Day 116 - Russian Final

I must have a memory shortage on the weekends because I neglected (forgot) to post anything about student clinic from this past Saturday. I had three clients and one student exchange, which gives me a total of seven actual real clients that I've given massages. Out of those seven, six have been men. What are the odds of that?
One of the men this past Saturday was a young man, I'd guess in his 20's, and he never had a massage before. Since he seemed athletic, I figured I'd practice some of my Russian Sports techniques on him. He seemed to like it and I was glad for the practice.
Speaking of Russian, we had our final exam (written and hands-on) tonight. 98 and 100%, respectively, thankyouverymuch.
Now...on to study for the anatomy final exam on Wednesday.

Day 112 - Take Your Time, Don't Be Russian

I must also apologize for not reporting on Clinic, Day 2, so I'll give a brief run-down. Or maybe not so brief.
It went much more smoothly than the first day and I was a lot less nervous. I had two clients, both men and wanted deeper work, and two student exchanges in which I gave massage. Previously, I had been a bit aprehesive about giving my "all" in deep tissue work to women with small frames, but I think have at least gotten over some of that. At least I know that I won't break them now. I practiced that on both my student exchanges.
My first client actually asked what was the difference between regular massage and Russian massage, and I was quite excited to tell him a little about it and even practice a little bit on him, incorporating some of what I'd learned so far.
One of the things that is highly stressed in massage class is to make sure we have good body mechanics to preserve our bodies and give us longevity. It's particularly important to the back. A massage therapist with good body mechanics may have sore hamstring and gluteal muscles, but not a sore back. I'm proud to report that after I had driven home after clinic, it wasn't my back that was sore. It was my hamstrings and glutes that were a little more stiff!
Yay for me!
On to tonight's class. We learned the rest of the segments in Russian after effleurage, wringing and petrissage: friction, vibration, and percussion.
No, it has nothing to do with bongos, The Beach Boys, or cowbells, unfortunately.
After a brief demo, we got to practice a little bit with all of the segments in the order they are performed. Since we had more lecture tonight, we'll get to practice a lot more on Thursday in class.

Day 107 - Proton Packs and 80's Flashbacks

I took chemistry - oh - about 22 years ago or so, and the class I took was Chemistry and Society, which was a science class for non-science majors. Definitely me. I enjoyed the chemistry class because it was stuff I could actually relate to: acetone is the active ingredient in fingernail polish remover. And then to find out that acetone will also make styrofoam non-puffy, melting it, in effect. That stuff was way cool. Not like whatever it was that the science majors had to take!
In tonight's anatomy class, we went over at a very high-level about chemistry. Basically, what is an atom, a cell, and so on and so forth. When we started discussing protons and neutrons, it all came back to me, but I also had an 80's flashback to the Ghostbusters strapping on their proton packs and capturing ghosts.
We also starting going over information about cells and their structures and functions, but we ran out of time and had to turn our classroom into the clinic setting. We had to fold up our classroom tables and bring in massage tables, pull the curtains around to form "cubicles," and make sure that each cubicle had what it needs: table, chair, stool, head rest, and bolster, which is a fancy name for round pillow used for support.
This Saturday, I begin my time in public clinic for four and a half hours pretty much every Saturday between now and March. After my shifts, I plan on giving a review, or at least my view of what happened.
So, until then, Bon Soir.