Muscles, Muscles, Everywhere!

Whew... it's been a while since my last post!  Lots is going on... hopefully I'll get it all out.

For classes, we have started the muscles last week, which is about 10 times harder than bones.  I don't know why, but it took a real long time for my brain to click on with how muscles actually work!  I mean, I have never studied anatomy.  I'm not an athlete, so I've never needed to learn the body and how it works, why some thing hurt, etc etc.  The most I've thought about human anatomy was how the body looked in regards to negative space, limbs crossings, how long I'll be able to hold a pose until my hand falls asleep, etc etc, when I was modeling.

So now that I am learning the muscles and what happens when I do this or that, I can feel my mind starting to change.  It's very weird and one of my teachers warned us that this is what happens when you learn human anatomy and massage.  I'm starting to look at people as, well, meat suits.  I'm studying the underlying structures, noticing the muscle movements.  I see someone lift their arm and I'm trying to remember the names of the muscles used and where their origin/insertion sites are (where the muscle connects to the bones).  It's really unsettling.

Kinda like your whole life you thought the sky was a normal, solid blue and now you learned not only that it's not, but that it's every shade from baby to royal with aquamarine in between.

Today in class as review for our upcoming test, we took a whole bunch of clay and molded the muscles, placing them onto a skeletal model.  And wow, was it cool to finally understand the layering and the positioning of those muscles.  I mean, when I see it in a book, I can kinda understand it.  But when we took the picture of the muscle from the book and tried to make it fit onto the body, forcing ourselves to create the origin and insertion sites, it was epic.  Bam!  I can see it!  I understand it!  I can only compare it having a moment of deep enlightenment, maybe of the religious kind.  Let's just say it was my "wow, anatomy is awesome!" moment for the month.

Big news: Tomorrow is going to get another interesting post because tomorrow we do our first clinic day.  That's real people coming in, paying for a massage.  It's as real as we can get without getting paid.  We have to do charts, health history, talk them thru what we are doing, change the massage to what they want.  It's incredibly daunting to say the least.  We only got today to try it out and we did it with our fellow classmates... and I still got nervous!  My stomach dropped... my legs shook... oh yeah... and I called my classmate by the wrong last name.  I've been friends with her since the first day and I called her the wrong name!  Hopefully this is not a foreshadowing of what is to come tomorrow.

And as if we weren't nervous enough having to deal with actual clients, many of the school's clients are regulars.  Many have come every week for years.  And they are not told if their therapist is new (like us) or old (the senior class ahead of us).  So they have a certain expectation to what they are getting.  But on the other hand, they are paying 1/2 price for what can be considered a professional massage.

But it's just the nerves... wanting to make sure you satisfy them, relax them, don't expose them, etc etc.  I guess I'll just have to do it and update my blog tomorrow.  If I had any nails left, I would probably be biting them down to the beds. 

To finish off the day, some fun facts.  Enjoy and Stay limber!!!

- We have a connective tissue that is called fascia.  It is a large continuous tissue thruout the body.  In other words, the fascia is connected thru every part of the body, over and around and thru every bit, the skin, the muscles, the bones, the organs, etc etc.

- Normally, we picture a cell as a minuscule, round or squarish shape.  With muscle cells, a single cell stretches the length of the muscle fiber (from the origin site to the insertion site)

- When you are born, your knee cap (patella bone) is actually cartilage.  As you pump your legs and gain movement, your patella hardens and becomes a bone.

- To find out if a pill, such as a vitamin, is able to dissolve fast enough to be absorbed by your body, drop it in a glass of water and leave it for 30 minutes.  If it is still whole or there after 30 minutes, it will take too long to be absorbed  and you will only be pooping them out and wasting your money.

- Caffeine literally sucks the calcium out of your body via absorption.

- The type of athlete you will succeed to be (runner, swimmer, javelin thrower) is determined by the fiber type of muscle you possess.  More of one kind will aid you in one way over another.  In other words, some people simply do not possess the genetic makeup to be a successful athlete (by successful, I mean winning a marathon level.  They can still run in the marathon, but probably not win it.)

- Our bones are not solid, but porous.  The outer layer is very dense and the interior layer is very, very hole-y.  It is also filled with bone marrow.  Depending on the bone and the part of the bone, the outer layer could be quite thick or thin.

