Seminar-ishities

1. Apparently when a gazelle is attacked by a predator, it immediately goes into this death-like trance-state. Oftentimes the predator will drag it away and hide it for food later, thinking it to be dead. Once it has left and a certain amount of time goes by, the gazelle awakens from the trance-state, and it awakens mid-run. So it'll be lying on its back, say, and its legs will start going as though it's still trying to escape. If it's lucky (and not horribly maimed), it can bust on out. Point being, apparently humans have a defense mechanism similar to that of gazelles. In states of high-trauma, we have coping mechanisms allowing us to get through relatively unscathed. Granted, we don't drop into a trance-like state in the face of hardship, but we do things like repress our emotions and those kinds of things. What happens, however, is that we lock that emotional-state into our body physically, just like the gazelle locks that emotional-state of running and escape into its body, and we can slip right back into that cut-off emotional state when we "awaken." So oftentimes, when you do deep-tissue work like myofascial release, you can trigger intense emotional reactions. For example, if a young boy is taught not to cry and learns to keep from doing so, he is essentially locking his diaphragm up so that there is no diaphragm-release in the instances in which, perhaps, he would feel the urge to cry. In such a case, when you work on a person's diaphragm, effectively loosening it up and making it relaxed again, all that locked-up emotional energy can be released as well (just like the gazelle returning to its awakened state), and the person may end up crying, just because that muscle is functional again and enabling them to do so. Cool, huh?


2. There is a myofascial technique on the gluts that requires you hold the person's two ass-cheeks together for them as you work out their gluteal muscles. This is necessary for no other reason than that if you DON'T do so, the person will almost certainly fart directly in your face.


3. I worked with a raw-food vegan for some of this weekend. So damn cool. The man had the most perfectly beautiful, lithe, and muscular body I've seen on a man. (He also had beautiful crows feet which radiated out from his eyes like joyful sunbeams.) When our instructor demonstrated on him for one series of techniques, he kept gushing about how perfect his musculature is (to the point that people were starting to grin because he sounded like he was about to hop up and straddle him and have his filthy filthy way with his perfect body). It truly was something to see. And it was lovely too because he explained that his little secret is that he doesn't drink really any water at all, he just eats ALL RAW and gets all his water that way. He's been a raw foodie for 5 years (vegan for 8), he runs 2-5 miles a day, and MAN does he know his shit, nutrition-wise. It was fascinating talking to him. It also warmed my cockles to see so many people interested in his raw-food veganism and actively seeking out more information about it instead of being nasty and cynical and argumentative. Made me realize how much respect I have for folks who can do the raw thing--it requires a beautiful level of commitment and self-discipline.


4. On Sunday, we were given 20-minutes each to take a break from the myofascial and to do just a general relaxation massage on our partner. I paired up with S___, the woman I worked with most of last seminar and whom I worked with a few times this seminar as well. I was very very pleased when she told me afterwards that my massage (which was a crummy little 20-minute one) was one of the best massages she's received in a really really long time, and that my pressure was perfect and that she was gonna have to steal some of my techniques. This was particularly flattering given that a) she's been a professional massage therapist for about four-years, so she knows her shit, and b) she's kind of critical and will immediately voice her displeasure with something that you're doing to her if it hurts or feels shitty (so I knew she wasn't just trying to be nice). When we left Sunday night, she wished me luck and told me "you're gonna make a wonderful massage therapist--seriously." *Blushing grin*


5. I think this seminar is the first time I've been referred to as "petite" (and multiple times, for that matter). (Though I suspect that most folks look "petite" when knuckle-deep in a heavy fella. But still.)


6. Things that got exposed this weekend at seminar: both ass-cheeks (individually and simultaneously), some of my pubes.


7. If you keep a body part in one position for a lengthy period of time without moving, the collagen in that area will start building itself to conform to that stationary state. This is why you are sometimes stiff when you wake up in the morning--the collagen has started to re-form and lock your body-parts into that position, so when you wake up, you are "holding" a position that needs to be unlocked again. Stretching does that. (For some reason, that tidbit of info makes me think of some Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-esque horror flick. I just picture someone sleeping while the collagen starts growing fiercely inside of them like some snaky creepy creature, swallowing up all their insides.)


