out for yourself. Fast forwarding to February 2020, I opened up my new practice on my own in downtown, closer to my home. Then, Covid-19 hit in the middle of March 2020, I unfortunately closed, lost my new office and have been out of business since. Although this closure pushed everything back, there were light in this journey. We all got to spend time with our loved one, created new hobby, continued our education, embraced mother nature, found our inner demon and inner peace and more.  For me, I found a new location, reopened my practice and now have more motivation and determination than ever before! I want to help as many people I can to relieve tension, aches and pain on ones life.  One of the best feelings as a therapist is having clients telling you how much better they feel after getting worked on. So with that, I invite you to come and enjoy a massage here at Body Balance! Thank you for taking the time to hear my story and I hope to see you soon! :)