- Cracking your knuckle is very good for your fingers, depending on how you crack 'em.  If you pull the fingers, it's good.  If you press your fingers toward your palm, that's good.  If you push your finger into itself, it's bad.  It's all about pulling your cartilage and ligaments enough to let the air bubbles be released.  Pushing your fingers in is pushing the bones and the cartilage together, so the air bubble will pop, but it will cause rubbing and eventually, thinning of the cartilage.

- Twisting your back to crack or pop it is bad for you.  You are forcing your bones to glide over your intervertebral disks (the cartilage between your vertebra) when it shouldn't.  You are wearing down the cartilage and the more you do it, the more you will feel the need to.  Chiropractors know exactly how and where to pop the back safely.

Baby Got Back... and Gluteal Cleavage... and Popliteals...

"Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your balance you must keep moving forward." --Albert Einstein

Let's start off with life/school/work, shall we?

So where am I?  In life, I am pretty okay.  The fabulous exhibit in Times Square contract I was offered last week gave me a call and said they were "going in a new direction."  So pretty much, thanks, but we don't need you anymore.  I was kinda surprised at how relieved I was to receive that call.  Even if I wasn't taking classes full-time and working other jobs part-time, I can't say it would be possible to gather everything on that list and make it look good in the 3 weeks I was given.  Luckily, I think the production company knew that and decided to go with a less extensive exhibit and found a warehouse that had almost everything they wanted.  So in the end, it worked out best for everyone.  Yes, I don't get to earn some money and I don't get to get my name out there.  But I made the decision to go back to school and to let something else compromise that would be a mistake.

Oh yeah, I also have 2 tests in class, 2 midterms online, and 1 hands-on evaluation in the next two weeks.  Something would have been dropped and I'm paying to take those tests.  So failing is not an option.  I think I will have to look a bit closer at my schedule before I agree to any major work in the future.  I tell ya, balancing work and school... not as easy as you would think.

Speaking of school, we successfully turned the body over and worked on the back and the back of the legs this week.  BTW, yes, the back of the legs includes the butt, otherwise known as "gluteal cleavage".  I was a little worried about having some guy/girl touch my butt.  I mean, the chest, the pubic area and the butt are the "sensual areas" of the body (the ones associated with sex).  Up til now, we have been VERY careful about keeping those areas covered at all times.  Now, we were actively massaging it.  The concerns were short lived though.  There is nothing sexual about having your butt massaged by a therapist.  It was all about the muscle, and let me tell you... it felt awesome having those muscles worked.  You find you hold your tension in the weirdest places sometimes.  :)  Jelly-legs were everywhere.

The back was the day we were all looking forward to.  We all wanted a serious rub down, with the tests just done, more tests coming up, whatever was happening in our personal lives, and the holiday season approaching, we could use some relaxing (for free!)  Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed.  Now, the first day you should never judge.  We are all learning a new technique, no one is good, let alone perfect.  But we are a month into school, with over 64 hours of just hands-on massaging.  By now, we should have a pretty good idea of what a bone feels like and what a muscle feels like.  We do not massage bones.  We do not push on bones.  I doubt my partner will ever forget that you do not work the ribs after my impressive fish-flop against the table.  I'm just happy I didn't give him a foot in the face like I almost did on "Feet" day.  :)

My professor said a great thing in class recently:

"We are not Jesus.  We are not healers.  I wish I was a healer.  God, I could make a fortune!"

That sort of tickled me at the time.  Can you imagine having the ability to lay your hands on someone and heal them, just like that?  Can you imagine the choice of charging for that service or just doing it for free?  In today's society, could you get by not charging money?  That led to me picturing Jesus charging the sick to heal them.  Kinda funny when you think about his image and his abilities.  Then I realized that's pretty much what doctors today are doing, except it's no guarantee you'll be healed at the end.  It's not as funny now.

Don't get me wrong.  I do use a chiropractor.  I do use herbal remedies.  I still use doctors for various ailments, especially when the cure can't be found thru herbs or muscle work.  I am all for modern medicine.  I got LASIK; you can't get much more modern than that, considering the laser work and the antibiotics and pain pills and eye drops you have to take after.

But at the same time, I do think about how doctors are (often) the only people we can go to to be fixed.  And the horrible amount of money they then charge us for that fix.  But then there is the flip side.  Doctors today have to be taught, learned in the field.  They gather debt, expenses, etc.  What if you had that talent naturally?  No lessons needed, just pure ability.

