ABOUT KATIE
Katie graduated from SDSU with a BS in Psychology and minor in Leadership and Management of Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs). She also holds an AAS for Occupational Therapy Assistant and is a licensed Massage Therapist.
These credentials support her primary work as an Expert Level Myofascial Release Therapist. She began practicing the John F. Barnes Myofascial Release System in 2014 and has since completed over 1,100 hours of training in therapeutic bodywork. While various modalities have informed her practice, Katie's primary focus is on the Barnes Approach.
In June 2017, she opened her own practice in Chamberlain, SD, and soon expanded services to include Equine Myofascial Release. In January 2021, she moved the practice "back home" to the Black Hills of South Dakota, establishing Black Hills Myofascial Release, LLC.
KATIE'S MYOFASCIAL RELEASE JOURNEY
Following graduation from SDSU, Katie worked as a field instructor in a Wilderness Therapy program in Utah. When hiking up a ridge in January 2012, she slipped—while carrying a 70-pound pack—and sustained a back injury. At first, this injury seemed like both a career derailment and a health debilitation. After seven grueling months of physical therapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic treatments, she still suffered from pain and relentless muscle spasms, both of which triggered anxiety attacks. Her spine specialist told her there was nothing more that could be done. Katie was given a refillable prescription for muscle relaxers and pain killers, and then moved to a roster of patients with permanent partial disabilities. She was told she would never backpack, bike, climb, run, kayak, ride her horse, or do many other activities she enjoyed.
She returned to her home state of South Dakota and enrolled at Lake Area Technical College in the Occupational Therapist Assistant (OTA) program. During the fall semester of 2014, she saw a flyer announcing an upcoming John F. Barnes Myofascial Release seminar for pain relief to be held in Pierre, SD. At the time, she had no idea what Myofascial Release was. Desperate for pain relief, she signed up. The course changed her life.
When the seminar concluded, Katie felt like a totally different person. She felt amazing. The pain she had carried around for almost three years was gone; she had energy, and all her motions felt more fluid and unrestricted. The small aches and pains she had tried to ignore also had disappeared. She had not realized how restricted her body was…until it wasn’t.
Katie had a new, amazing sense of well-being and felt a fire inside her. She had found her passion in life—along with a way to give back through service to others. Following graduation, Katie worked as an OTA while completing requirements to obtain Licensed Massage Therapist credentials—all the while training in John F. Barnes Myofascial Release.
In June 2017, she established Love Your Life Myofascial Release in Chamberlain, SD; that fall, she expanded her practice to include Equine Myofascial Release. In May 2019, she began offering Myofascial Release services in Hot Springs, SD. Then, in January 2021, Katie established Black Hills Myofascial Release, LLC—so that you can experience what she experienced.