8. Apparently I still have the power to piss off Scrub-Nazi, despite the fact that we had become amicable by the end of Massage II. I ran into him Saturday while wearing a pair of blue-jeans with a large hole in the knee and my Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirt (our seminars don't have any sort of dress-code). He said hello to me, looked me up and down (like in the good ol' days), and accompanied it all with a look that was like death warmed over. Or like I had smeared my nekkid body with feces and was just standing there, nibbling on my own nipples.


9. I just realized that I don't think I shit at all yesterday.

Misadventures of the Myofascial Kind (Part III)

Ah yes. So the final day of Myo. Dragged my ass out of bed at 7:30. Brewed myself an ass-loving-huge pot o' coffee. Sniffled a little at the misfortune of having to spend another 9 hours at school on a weekend.

This time, we spent the day learning about how to do a) ab-work, and b) work on the back. I was looking forward to learning the back the most, simply because the back/neck seem to be the most problematic areas on pretty much *ANYONE* who comes in for a massage. This is mostly due to the fact that we carry so much of our stress in our necks and shoulders, that most of us don't sit with proper posture (which throws these out of whack), and due to the fact that so many of us use computers nowadays and sit completely shitty while doing so. So to get back/neckwork done always seems to be the primary goal of people who come in FOR massages.

And what we learned for the back didn't disappoint.

FAVORITES:

• THE LATERAL MIDLINE RELEASE--This maneuver is done while you lay on your side and basically stretches everything from your shoulder to your hip in one fell move. It's quite lovely. And for the person doing the stroke, it's probably the most maneuvering you will do in Myo. It requires a lot of pivoting and repositioning of the practitioner's body, and in the end, when done correctly, it has a beautiful rhythm and spin to it, kind of like a ballet move or a smooth yoga technique. The end result is glorious too--it stretches out EVERYTHING and makes you feel oh so yummy as the "client."


• THE SCAPULA WORK--There's just something cool about reaching your fingers UNDERNEATH a bone to the point that your first knuckles have effectively vanished into someone else's flesh. Like the diaphragm work, you basically work the muscle attachments UNDER the scapula by hooking your fingers as far as you can go underneath the bone without hurting the person and then "working that shit." Good stuff.

LEAST FAVORITE:

• THE NECK TRACTION MANEUVER--I dunno. It just doesn't seem right to me to have a massage therapist messing with the alignment of your vertebra. Especially when they're just learning the material and don't really know what they're doing. Having them pull on your neck incorrectly does not feel so good. (And sidenote: when I went to chiro-man on Monday after having gotten this done to me, he was like "What the hell did you do to your neck?" After explaining this traction move to him--which made him visibly angry, since he's not a fan of traction--he explained that somehow they'd "shortened the width of my neck." I don't exactly know what this means, but he was not pleased. And when he adjusted my neck, it sure as shit did some MAJOR popping.)

The day ended with a discussion of indications and contraindications. Then we all made out in a fierce and sweaty massage-related orgy. And then we found out we'd all contracted syphilis from said orgy. So then we sued our instructor.

THE END!

(I realized the last day didn't have much of a climactic arc to it, so I figured I'd throw in a bit more excitement there. To titillate and whatnot. Because that's my job. Oh yes, that's my job.)

(*Follow-up: Despite the fact that the seminar botched up my neck, I *DID* find out yesterday that I'm actually "holding" (as chiro-man calls it) my adjustments now. Which means he actually didn't have to adjust me yesterday. Which made me giddy with excitement. I don't know if the myo--which is supposed to be particularly useful when coupled with chiropractic--actually had anything to do with it. But since I *DID* undergo the myo the same week that I was told (for the first time) that I'm "holding," there's a possibility. And that's kinda cool.)

Misadventures of the Myofascial Kind (Part II)

Friday night's seminar was only 4 hours, so we didn't get through a whole lot--basically we discussed the structure of muscles and the relationship of fascia to muscle-functionality. Then we stared at each other creepily. Then we learned some exercises on the hands and forearms that would definitely be beneficial for carpal tunnel injuries. We left at about 10pm, knowing that we had to be back in less than 12 hours--joyous joys.

