By KATY SAVAGE
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Snow Frye started giving massages when she was 8.
Frye, 62, massaged her grandmother’s arthritic joints for 25 cents a week every morning before school.
Frye said she used her earnings on her siblings. She bought her nine brothers and sisters treats or took them square dancing — luxuries back then, she said.
Frye learned about sharing and about being part of a community from her large family, she said. That’s part of what makes her massage business so unique.
Frye, of Walpole, started her massage business, The Wellness Center, about 40 years ago. She has a reputation for her non-stop energy and all-embracing passion for what she does.
She is filmmaker Ken Burns’ go-to massage therapist whenever he’s in the area.
Burns, well known for his historical documentaries, said he has been loyal to Frye for the past 12 years.
He said Frye is different from any other massage therapist he’s seen.
“She’s like a great symphony orchestra player and the instrument is the human body,” Burns said.
Burns goes to Frye in between his busy travel and hectic film schedule.
“I’ve never had someone have an understanding of the human body and physiology the way Snow does,” he said.
Burns views massage a “healing oasis” to clear his mind before he jumps back into his routine as a filmmaker.
“If the body is in a good place, then your mind and your heart is too — and that’s an important part,” he said.
Frye is a born masseuse. She is self-taught, always researching and always educating her clients. She even uses anatomy textbooks and anatomical drawings to show clients how muscles connect.
Frye said she can eliminate poor posture and joint pain. She can show you how to move properly, how stand up out of a chair to avoid knee injuries and how to stretch your rotator cuff to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.
“Once I put my hands on somebody I can feel where muscles are breaking down,” she said. “I want to train people how to be in their bodies correctly.”
Frye describes herself as “whimsical.”
Friends say Frye is unique and eccentric. She has never-ending energy that makes her unforgettable and she is over the top in everything she does.
“That’s Snow and it makes her who she is,” said Diana Watson, a friend and client.
Frye is over the top in what she gives in her practice.
The end of a massage session with Frye turns into a therapy session. Frye chats with her clients over tea and a treat she’s made herself – like banana bread or peanut butter cookies.
“You feel like you have someone else in your life who really cares about you,” said client Amy Howard.
Howard, 44, met Frye in the summer of 2016 through local connections in Walpole after Howard moved back to town from San Francisco.
“She’s someone who cares about everyone who comes through her door,” said Howard.
Frye has a way of embracing people that clients say is unlike any other experience. Frye said that comes from her childhood.
She said everything was homemade in her home of 10 kids and everything was shared.
“It taught me to love unconditionally,” she said.
Though loving, Frye is also strict.
She remembers telling the winner of last year’s Vermont 50 Mountain Bike or Ultra Run that his body was “toast” because he wasn’t moving properly.
Frye told winner Colton Gale that he was over-using some muscles and not making the most of his body.
Frye volunteers as a masseuse for the competition every year.
Gale met Frye in a 30-minute massage session just after he won first place for running 50 miles in about seven hours and 10 minutes last year.
Despite his exhaustion, Frye’s energy stuck with Gale, 27.
“It’s pretty easy to tell when someone is passionate about what they do,” he said. “Something about her intense passion really plastered itself to my memory.”
Gale grew up in New England and now lives in Oregon. He is in the midst of training for another 50-mile race in California.
Gale recently emailed Frye after coming across her business card again.
“Sure enough, with the same passion as before, she explained a similar narrative in regard to the accessory muscle strength,” he said.
Frye works with athletes and people of all ages. She formerly worked with the track team at Fall Mountain Regional High School. In addition to massage, Frye teaches body mechanics classes that combine boot camp, yoga and Pilates.
All of Frye’s teachings focus on the core.
“That’s your energy,” she said. “That’s where your fire comes from – the core.”.
Frye has a saying she uses with students and clients.
“Carry in, carry out, karaoke,” she says.
It means carry in oxygen, carry out lactic acid, carbon dioxide and metabolic waste, karaoke with a song in your heart.
“Keep a song in your heart. Be light hearted,” Frye said.
The Wellness Center has moved to a larger space at 73 Main St. in Walpole, around the corner from its former location.
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