Shiatsu session review

As you can tell from the last 4-5 posts on this blog, massage school has been dominating my life of late…it is giving me a lot of blogging material though! Anyhow, here is my journal from my second professional receiving session from local Shiatsu practitioner Beck Stephens from BCMT and Heart Fire Healing Center.

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I scheduled my second receiving journal for Wednesday March 11 with Beck Stephens. My first session was with Christa Forsythe and I was happily surprised to find out that Beck and Christa share an office…especially because it’s only one street over from my apartment! Before the session I was feeling a little on the fence about going. It was scheduled for a couple hours after getting out of class and to be perfectly honest, I was mostly hoping to just kick back and relax at home. That day in class we traded blindfold Shiatsu sessions with a partner.

The session was great and very beneficial in terms of touch and sensitivity but it was my first time doing an hour and a half session and I was a little drained. The tiredness and trepidation was all for naught though because as soon as I got to Beck’s office I was reenergized by her enthusiasm and personality. It wasn’t a surprise then that Beck’s Shiatsu style really reflects her personality and got me thinking about if my style will some day reflect my personality…actually I think it might already.

My physical and inner focuses were largely the same as my first session with Christa – on a physical level I wanted to focus on my knees to alleviate the misalignment, popping, and cracking that has been going on for about a year. Secondly I wanted to focus on the soreness in my legs from riding. For inner focuses I wanted to work on reducing anxiety and over-thinking. In hindsight I wished I had chosen to work on decision making and fostering new interests and activities (it shocked me then that after the session I looked at what Beck wrote on the sheet – she wrote ST/LV…so she did sense I needed help with decision making! Wow, talk about intuition!). I’ve also been feeling a little lack for new experiences and interests but only after the session I did I realize I would have wanted to work on those aspects.

During the session, I think because of Beck’s very “quantum” style, I was in less of a meditative state than I was during Christa’s session. Beck is very direct and rapid and I actually found my mind doing the same; I kept jumping around from thought to thought and my brain never really shut off. I really enjoyed though how Beck kept reminding me to feel the work throughout my whole body even when she was working just one specific point. It made me become aware of my whole body and not just the single point. All of the scattered feelings mostly disappeared by about two-thirds in to the session. By then I was completely still and relaxed and almost came to the extremely meditative state I was in during Christa’s session.

I was so struck during that session about how my brain activity seemed to completely flat line. I wasn’t asleep though. I was completely conscious yet I wasn’t thinking. It is something I think about all the time, over a month later because I had never experienced anything like it before.

Following the session, I felt very different than when I came in although I felt a bit scattered (in a good way). I tend to like to control my environment and be aware of everything that is going to happen or is happening so this was a really different feeling but one that I wasn’t fighting to make sense of. I did notice though that I went home and started cleaning the house. I wondered if this was my attempt at focusing this scattered energy and trying to make sense of it.

I loved Beck’s intake before the start of the session. She’s very direct and she offered a bit more counseling than Christa did. Our intake also went for 15-20 minutes while my intake with Christa went for less than 10. I was glad Beck worked my ST and LV meridians because as I mentioned, I can always use help with grounding and lately, making decisions/decisive action.

A few hours after the session I still felt relaxed but a little scattered. There were things I knew I had to do but I for the most part blew them off. I did write/journal for about an hour (not necessarily about the session) but about other things I wanted to explore. The next day I was the most proactive and enthused about working than I had been in weeks. I was really productive and able to concentrate and work really efficiently. Two days later I had my hands-on final and my exam 2 retake. I was able to study and feel prepared for both tests and the usual worry and anxiety that generally accompany tests was more in control than usual. I plan to continue scheduling Shiatsu sessions during next quarter. I’m still so amazed at how a “massage” modality can be so therapeutic on an emotion/mental level. I used to have this misconception (that I’m still fighting) that massage is just about feeling better on a physical level – Shiatsu has definitely shown me otherwise.