Jesus (if you are one to believe it) was able to lay his hands onto someone and cure them.  Massage therapists, while similar, are no Child of God.  When we lay our hands on someone, we are not healing.  We are helping.  We are helping by using a person's body to work with itself, not against.  We are all about creating homeostasis; bringing the body back to it's stable level, the level where the body is most comfortable and functions the best.  We like that level.

As Frank Herbert said, "There is no secret to balance.  You just have to feel the waves."

Let's finish with some new fun facts, shall we? 

- Every human has cancer cells in their body.  "Having/getting cancer" is when they mutate, affect our body and we take notice.

- The name of our hamstring comes from the slaughter house.  It is the tendon that butchers would hang the pigs up with.

- The styloid process of the temporal bone is the most fragile bone in the human body.  However, it is tucked in between our skull and mandible (jaw bone), so breaking it is very, very difficult.

- The styloid process of the temporal bone is what martial artists push against when they pull up under the ears to disable their opponent.  The pain can be intense due to high nerve count in that area.

- The 11th and 12th pair of ribs (your bottom most ribs) do not connect to your sternum at all.  They are "floating" ribs.  All other ribs are connected to the sternum with cartilage.

- The urban legend of people having their floating ribs removed to be thinner is just an urban legend.  No doctor would be allowed to remove the ribs for cosmetic reasons.  Ribs are there to protect our organs and removing them would compromise that protection.

- Your coccyx bone is 5 bones fused together and serves no purpose in the human body.  It is also known as your tailbone.  *Personal note, anyone who doesn't think we evolved from animals should take a good look at the coccyx and consider how it's possible that it could not have come from a tail.*

- Humans have one 1 saddle joint (2 in the body).  It is the joint that allows us to have opposable thumbs, meaning our thumb can touch all our other fingers.

WHEW!  Long post today.  That's what I get for putting it off 'til the end of the week.  So as I say, cheers people!  And stay limber.

When It Rains...

As I write this, I am rolling my eyes at the irony of my title, considering I'm writing as rain is beating down on central NJ, threatening to drown anything and anyone outside the shelter of their home.  I got a nice shower running from the garage to the house.

Anyway, the real reason for the blog.  An update on my life.  Things have gotten veeeeery complicated as of late.  Perhaps in a good way.  Perhaps in a bad.  I'll find out in a month.

More about that later.  If you didn't know, I had my first tests last week.  They were back to back (Wednesday and Thursday morning).  I think everyone in class was freaking out.  Most of us hadn't taken a test in more than a few years; for some it was a few decades.  But in the end, the worry was for naught.  A 100% and a 92% kept me happy and on the path of sticking with MT.  :)  I can't say the same for everyone in the class though.  I think in the next few weeks, we may lose some people... I'll be sure to update.  And these tests were just the first level of information that we need to know, so from now on it's gonna get harder.  Can't wait.

I have another exam on Monday for my hands-on class.  More like an evaluation though, but it is still worth 20% (!!!!) of our grade.  We are being graded on our body technique and the movement of the massage, not necessarily if we do all of the steps.  We have now learned the Swedish massage for the front of the body and we will have to massage it all in 45 minutes.  No more, no less.  Yeah, that's not as easy as you think.  Each body part only gets about 4 minutes of work.  4 minutes is not a lot of time when you have about 8 things to do to that body part.  Needless to say, I am freaking out a little bit.  On Thursday, I tried to test myself to get ready.  I got it done in 56 minutes.  And my client/partner had one comment: "Slow down, you felt rushed."  Aaarrrrrrrgggggg.  I'm just going to have to keep 1 eye on the clock and 1 eye straight ahead (we aren't supposed to be looking down at our hands)  :)

Outside of MT, my life has gotten a bit busy.  I spent the weekend doing scene painting for a theatre in central NJ.  3 days, 25 hours of work.  Yay for money!  (No matter how many times my husband says that it's okay, I still feel a bit bad for going back to school and not working.  So weekend work is how I make myself feel better).  I think that will be all the painting I do for a while, at least until the show loads in.

