Stepping through the door of Barefoot Hands Bodywork on Williamson Street in Madison is like entering some kind of tropical Narnia: You go from the busy concrete intersection of Willy Street and John Nolen Drive and then a second later, you find yourself immersed in diffusely lit, broad-leaf foliage, Capiz shell decorations, furniture and décor woven of natural fibers, and traditional statues and carvings from around the world. There’s a light trickling of water somewhere nearby, and all around you, the air smells faintly of lavender and tea tree oil. In the center of it all stands Al Poliarco, smiling and unassuming, and only slightly nervous.

He welcomes me and shows me around, eventually leading me to one of the teaching rooms where I see bamboo bars mounted above massage tables, and anatomy charts lining the walls.

We exchange pleasantries, but it doesn’t take long before he feels familiar to me. He speaks with the same accent I grew up hearing around my family’s dinner table, and that makes it easy for us to find common ground, for the conversation to quickly turn to the road that led him from the Philippines to Madison.

And it is quite a road.

From the Slums of Manila to the Streets of Boston 

Al was born and raised in the Philippines. “I grew up in the slums of Manila,” he tells me. “I smelled it, I tasted it, I lived it.” It’s a reality not many people from the United States can picture or imagine unless they’ve traveled to developing nations and seen it for themselves.

As a young man, he became a community and political organizer, one of what he calls, “the Marcos babies,” active in the protests and youth movements that rose up against dictatorship in the 1980s. “I helped people kind of see the situation and organize around the issues,” he says. “To act on it as a community instead of just being apathetic.” He smiles wryly. “I loved it. I felt like I belonged there. Like I was doing something that mattered.”

But his mother, who was already living in Boston, was worried about the danger in that life. “She told me, ‘Either you continue what you do, but it’s going to be your hole in the ground, or you come to the U.S.’”

He pauses. “And I listened to her. That really changed everything.”

Al was 27 when he landed in Boston in 1991. He traded the crowded chaos of Manila’s streets for the cold quiet of New England, the smell of humidity and chicken adobo for snowy winters and salt air. “It was hard,” he says. “I left not only my friends, but my three kids. Their mother, too. I loved what I did, and I loved where I came from. It was a very painful time.”

In Boston, Al found work managing group homes for adults with disabilities and later as a social worker. “I was helping people again, which I loved,” he says. “But I still felt like something was missing. I was living here, but I wasn’t here.”

Losing & Finding Home 

The process of becoming American was, for Al, slow and difficult. “It even took me a while to come to terms with the idea of becoming a U.S. citizen,” he says. “I didn’t want to give up my Filipino citizenship. It felt like I was giving up who I was.”

When he finally took his citizenship oath in 2000, the judge’s words stayed with him: “Becoming an American doesn’t change who you are. It contributes to the beauty of this diverse nation.”

“That moved me,” Al says. “It made me realize I wasn’t losing everything that made me who I am. I was bringing something to the table. I was contributing to this fabric.”

By then, he had settled in Madison with his then-partner, Bill, a research scientist he’d met in Boston. Together they built a home and, eventually, reunited Al’s three children from the Philippines. “Bill knew how much I struggled to be away from them,” Al says. “When we finally brought them here, it was hard. Their mom couldn’t come at first, so the adjustment was painful. But we did everything we could to make them feel at home.”

For years, Al poured himself into his social work career, helping people with brain injuries and developmental disabilities through Avenues to Community, a Madison nonprofit. But after two decades, something inside him began to shift. “I knew I needed a change,” he says. “I loved helping people, but my English, and especially my writing, was always an insecurity. I had to ask friends to proofread everything I wrote. It made me feel small.”

He laughs. “I said, ‘Maybe I’ll be a nurse. Or maybe I’ll be a computer programmer.’ You know, typical Filipino choices.”

After trying both paths and finding neither to be a good fit, he took a leap that would change his life: Massage school.

The A-ha Moment 

In 2015, while still working full-time, Al enrolled in night classes for massage therapy at Madison College. “That changed everything for me,” he recalls. “I knew right away that it was the right thing, and I thought ‘I should have done this a long time ago.’”

He describes it as a revelation. “In social work, my job was about helping people, but always through paperwork, through words. With massage, I could help people directly. I didn’t have to worry about grammar or writing. I could express myself through my hands.”

During school, he began exploring different techniques, and one day he stumbled upon something that caught his eye: A method called barefoot bar therapy, wherein the therapist uses overhead bars for balance while massaging with their feet. “The first time I saw it, I said, ‘What is this?’” he laughs. “And then I read that the woman who developed it got her inspiration from the Philippines.”

She had once seen Filipinas walking on the backs of American soldiers, holding bamboo poles for balance. “When I read that, I got chills,” Al says. “I knew I had to bring it back to Madison. It was like the technique had come full circle from the Philippines to the U.S., and now it was coming home to me.”

Dancing on the Body 

Al trained with the founder of the method in Colorado and brought the technique back to Madison, where he began practicing what’s now known as Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage. “From the first time I tried it, I knew this was it for me. It was everything I loved about helping people, but it was also art. It was movement. It was freedom.”