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the hardest part about blogging is naming the post

There is so much pro cycling going on right now it’s sick but totally distracting me from everything that I need to do in life. It was rad to see that Christian Van de Velde won the stage of Paris-Nice today. And best of all he did it with a sick solo attack from about 20k’s out. That is how you win! To this day, despite my vocal and unabashed adoration for Tom Boonen, my favorite moment of any pro race in my relatively short time as a fan of professional bikin’ was when Boonen counter-attacked his breakaway group in the 2005 Ronde (Tour of Flanders). It still gives me goose bumps every time I watch it…weekly, haha. So anyways, big up VdV! I hope Chavenel can hold out the yellow jersey to the end because, come on Contador, you can’t win it all…and I don’t really like you that much. Chavenel is another rider who has pure grit and I was super pumped for him when he won a stage of the Tour de France last year. He was in the breakaways on a ridiculous number of stages and he really deserved his win. What else…oh, Tirreno Adriatico is going on, too. Pretty much all of the sprinters who matter are there including Mr. Boonen, Daniele Bennati, Pettachi, and, I think, Cavendish. Should make for some fun stages and some good sprinters’ trash talk.

I had my second professional Shiatsu massage this afternoon with Beck Stephens. Beck shares the office with Christa who I had my last session with and their office is one street away – I’m a King of Convenience. I wasn’t feeling particularly psyched about getting bodywork today but the session turned out great.

In class today we did blindfold Shiatsu which was actually not as hard as it sounds. The lack of sight makes for a lot more intuitive touch and a lot more bio feedback. Because we’ve only got 4 classes left and we’re done learning new material, we did these blindfolded sessions for almost the entire class. Besides the blindfold this session was unique in that it was definitely the longest I’ve had at an hour and a half. Like I wrote, without visual distraction you’re a lot more keyed into your body and so by about 40 minutes in I started noticing aches and soreness in my back that I don’t typically feel. This tells me I need to continue working on my posture and body mechanics; I’ll be the first to admit I’ve gotten a bit lazy about correct techniques.

As for my own riding, with so much going on at school and feeling uninspired about racing my dedication to training has gone a bit south over the past few weeks. I’m thinking there’s probably a correlation between the fact that I started riding to school everyday (for the past three weeks now) and the no-motivation. It’s a lot easier to jump on the trainer at night when I haven’t touched a bike all day and was driving to school. Even though the ride’s not far (about 25 mins each way) it’s just enough of a trip (plus the 15 lb backpack and sorta uncomfortable position on my Bianchi Milano) to make me want to forego any more training.

That's right, Oakley Black Panthers circa 1984 via Indonesia.

That’s about it for me really. Clare and I had a fun and random Sunday night a couple weeks ago where we did the trifecta of out-of-our-element restaurant/bar hopping. We started at Conor O’Neils with a couple pints, walked to Pizza Calore for a couple slices, and then last but not least, finally had a crepe at Crepes a la Carte! Almost a year after the head crepe chef launched himself on Clare’s birthday party table (at Conor’s coincidentally) and about 15 pint glasses *remarkably walking away unscathed* we finally got a taste of the crepe sensation. I ordered some $6 gelato which was complete bullshit-in-a-cup to go with Clare’s Nutella crepe. It pained me to eat the gelato it was that bad and overpriced, but I guess the crepes are why the place it called Crepes a la Carte and not “Gelato a la Carte,” and they were redeemed with the crepe offering. It was then on to home where I should have studied for the exam I later failed, but oh well, you get whatcha give, I suppose.

I think I made the right choice

Yesterday afternoon was my second “clinic practicum” at school and the first where I worked on someone I didn’t know. “Clinic” is basically the way our school simulates professional massage sessions for its students.

While we’re not actually in BCMT’s clinic but we’re set up in a large room with all of the professionalism and ambiance an actual clinic session would have. We’re also required to do an “intake” with our client to assess their health and determine what type of treatment they need. For Shiatsu bodywork, the intake includes giving the client an explanation of what Shiatsu is about as well as setting some physical and inner “focuses” for the session, or simply, with what areas of your physical and inner self do you need help?

For my first clinic I worked on Clare which was great because it made for a  slightly less nervous go-round. It wasn’t good in that I sort of slacked in my “professionalism” – I didn’t go through the intake or massage with the same focus that I would have on someone I didn’t know. I think the school realizes that for everyones first clinic it’s helpful to worry less about simulating an actual professional massage and more about learning how the whole clinic procedure works (doing the intake and shiatsu explanation, filling out the SOAP charts, reading the client’s health history form, etc). For your second clinic practicum you’re assigned someone from the public (or, because I don’t think many people are stoked to have a 1st quarter student working on them, it often turns out to be student volunteers as was the case for me). My client, a second quarter student, was great to work with and allowed me to go through the whole spiel, even though she was only a quarter removed from it herself. She was nice in letting me explain Shiatsu and how the session would go even though she already knew everything I was telling her. Good sport and she gets a free massage out of the deal!