But the big news that I've been freaking out about on Facebook is that I was asked to prop master an exhibit in NYC.  More specifically, I am recreating Leonardo Da Vinci's studio/workshop for the Time Square Exhibition.  This is the part where I grab my face a'la Home Alone.  This all happened in the past few days, by the way.  Don't you love how just when you think you have your life under control, a pie comes out of nowhere and smacks you right in the kisser?  And that pie's name is Opportunity.

The upsides: This is a very popular place (it's where the Titanic Artifacts Exhibit are right now).  I am working with a different designer, one who works in NYC vs. working with the usual designers in NJ.  So that's a great contact.  I also get to show off my mad skills to the production manager, who I interviewed with for a position at his theatre this past summer, but didn't get it.  The exhibit is for 6 months, so my work will be up for a loooong time.  Yay.  Oh yeah, and it's paid.

The downsides: I have 2.5 weeks to essentially dress a full set.  While going to school full time.  And this is Italian Renaissance.  Some major furniture is needed and I am just short of enough money to be able to buy all the furniture.  So I'm gonna have to work some magic with rentals.  While the prop list isn't terribly long or difficult, I am working on a whole different level than I'm used to.  I'm used to a theatre mentality: The audience is 20 feet away, so everything doesn't have to absolutely perfect.  For the exhibit... people are walking THRU it.  They are practically sitting in the seats.  It. Must. Be. Perfect.  The designer said it pretty well, "If someone who knows their stuff comes thru this exhibit, we need to have gotten it right."  So yeah... no pressure!

So right now... I want my pie.  I'm gonna have my pie.  I'm terrified that the pie will end up looking like a 5th grader made it and I'll never work in this town again.  Oh yeah, and that I'll have lost my sanity by the time I'm done. 

Shakespeare may have said that "an overflow of good converts to bad."  I'll have to see if I can prove him wrong.

Hopefully, this won't be the last blog for the next 3 weeks.  But if it is, please know I'm working hard somewhere (or I'm in a padded room mumbling about pie).

Cheers all!  And stay limber.

Face Full of Feet and Fun Facts (Part Deux)

As I promised, I have a few more fun facts I learned over this past week.

~ The femur is the heaviest, longest, and strongest bone in the human body.

~ The ilium, pubis, and ischium (which make up the pelvis girdle) are 3 bones that fuse together (but are still able to expand during childbirth).  The only other bone in the human body that fused together is the cranium (skull).

~There are 26 bones in each foot.

~The fibula only bears 10% of the body's weight while the tibia bears the rest.

~The fibula is the thinnest bone in the body in proportion to it's length.

Terribly interesting, I know.  But it's something to throw out there at a dinner party, sound like you know what you are talking about.

I've had a couple interesting experiences concerning my feet this week.  Normally, I do not have a problem with personal space.  I love hugging hello and goodbye.  I'm never awkward standing really close to someone else's face (you always see actors in blooper reels who have gotten too close start to go in for the kiss).  What I'm trying to say is I like being close to people and I don't have a problem with someone else touching me (that sounded really bad :) )  Well, I now have a problem with people touching me.  Specifically, my feet.

Granted, I have always had a slight problem with people touching my feet.  I'm ticklish enough that if you chose to come in contact with my little piggies in anyway, you will most likely get a face full of foot.  But now I have a whole new level of fear.  Is there a phobia for fear of someone touching your feet?  I should find out.  Anyway, I discovered this during class last Thursday.  We were discussing the bones of the feet (tarsals, metatarsals and phalanges).  The instructer said you can feel most of your tarsals (ankle) and metatarsals (foot bones) easily.  So I proceeded to take my foot out of my shoe and start prodding and poking my foot.  This was all well and good (yes, I could feel the bones!) until IT happened.

I couldn't stop it.  It all happened too fast.  I felt so dirty after.

Okay, maybe not that dramatic.  But it was still something something.  As I sat there, feeling my foot, my table-mate (the woman sitting next to me) shot her hand out and gave my foot a good squeeze.  Right on the ankle.  Without asking.

You would think someone had shot me from how loudly I squeaked/squawked/screamed/laughed.  You would also think someone had shot my teacher from how high she jumped.  And with good reason.