He shows me the bars—simple, sturdy wooden beams suspended from the ceiling. “You use your body weight, your gravity,” he explains, “so you can go deep without strain. It’s like dancing on the body.”

Clients, he says, often describe the sensation as rhythmic and fluid. “They say it feels like I’m dancing,” he smiles. “It’s deep, but not painful. And because I’m using my feet, I can give pressure that’s broad and even, that hugs the whole muscle instead of poking at it, which can be more aggressive and leave you sore afterward.”

He laughs when I ask if it’s difficult to learn. “Learning it is like learning to use chopsticks for the first time, but with your feet! You have to practice until it becomes a dance.”

And for Al, that’s exactly what it is. “When I’m doing it, it’s like I’m performing, but also meditating,” he says. “I can feel the client’s breath, the rhythm of their body, and I just flow with it.”

Building a Business, Building a Community 

By 2019, Al had begun teaching the technique to others and opened Barefoot Hands Bodywork. “It started in a back room behind a salon on Broom Street,” he says, laughing. “A broom closet, really. But it was a start.”

Today, Barefoot Hands Bodywork has grown into a thriving business with multiple practitioners, most of whom are trained in barefoot massage, and a loyal client base of more than 3,000 people. “The community here has been so supportive,” Al says. “Madison has been good to me. People are open. Curious. They want to try new things.”

The space feels like an extension of him. It is filled with handmade wooden carvings, woven lampshades, tropical plants, and a quiet spiritual undertone. “People ask who my interior designer is,” he says, grinning. “I tell them, ‘It’s me!’”

“This place is not just about massage,” Al says. “It’s about creating a space that feels like home for me and for my clients.”

From Madison to the World 

What started as a personal journey has now taken Al across the globe. In just the last couple years, he has competed in (and won!) massage championships in Wisconsin, Illinois, Rome, Copenhagen, Malaysia, and more. “When I first competed, it was just to connect with other therapists, maybe for marketing,” he says. “Then I won first place. And then another. And another.”

When he travels, he brings his own invention: A set of portable overhead bars he designed himself. The idea came after realizing he couldn’t lug the traditional 100-pound wooden bars overseas. In collaboration with a construction worker in the Philippines, he designed and created a lighter, collapsible version. “Now it fits in a ski bag,” he says proudly. “It weighs less than 50 pounds.”

He had the design refined and manufactured by a small Filipino company run by a family friend. “It’s made in the Philippines now,” he says. “So even my equipment carries that connection home.”

Earlier this year, he launched the product commercially and has already sold more than 150 units. “It’s helping massage therapists work smarter, not harder,” he says. “And it’s helping me share a little piece of the Philippines with the world.”

Along with the growing recognition, people from all over the world have started asking Al to co-teach workshops. Just this year, he has taught in Paris, Vienna, and Istanbul, among other places. “The competitions opened so many doors,” he says. “People want to learn the technique, and I want to teach it.”

He’s also helping to organize the Philippine Massage Championship, slated for 2027. “It feels like coming full circle again,” he says. “I learned this from a technique inspired by my own country, and now I’m bringing it back home to the Philippines.”

Healing Without Words 

Despite his global travels, Al’s heart remains in Madison. “This city is home,” he says simply. “It’s where I found myself again.”

He gestures to the massage table, the bars, the quiet space around us. “For a long time, I thought I had lost my identity when I left the Philippines,” he says. “But through massage I found it again.”

One of the most powerful aspects of this work for AL is that it doesn’t require words; it’s a conversation that transcends cultures and languages. “I don’t need English,” he smiles. “I don’t even have to try hard. What I do now is everything I am.”

He tells me about moments when clients unexpectedly cry during a session. “Sometimes, they have an emotional release. They’ll say, ‘Please, keep going.’ There’s something about this work that moves people. It’s not just physical. It’s energy. It’s connection.”

And sometimes, it moves him, too. “Once, I was working on someone, and I almost cried,” he says quietly. “It was this feeling, this overwhelming gratitude. I felt like I was giving something very important to that person, something from my culture, from me.”

The Full Circle 

Today, Al’s children and grandchildren all live within 10 miles of him. Their mother, now also in the U.S., often visits his studio. “We’re close,” he says. “It’s like everything that was scattered has come together again.”

He’s proud, too, of how his Filipino and LGBTQ+ identities coexist in his work and his life. “I’ve always been out since I’ve been here,” he says. “And Madison has been very accepting. Even the Filipino community here has been good to me. Maybe not always ‘accepting’ in words, but definitely tolerant, supportive, and loving. That’s enough.”

Before I leave, I ask him if he ever misses Manila, the noise, the heat, the intensity of it. He smiles. “Of course,” he says. “But I bring it with me. Every time I work, every time I teach, every time I dance on someone’s back, I’m bringing the Philippines with me. Massage isn’t work for me. It’s not something I do. It’s who I am. And when I do it, I feel at home.”