Johnstown's Intuitive Touch & Massage growing business 'organically' - The Daily Gazette

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JOHNSTOWN — Amber Miller was face down inside the tiny building at 211 North Perry St. when she told Paula Tybor she had been there 28 years before. Tybor, a licensed massage therapist, or LMT, was giving Miller a deep-tissue massage.


“I said, ‘You know, this store used to be something else,’” Miller, 40, recalled. “I went in there as a young girl. It was a mystical store. They had geodes and crystals and things like that.”

“This is a neat space,” Tybor said on a recent Saturday afternoon after seeing a client. She opened her Intuitive Touch & Massage in Johnstown in June of last year. Tybor is 39 and grew up in the Fonda area but had never known her place of business was formerly a mystical parlor.

“There was a guy who did professional gaming in this space,” she said. “There was a clothing boutique here.”

An LMT since 2019, Tybor started her practice in October 2021 inside a former diner in Fonda. It was a large commercial space in an out-of-the-way location, she said, which made it difficult to attract new customers that happened upon the place while they were driving through the area. She likes her latest spot — on the southwestern corner of North Perry and Water streets — because North Perry is a busy street and because the small building she rents makes for a cozy environment in which to receive a massage.

“She has this style where it’s like she’s restructuring your body,” said Danielle Robin, from Saratoga Springs. Back problems prompted her to visit Tybor for deep-tissue massages.

“She just intuitively knows exactly where to go to fix misalignments,” said Robin.

Tybor had spent over a decade working as a certified nursing assistant when a patient she was helping walk to a restroom lost her balance and Tybor caught her.

“I wound up with a blown disc in my thoracic spine,” Tybor said. “Doctors didn’t want to believe me.”

She credited care from chiropractors and massage therapists with helping her to feel better, and for stoking her interest in becoming an LMT. She was both a full-time student and full-time nursing assistant during the nearly 10 months it took her to pass her studies and the state board exam necessary for becoming licensed to perform massage therapy in New York.

Tybor offers Swedish, hot stone, and pregnancy massages, along with fire cupping and special treatments for the hands and feet — but said deep-tissue massages are her specialty and are the most voluminous of the massages she administers.

“From what I’ve been told, I’m one of the deepest tissue therapists anybody’s ever found,” Tybor said quietly as she sat behind a small desk in a back corner of her massage studio.

Polly Tylee, from Canajoharie, became a customer when Intuitive Touch & Massage was in the old Fonda diner, and she then followed Tybor to Johnstown. She works as a licensed practical nurse.

“I was having problems with my arms — the muscles — and deep massage really helps a lot,” Tylee said.

A fellow patient, Miller, agreed. She works as a chef in Cooperstown and said the hours spent on her feet leave her with frequent aches and pains. She said Tybor always talks to her prior to beginning her 60- or 90-minute deep-tissue massage.

“Not only is Paula great at listening to you, but she learns your body,” Miller said.

Ira and Kathy Cromling, from Broadalbin, began seeing Tybor about 15 months ago after their existing LMT had to leave the area for extended periods of time. Kathy Cromling said she was in pain after getting whiplash and her husband had a history of back issues. Both get the deep-tissue massage. She said there is some soreness after the sessions.

“It only lasts a day or two,” Kathy Cromling said. “And then you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m much more flexible.’”

“I push you to the point of how much you can handle,” Tybor said. “But if your muscle tissue is tensing up, I’m backing off because the muscle does not release if it’s tense.”

Tybor said the LMT work was easier on her body compared to her duties as a certified nursing assistant, which is important because she sees patients six days a week.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, and some Wednesdays, she works out of Therapeutic Massage & Body Wellness in East Greenbush. She lives in Johnstown and frequently sees patients in her little building for evening appointments after returning from East Greenbush.

Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and some Wednesdays, she is at 211 North Perry St. She would like to consolidate all her massage work to Johnstown and, in the future, employ an office manager and other massage therapists.

“I’m growing organically,” Tybor said. “There are no bank loans. I’m doing all this off my own dime. I’m growing clientele off word of mouth.”

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