So back to the title of this post, “I think I made the right choice.” I wasn’t thinking about much during the massage. And I repeat, I wasn’t thinking about much during the massage. Those of you who know me know that there aren’t many times in my life where my brain is switched off but massage has so far proven to be something that can switch it off. I felt great during the session; I was in my body, feeling confident, checking in with the client, and just generally at ease, and then after…I felt a massive endorphin rush! Back in the SOAP room (SOAP, by the way stands for “Subjective – Objective – Assessment – Plan” and is sort of the “locker room” in the clinic for therapists) I spoke briefly to my classmate Daniel who had also just been in clinic and who is a notoriously disinterested-looking person in our classes. I couldn’t contain my excitement and I blurted something like “man, I get such a kick out of giving massage!” And Daniel replied “yeah, it really proves that this isn’t about the stress and mundane class work…it’s actually about working on people!” And through all of my trepidation and wishy washy feelings about the choice of career I’ve made, I realized, I think this massage thing is really something I want to do. I really enjoy it.

Hito

A week removed from two hellacious exams and on the cusp of two more (next Friday and Monday) I find this constant stress-relax cycle both hugely rewarding and utterly terrifying. I eeked out a 78% on my Anatomiken exam (anatomy class) which was a mini miracle considering my prior lack of knowledge surrounding the body and its preference for Latin. I erred hugely on the building structures section but redeemed myself on the planes of movement and naming sections. Needless to say it was glorious walking in to class the day the test was handed back and seeing not only a passing grade but one just off the mark from a “B.” I can’t describe the amount of hell I put myself through from worry and fear but it should be said, this fear had an undercurrent of confidence. It’s something I see myself developing more of as I go along in this massage therapy program. School so far has been a 3 times-per-week lesson in letting go and after three solid years of clinging to-, holding on to-, resisting to- change, my bad habits have been looked at in the eye and exposed as being grossly expired. The school setting is far too intimate, far too centered on being…centered, and most of all, completely hinged on self acceptance. We learn about a Chinese philosophy called “hito”; about how life is governed by the interactions of you and everything else – how everything is depended on you and how you are dependent on everything. It’s holding someone up so they can hold you. It’s giving them your full relaxed weight and them holding you up with theirs. Hito. It’s symbol is like two strokes of paint – one curving to the left and one curving to the right both meeting at the center before continuing on their upward trajectory. So how can you cling to your fear of being loved, of being supported, of being cared for when Hito is there to hold you up? How can you not give someone your full self, the true you, the Craig that makes you Craig when Hito is there to hold you?

Our professor tells us all the time that everything is perfect if that is how you do it. There is no wrong way there is only your way. How then can you continue to judge and be critical of yourself? Massage school came for me at a vital time in my life. I’m 25 years old. I had developed some unsavory patterns and traits, ones that are not serving me anymore and I was ready to close the door on them.

Hito

My goal of updating once/day

Looking at my “recent drafts” folder, I’ve got about 6 blog posts I began but never finished over the last few months and that’s kinda lame so I’m going to attempt to write at least once daily on this blog to keep the “sword sharp.” Today I’m working on Verde PR stuff – the Veltec page and getting the Osprey brand team project off the ground. It’s a beautiful day here in Boulder – February 5, 2009 – and it’s supposed to be a high of about 65 degrees. I would love to sneak in a bike ride today and I’ve got my first professional Zen Shiatsu massage this afternoon at 3:30. I’m super excited to see how a full session, by a seasoned Shiatsu pro will feel. The Shiatsu class I’m in can feel half amazing, half torturous as you have 18 students attempting techniques they’ve never tried before…ON YOU. Ouch. I’ll post my reaction to the massage tomorrow. Back to work! Going to keep working from home today if this ghengis, pirated wi/fi holds up. If not, it’s off to Amante Uptown.