By Chaning Green

news@oxfordeagle.com

A new massage business has opened for Oxonians.

Kristal Woodruff, who is certified by the National Certification Board of   Therapeutic Massage, recently opened MassageXcellence at 406 Galleria Drive.

These credentials allow her to teach her craft anywhere in the country where the certification is accepted, and she has taught in many locations throughout Middle Tennessee.

After receiving her license in 2001, Woodruff began working for Carnival Cruise Line and later, Luxor Resort and Spa in Las Vegas. After leaving Luxor, Woodruff opened and ran a business in her home state of North Carolina for seven years. It was there that she met and married her husband and the pair moved to Nashville until finally coming to Oxford about a year ago.

Rebecca Smith is one of Woodruff’s clients and has been seeing her for the past two months.

“She’s amazing,” Smith said. “The first time I went, I was just in a daze when I left. I really enjoyed it.”

Inspired by Mom

Woodruff initially became interested in massage therapy after seeing how her mother drastically benefited from the practice.

“My mother was disabled,” Woodruff said. “It got to the point where she was in a walker and then eventually bedridden. Then a massage therapist came to town. She was the first one in our area and my mother had been to chiropractors and physicians and specialists and no one ever knew what was wrong with her. My mother began to visit the massage therapist on a regular basis and was soon able to walk much better than she had before.”

MassageXcellence stays open until 8 p.m. in order to provide customers with the opportunity to come in and get a massage after work. The business is also in the process of adding additional space to the property in order to make room for inversion tables and an infrared sauna.

Woodruff said one of her favorite parts of the job is meeting and interacting with all the different types of people that come to her for relief.

“What works for one person definitely doesn’t work for another,” she said. “You have to figure out their little quirks and their specific ailments in order to help them.”

Woodruff’s husband is studying at the University of Mississippi with plans to obtain a doctorate in counseling. The pair plans to eventually open a location where clients can come for both mind and body healing in order to find balance.