Day 100 - Back to Basics

Every couple of sessions, like this new one, we take a four day "Core" class, which is basic Swedish massage, including the proper draping, strokes, and other, well, basic stuff.
Our class had not seen each other since Thursday night's final exam, and today was Tuesday, by the time we got to class tonight, it was like a family reunion, with everybody just chattering away.
Because it was the first night, we ended up only doing about 30 minutes of actual body work with our partners, and then switching.
Over the weekend, one of my girlfriends and I went to New York City on a "Girls Whirlwind Birthday Tour" where we left early Sunday morning, had brunch, went to a show, a jazz club, dinner, stayed in a fancy schmancy hotel, got up and did some more touring, and then took a bus arriving back in the DC area around 8:00 pm Monday night, which was last night. If you think that was a long sentence, then you get the picture of what a whirlwind tour we had! We walked. A lot! I mean, we walked from the bus to the subway. We walked to the activities. We walked all over the street festival around Times Square. Get the picture? We walked.
Remember that because I've been in school and working at a full-time J-O-B, I haven't really had time to concentrate on exercise, unfortunately. So all this walking...whew! If I sat down too long, my legs would get stiff, so I really have had to work the juice back into my joints and muscles.
With all that walking and stiffness in my legs, tonight's teaser 20-30 minute massage was just that: a tease. I look forward to tomorrow night's class and hopefully having more time for being on the table!

Day 63 - But Who's Counting?

Apparently, I had two Day 61's. I just skipped Day 62. It's now Day 63. But who's counting?
Anyway...had class tonight. We had a special treat since our teacher for Professional Development filled in for our teacher(s) this evening. She had some interesting advice on how to best preserve our bodies and the way we use our body mechanics.
Instead of doing an "Everybody watch this" Demo, she had us start on the body work and then she came around and gave us pointers and demos at our tables. The best part was being her "guinea pig" for the demo. She worked on my right foot and boy, did it tingle when she was done! She even asked what was wrong with my ankle. I told her that I'd sprained it about 50 billion times and she worked a couple areas on it. I don't know if it helped yet or not. I didn't know there was a problem with it. Sure did feel good though.
That's where I want to be: being able to tell something's wrong with a body part even before the client tells me, because I can FEEL it.
I got some more practice to do.

Day 21 - New Class, New Teacher

Tonight, we started the next class - Core. It's basically like Swedish, but not exactly - the really nice stuff that everybody likes.

One of our new instructors for this section is Anthony, whom I'd actually met at the career fair at the booth he had set up for his business. He's definitely going to be a stickler for professionalism in class, which is a really good thing. It's good to learn these things now and not have to learn them the hard way, like when we're working. Professionalism includes the student dress code, attendance, hygeine, no electronics usage and that sort of thing. I've strived to be as professional as I can as a student, but I know sometimes I slip up, so it'll be good to keep it in the forefront of my mind. I definitely look forward to learning more from him. I just hope our class doesn't make him lose his head.
Also during the lecture, we learned more about Body Mechanics (taking care of our own bodies while working on somebody else) and about effleurage, which sounds like a bouquet of french flowers to me, but is actually a way of doing certain strokes during a Core-type (Swedish) massage. Since this was the first night of the class, I didn't think we'd be doing bodywork, but brought my supplies with me, just in case. Good thing. We did bodywork. And it was wonderful! We worked on the upper posterior body, which is the back in layman's terms.
Our final is on Thursday, and it's all practical and no written. Unfortunately, I won't have time, really, to practice on anybody outside of class before the final. Bummer.
Oh - and the other good news - my table is in and I'll pick it up tomorrow night!