My other foot experience was not nearly as traumatizing, but still note-worthy.  Today we learned how to Swedish Massage the leg and foot.  Needless to say, I was quite worried about having my feet touched, let alone rubbed.  The entire class had heard my screams of laughter during the dreaded upper arm massage (and the foot grab), so everyone knew I was... well, touchy.  And to make matters all that much better, our class is odd, so we were the "three-some" for the day.  Therefore, while I was on the table, TWO people would be working on me (1 per foot!!!!!!)  Yes, I know... GET TO THE STORY!  So as my feet were getting worked, it happened.  BTW, we discovered that as long as you push REALLY deeply, it doesn't tickle.  Here's a corny '90s shout-out: THANKS MELANIE!  Yay.  Yes.  So.  It happened.  My partner was thumb stripping my arch when it cramped.  Ouch.

If anyone has ever had a charlie horse or a foot cramp, you know what I'm talking about.  For those who have not, you lucky bastards.  Essentially, every muscle in the area tightens to the point of major pain, your foot curls into itself (toes and all) and no matter how much you try, you cannot get it to relax.  All you want to do is beat it with your fists to make it stop.

So I did the first thing I could: I pulled my foot away the student.  I kinda forgot that when you lift your leg while laying on the massage table, you really expose your butt.  The young lady was kind enough to quickly pull the sheet over me.  Here's another corny '90s shout-out: THANKS CINDY!  A major plus was between my thrashing (while muttering of "ow, ow, ow, ow") and the student suddenly grabbing the sheet, the professor came over quickly to see what happened.  She grabbed my foot, put it onto the table and compressed it HARD.  The cramp went away after maybe 10 seconds of her holding it, which was... well... awesome.  Cause I was about to sit straight up to grab the damned foot myself, which would have given the class a great view of my ladies.  While I wouldn't have had a problem with that (being a nude model kinda gets you used to being undressed in front of strangers), I'm fairly certain they would not have appreciated it.

And my final corny '90s shout out...: THANKS KRISTEN!  Okay, never again with the shout outs... a simple thank you will do.

That's all for now.  I have my first two exams this week (Wednesday and Thursday), so I'll let you know how it goes!  And tomorrow we attack the abs... yay for flabby midsection of me!!!  Cheers.  And stay limber, people!

To Make an Omlette, You Gotta Crack a Few Necks

Due to the late hour, I'm going to keep this post short.

As for a bodily update, I am now able to do a Swedish Massage to the Head, Face, Neck, Arms, and Hands.  Half the body down, half to go!  Next week we hit legs and feet.

It's been pretty awesome, with a few moments here and there I would prefer to forget.  One of those was working on the neck of my partner and as I did a move called "the wave" (curling your fingers under the neck, hooking the fingertips into the base of skull and pull), something popped in her neck.  While she said it felt great, all I felt was my stomach roll.  There is something surprisingly off-putting about cracking someone's neck when you are trying your damnedest to just give a good massage and be extra careful.  (Can you imagine getting kicked out of massage therapy school for paralyzing a fellow student?  Eek!)

Another moment was discovering yesterday that being ticklish doesn't go away when getting massaged.  My biceps (at least the part where the bicep becomes the armpit) are hereby a no-touch zone, a fact the entire class learned when my shrieks almost shattered the windows.

Also, my 1st exam is next week.  Along with my 2nd exam.  Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology are on the menu and I am seriously surprised by how easy it is to fall back into the pattern of studying.  I could say it's all because of the way I learned to study in high school.  If The Peddie School (it will always have the "The" to me, don't tell me it is just called Peddie School now!!!) taught me anything, it definitely helped me learn how to study well and how to prioritize.  I realize part of that is because I am young (in comparison to some of the 45 year-old house wives in my class) and my brain is still able to absorb information.  And part of it is because the stuff we are learning is only the 1st layer of what we will eventually need to know.   I don't need to know the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th layers to understand the 1st yet.  Example: We have to know that the Nervous System is a bodily system.  We do not need to know the parts of a nerve and how it works... yet.  Knowing that I will learn it in the future is enough for me.

And that's enough of me tonight.  Sleep well and stay limber!

Fun Facts and Casualties of War

Anyone who knows me personally (and I'm betting most of you reading this fall into that catagory) knows that I love knowing obscure facts.  Most of them are usually pertaining to films and tv shows, but I still love me some weird facts.

And in honor of weird facts everywhere, I am posting some of the weird facts about the human body that I learned this past week.  Hopefully there will be many more to come.

~ The three most common types of cancer are colon, testicular, and breast.  These three parts of the body are also the three which get the least amount of movement in the whole body.  Your lungs, stomach, and various other body parts are almost always moving.

