What's This About? Knot Werks?

"You can't even spell, Stacy!"

If you've stumbled upon this blog, well, you might be wondering what all this is about. On April 19th, 2010, I began undertaking a year long journey of learning to become a Massage Therapist.

Huh? I still don't get it...

I am attending classes at the Baltimore School of Massage in order to change my career focus and become a Massage Therapist. This blog - Allgood Knot Werks - is about my journey through my classes. I may throw in things about my life, too, as I work a full-time job during the day, while going to classes Monday thru Thursday evenings.

I have completed my first week, so I will recap the first week's classes and hopefully, I'll be able to make daily updates about the classes.

So...here goes.

Day 1

When I arrived the first day, there were about 20 “newbies” in the room. We got all our stuff – books, bag, lotion, etc. – in one classroom. From there, they took us to another classroom, where we joined another group of about 20 or so students who had already gone through one session of five weeks. One dude, who ended up sitting next to me during this portion, was highly upset that the “newbies” invaded his class. He kept cursing under his breath about how “ridiculous this is,” – meaning that we were all there together. His concern is that he will not learn as well with all of us there together. I’m sure he will appreciate the many people once we start doing more “bodywork.” It should be interesting to watch him grow.

We jumped right into class, learning about movement of the body and how important alignment is, especially since gravity takes effect. We took a couple breaks, and after one break, we moved to yet another classroom, where we would have the ability to move around better and work with partners. We evaluated our partner’s foot alignment and helped do “reprogramming” exercises to teach the brain and muscles how to properly move and be aligned. Then the tables were turned and they did the same to us.

The instructor let us go about 10:20 after telling us how impressed she was with our excitement and progress.

Day 3

I unfortunately missed Day 2 of Massage school classes due to a fever and nausea and other "lovely" things. I was lying on the couch most of the night, asking my wonderful hubby to get me stuff.

While I was lying on the couch, as I later found out, in class they studied the Spine and learned repatterning exercises to teach the spine a more correct alignment. I got notes on Wednesday from one of my classmates.

Day 3 of class was the first session of the First Aid series, where my class was combined with another class to learn (and get certified for) CPR. With a total combined class size of 75, getting everybody to settle down proved to be a bit chaotic. Once we got into the material, we had a 50 minute lecture on how to perform CPR and more importantly, what to do in a situation where we may have to perform CPR. The most important thing is call 911.

After the 50 minute lecture, they called us by groups of 10 to take the Practical exam on the dummies. Being as how my last name is at the beginning of the alphabet, I was in the first group, and passed the exam. Yay! After the exam, we were free to go, so I left by 8:00 and I was home by 8:45. Double yay!

Day 4

Day 4 was Session 3 of "Movement," where we learned about the Pelvic Bone, or as I think it's called, the "os coxae." The instructor, Molly, taught us the re-patterning exercises of the "Pelvic Clock" and a couple others I can't remember the names off the top of my head, but know how to do them - and that's the important part. We were taught how to determine if somebody has an anterior tilt or a posterior tilt of their pelvic bone.

I asked about the difference between the oil and the lotion that we'll be using, and she explained there wasn't much difference, but that the lotion didn't leave the residue like the oil...particularly in the hair and on the face.

She also shared about real-life experiences with helping people feel better by getting back into good alignment, and it's not going to take just one session. It will take multiple sessions, close together.

We changed to a different room where there was more floor room so we could be free to move about and work with our partner for the evening on the techniques we learned. The first thing we did was to lie on the floor and notice things about how our spine touches (or doesn't) touch the floor, if our wrists touch the floor, does one side have more weight on it than the other...answering those questions and re-familiarizing ourselves with our bodies in a sense of where the alignment is (or isn't).

Next, we worked with partners, noticing each other's alignment issues and then practicing the re-patterning exercises for the pelvic bone.

At about 9:43, we were asked to help set up the room for the Clinic that's happening on Saturday and once that was done, we were free to go. I was home by 10:30. Yay!

When I signed up for massage school, I knew there was more to it than just the typical massages I've gotten while on vacation - a light, feel-good Swedish massage. I'm finding now how much this really can help people and sometimes, it may not be that "feel-good" massage. You may have real pain issues that a massage therapist will be able to help with by doing some deep-tissue massage. Do you think that all the people who are lining up for me to practice on them will want the "I'm-going-to-fix-your-alignment" massage, or do they just want the feel-good Swedish massage? I think I'll go with the latter. But if you really want to help me and let me practice on you, be ready to get the deeper tissue massage.