Biographical Information on Tony Hansen
Reading Tony Hansen’s life resume provides a rigorous mental workout, equal to the most challenging of crossword puzzles. Hansen a self-admitted army brat seem to have been predisposed from birth to travel, talk and live at near warp speed.
Hansen was a pre-med student in the mid-60s, working on a career as an obstetrician/ gynecologist. Drafted into the Medical Corp due to the Vietnam War, the course of Hansen’s life was forever altered. The Medical Corp tour of duty from 1966 to 1968 at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., provided the “Aha!” moment that moved him in a radically different direction.
After his release from the Corp, Hansen headed back to college with his sights set on a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts. With a second notch in his belt of knowledge, Hansen pushed on aggressively toward completing his third degree, a Masters in Fine Arts.
Finished with accumulating degrees in 1972, Hansen began designing foam sculptures that morphed themselves into houses which he later built during his 10-year intermittent stays in China. Though undoubtedly his most memorable piece of construction in China was the roof of the Shang Chi Sheck International Airport, Hansen completed other projects during his consulting career between 1972 and 1989, along with other assignments in the Middle East.
Ignoring high levels of stress in several areas of his life for an extended period of time had caused deterioration of Hansen’s health. While working and living in China, Hansen had come to find the concepts of Chinese Medicine appealing and logical.
Looking for relief from a number of symptoms plaguing him, Hansen’s first visit to a Chinese physicians’ office proved to be another life altering event. With only a few moments of brief yet keen observation of Hansen, the physician said, “There are five things wrong with you. You don’t love yourself. You don’t like your job. You have trouble with your wife. You have stomach problems and terrible headaches.”
The truth hit Hansen hard. “His prophetic insights startled me. Immediately, I walked out of his office and went home, determined not to return. However, within a few days I found I had become obsessed with learning how he knew all those things about me with one observation. I decided I had to go back and find out,” says Hansen.
The insightful physician’s second greeting was equally prophetic. “I knew you would be back,” he said. An intensely interested Hansen challenged the physician to teach him everything he knew during the upcoming eighteen months. With a gentle smile of compassion the physician agreed. “I will teach you how to put yourself back into balance.” Absorbing his learning experience much like a sponge, Hansen recalls the chief result of his education in Eastern medicine. “I learned balance was everything and I couldn’t do anything without keeping balance in mind.”
Hansen left China. Mentally filing away his learning experience, he moved on to Guantanamo bay, Cuba and later relocated to Naples to open a construction and painting business.
Two car accidents, back to back, later left Hansen with severe pain and an inability to move his neck. After utilizing every traditional and integrative health modality under the sun to gain relief and mobility, Hansen found “BodyTalk (Chinese energy balancing) to be the icing on the cake.
“Within six weeks I was cured emotionally, physically and spiritually. I’m not saying that BodyTalk accomplished that. I believe it was the process of combining all the modalities,” says Hansen.
Hansen’s unfortunate experience not only determined the next step on his life’s path; it brought back into his awareness his former training in Eastern philosophies and medicine. “I knew I wanted to go to school to become a licensed massage therapist,” says Hansen.
These days Hansen, a licensed massage therapist specializing in MyoFascial Release, has put his prized life lessons, priceless knowledge, and appreciation for balance to work under the umbrella of his business, Absolute Health Therapeutic Massage in Naples.
Says Hansen, “I took into consideration all that helped me along my path to good health and decided all the therapies belonged under one roof. The inclusionary concept is best for the client. If any one of the therapists determine the client can be helped by another modality, it’s only a matter of sending them down the hall for therapy.”