~ In order to keep a healthy and well moved colon, one should poop 12 inches of poop every day (!!!!)

~ In order to keep healthy and well moved testes, a male should ejaculate 5 times a week.  That's your que, guys!  You can always claim you're preventing cancer.  Unfortunately, I don't know if that applies to women as well.  :)

~ Riddle me this.  Despite those facts above, massage therapists are still told by doctors and scientists to not massage clients with cancer.  They do, however, tell cancer paitents to get as much exercise and movement in as they can.  So if movement can only help, and a massage is nothing more than moving various body parts, then why is are massages forbidden?

~ Currently, 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage.  Massage therapists are forbidden to massage women who are still in their 1st trimester.  There is no proof that massage causes miscarriages in any way.  It is simply for safety sake.  If getting a massage was the one thing you changed this week and then miscarried, most likely you would blame the massage and not allowing massages are in order to prevent such occurrences.  If you are craving a massage, then you can 1. not disclose it or 2. wait until you hit 2nd trimester.

~ When you break your wrist, you aren't actually breaking your wrist bones.  You are more likely cracking the tip of your radius or ulna (your arm bones) or the base of one of your carpals (hand bones).

~ Your funny bone doesn't exist.  It is the point where your humorus meets with your radius (they sort of hook into each other) and there are several nerves in between the bones.  When you hit your "funny bone" you are jamming your two bones together onto the nerves.

~ Your clavical is the first bone to start ossifying (hardening) in the fetus.  It is also the last to complete the process, most often in the teens or early twenties.

Those are all the facts I got for now.  Hopefully every week I'll be able to throw a few more out there that you can impress your friends and family with.  Before I go, I would like a moment of silence for the first casualty on my journey thru massage therapy school.

Two weeks ago, my hands looked like this:

Now they look like this:

Okay, maybe not that bad, but my poor babies are gone.  I have been very proud, bordering on sinful, of my nails.  And now that I'm using my hands the way that I am, I had to cut them down to the body of the nail (the non-white part).  It's going to be a personal challenge to make sure I keep them this short and still look at them in the same way.  I know what you're thinking... "they are just nails."  I know they are, but when you think that you have one pretty part of your body that you are truly and 100% proud of and then you have to destroy it in order to pursue a career, it's a bit painful to the soul.

My new personal mantra: "I love my nails the way they are, I love my nails the way they are, I love my nails the way they are."

Hair Pulling... in a Nice Way

I made the realization (not sure if this is a good or bad thing) today that I will be updating my blog a lot more often than I originally thought I would be.  I'm just learning so much and I want to share it all!  Go figure.

Before I start today's experience, I wanted to explain a typical day at Massage Therapy School.  We spend 2 hours in lecture in the morning.  This is either an Anatomy, Pathology or Physiology lecture, although more often than not, they all overlap with their information.  After lunch, we spend 3 to 4 hours with the massage, either learning new strokes/techniques or practicing ones we learned previously.  So yeah, that's my day in a nutshell for the next 6 months.

So today as the wind almost blew the building away, us students finally got our hands working.  It's only the 3rd day and we already get to get someone under the sheets and took all their worries away!  Okay, maybe not that much.  The one under the sheet was our student partner, they were still clothed (we undress next week :) ) and we only massaged the scalp and face.  But it still felt amazing.

If you ever get a scalp massage, make sure to ask for the "hair tug".  Essentially, it is hair pulling without the pain.  The therapist (BTW, I will never refer to a massage therapist as a masseuse... it is derogation and not appreciated in the community) grips the hair as close to the scalp as possible and then gently pulls.  Training allows them to know just when to stop.  It doesn't serve much purpose other than to feel good.  However, that is pretty much the only technique that does not help the circulation of blood on the scalp/face.
There is another technique we learned to day which clears the sinuses.  If you feel just below the eyebrow in the eye socket almost next to your nose, you can feel a small divot (almost like a crack) in the bone.  That is your sinus.  Gently pushing on them for about 5 seconds will clear them right out.  The therapist does have to be careful not to push too hard or it will cause a headache.  BE AWARE!  This technique is usually performed by a massage therapist with a client.  Please do not take this suggested technique as medical advice.  Sorry, but I just gotta cover my butt.

