Day 92 - Heave Metal, Dude!

This past Saturday, WGH, one of my classmates who's become a good buddy, and I went to the Maryland Rennaissance Festival. Her Majesty's Healers is in a garden where guests of the Renn Fest can come, relax, and get massaged by one of the licensed therapists. We all indulged ourselves and got some sort of treatment shortly after we first arrived - before the massive crowds and pandemonium broke out. This was my first professional massage since I started school, so I was eager to take mental notes.
I was able to note a couple things, but for the most part, I relaxed and enjoyed it. She traced meridians on my legs (I got the legs and feet done) and did a little Thai work on them in addition to the typical Swedish style that so many are used to getting.
Not to brag on my classmates or anything, but quite honestly, it felt very similar to the massages I've received in class. The therapist that worked on me was also a graduate of the Baltimore School of Massage.
We spent the rest of the time there shopping and revelling in the Festival.


So, back to school and tonight's Acupressure class. We went over the element of Metal this evening, with its Archetype being the Alchemist. My buddy was one of two Alchemists (Metal) in the class. They are very methodical and there are set protocols to doing everything. According to the theories, Earth creates Metal and Fire controls Metal.
For bodywork, we traced the meridians (which are channels of energy, according to the theories) for Metal, which are the Lung and Large Intestine meridians. That sounds oh-so-enticing, doesn't it?
We also went over the flows for treatment. The flows are acupressure points related to this element, worked in a certain pattern, kinda like a recipe. I think I better get to practicin' cookin' with the cookbook, eh?

Day 31 - Thai-ing the Knot

I forgot to add something to last night's entry. One of our TA's for last night's class is currently taking a Continuing Education class in Thai massage. From the little bit I've learned about it, it's like Yoga for lazy people because somebody else is doing the stretching for you, using your body. Our TA was demonstrating a few moves to a few of us using a classmate as the guinea pig. He had her upside down with him on the floor and her glutes on his knees. She was almost in a backbend position with him supporting her. In another move, she was lying on the floor, on her back, and he picked up her legs by the ankles, crossed them around his legs and he did a squat, stretching her quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, and goodness knows what else. It fascinated me, seeing as how she was pretty much a pretzel. I think I'll have to be in better shape to try that. From either end...giving or receiving!
As far as tonight's class goes, we had another quiz on the nervous system. Despite not having the luxury of being able to study like I did over the weekend, between work and school and driving to or from, I managed to earn a 9.5 out of 10.
After the quiz, we learned about the Endocrine System and the basics about all the glands that make up this system. We learned about how the endocrine system uses positive feedback and negative feedback to control its systems and the hormones the glands release. To sum it all up with an example, we went over the system's role in the female menstrual cycle. One of the classmates declared that he was glad he was a guy.
In learning this, I also discovered that I am looking forward to learning pathology in regards to the endocrine system. For those of you like me, who don't (or didn't) know what "pathology" is, it's the study of why certain systems don't work the way they're supposed to. Or at least, that's my understanding of what it is now. Check back with me next week...well, how about tomorrow?