If you would like to try it yourself, I would suggest this site.  How to Give Yourself a Face and Scalp Massage

A major part of what we learned today during our hands-on session was it is very hard to receive a good massage unless you have open communication with your therapist.  You must say "I love having my face worked a bit longer than typical" so they know to spend 15 minutes on it instead of the usual 5 minutes.  You must say "please press deeper" so that you don't get up off the table and think to yourself "I don't feel as relaxed as I could be" because your tissues needed a deeper massage.  And most importantly, say something if it hurts in a bad way!  A good hurt is good for a reason.  A bad hurt should never happen because the massage therapist is trained to know what will cause a bad hurt, like nerves and pressure points.

I think that's enough for now... please comment and let me know how I can improve my posts!  Also, anything that you may want to know about I can try to post about in the future.  Cheers and stay limber!

All Walks of Life

Today was the first day of class.  Pretty much all that we did was find out there are 30 people in our class (HUGE!!) and looked at our first semester workload.  While the immense amount of work made my eyes practically pop out of my head, what really struck me today were the people who were to become our new "dysfunctional family".

I gotta say, the incredible diversity of the people in the class just boggles my mind.  There are the stories that you expect to hear.  There is a woman who has worked at a pizzeria owned by her father.  Two women used to teach Kindergarten.  There is a bartender looking for another part-time job.  A man used to be an engineer before getting a severance package and now needs something to fill the hours.  Many women have children who have just now left the house and they need a trade.

And then there were the stories that touched me.  One man is from Peru and has been in the USA 8 years and still has great difficulty speaking English.  In his town/tribe (I couldn't catch which type of community he was from) he was the Healer and wanted to learn the USA's version of healing (without going thru years of medical school).  A young woman had no previous interest in massage therapy found when she woke one morning, the muscles in half her face would not move.  The doctors could not explain it and the only treatment she received which worked was multiple sessions of facial massage.  From that, she wants to learn the trade and give others the opportunity she got.  And meeting her today, you would never know.

I don't know these people well, but these were the stories they introduced themselves with.  It makes you think... if you have to pretty much summarize yourself in under two minutes to 30 people and the teachers who will be working with you everyday, what would you say?  And I did have to think about it very quickly because I did have to do just that.  :)  By the way, I am the only one in the class with a background in the arts.  The scales tipped very heavily to the "I worked in an office until they laid me off and now I'm looking for something new" side.

For the next post, I should hopefully have some type of technique to discuss or some interested fact about the human body (memorizing every bone, muscle, and nerve in the body... SCARY!).  Well, until then... stay limber!

New Directions

This blog is for everyone I know and anyone interested in 1) massage therapy, 2) going back to school and 3) turning your life around 180 degrees because you are ready for a change.

This is my first attempt at blogging, so be gentle. I'll get into a grove soon enough.

The title of my blog comes from a description of what a massage does to the body.  "[...] a gentle rhythmical breathing quality of touch which can penetrate the tissue deeply. The movements are[...] designed to influence the flow of fluids through the body. It enables the life processes in the tissues to be stimulated and lifted out of gravity into levity."

When I graduated college in 2007 with a BFA in Theatre Design, I swore to myself that I was done with school. I was done with teachers who didn't care about the subject they taught, landlords who were the spawn of Satan, and most of all, classes that I learned nothing from. I spent two years working steadily and happily, until the economy tanked. When work became harder to find, I thought about my skills and how I could improve upon them. I also realized that I was a little bored with myself and was ready for a change.

In August of 2009, I made the decision to break my promise to myself and go back to school. I am happy to say it's not for the next 4 years, but instead the next 6 months to train in massage therapy at the Cortiva Institute. Massage therapy is a field of study that I have been interested in trying for many years, but it was never the right timing. And now seems perfect, with my husband at his full time job and myself freelancing, we are financially stable and have a flexible enough schedule. While I still love working in theatre and film, (and I will be continuing to do so after classes and on weekends) I am looking forward to learning a completely new skill and more importantly, I will be able to help people. I also think it's the reverse reaction to the amount of stress involved in film making and theatre work. I see and experience the stress of those work places and I want to be in a role who's purpose it is to remove that stress.

Over the next several months, I will be blogging about everything; my classes, clinic hours, techniques, and also how my life is changing from going back to school. Beyond the primary training, I will hopefully take you thru my certification and continued education.

So enjoy the ride and let's see where this goes!