* * * * *

Saturday morning. Pot of coffee. Eyes heavy like anvils. Yawns and lackluster looks all around.

We did another "trust" exercise to wake ourselves up--this time it was one of those trust-falls. Not harrowing. Not all that exciting either.

Then we dug right in to the material. Today's seminar would cover a) the upper-arms, b) the neck and a portion of the back, c) the front shoulder muscles and attachments, and d) the breathing muscles.

The upper arm-work wasn't anything all that surprising. They receive a lot of focus in our other massage classes anyways, so the only difference was the amount of force being applied.

The neck and back work was a bit more interesting, given that we worked on our partners in a sitting position. I've "learned" chair massage on a prior occasion, but that requires an actual massage-chair. This necessitates nothing more than something or another that they can sit on. So basically, the work we learned would be a convenient tool to utilize in office-situations. Nice for me.

The front shoulder mucles and attachments were a little bit new. Despite all the anatomy we learn, we don't receive a whole heck of a lot of instruction on palpating the actual muscles. So although I could point out, say, the rhomboid major on a diagram of the body, could tell you its origin and insertion, its action, and its innervation, if I tried to physically locate the muscle on someone's body, it'd be kind of like Ray Charles trying to figure out which marble is the pink one in a bag full of marbles. Not a clue. So it was kind of nice to be working on specific muscles finally, where we were told what muscle we were working on and how to palpate it.

Most definitely one of the most ridiculously sensitive muscles is the pec minor and where it attaches. Holy mother of god if getting that poked won't make you jump completely out of your seat. E literally shrieked when I did the pec-minor technique on him. (It was great.)

The most interesting part of Saturday, though, was learning techniques for the breathing muscles. Basically, much of the work we learned is intended to loosen up the diaphragm and open up the chest area so that the lungs have greater room to move.

Now, in regular massage classes, the chest is typically an area we stear clear of because of, well, da boobies. But not so in Myo. While learning techniques for the breathing-muscles, we were jamming all KINDS of things into the sides of the boobies. Sticks. Pencils. Rubber replicas of pterodactyls. Etc. (Ok. Mostly just the fingers. But yowza nonetheless.)

Interesting though is the fact that, as thin and seemingly easily-breakable as the ribs are, you sure as shit can put a lot of force onto them without doing damage, as long as you do so carefully and without abruptness. Much of the work we learned actually is intended to increase the flexibility of the ribs so that they can move with greater ease with every breath.

The strangest (but kind of coolest) techniques we learned (and this is mostly due to my awe in the fact that you can put so much force onto such body parts) was the rib-work and the diaphragm work.

For the diaphragm, you literally jam the tips of your fingers up and under the bottom of the rib cage to work one of the most important breathing-muscles. It's very strange when you have your fingers jammed up to almost the second set of knuckles in someone's upper abdomen.

The other area that amazed me was the rib-compression technique we learned, mostly because it was demonstrated on me, so I actually got to feel what a SKILLED version of the technique feels like. What the move entails is literally using pretty much all of your weight to compress the center of the person's rib cage. It looks uncannily like a CPR move, but it's done much more slowly and carefully and with much greater pressure.

The teaching assistant demonstrated on me by literally getting up on his knees onto the table next to me and leaning ALL of his weight into the move. He is not a big man (probably about 125 lbs. and 5'5" or so), but I am also not a big woman (about 125 lbs. and 5'6" or so). So the technique was a sight to behold. As he pressed down on my chest three times, my rib cage was literally pressed down to about 1/2 of its usual deepness. It was such a startling display of force (without an accompanying breakage) that people in the class were literally slack-jawed and gasping.

Granted, the next day my chest felt strange in that area, and I couldn't quite decide if it was discomfort or just a new sensation of openness. But damn was it a crazy-cool technique. This coupled with the other breathing-techniques we learned are supposed to be fantastic in opening the chest and lungs to make breathing much much easier.

And apparently they did, because on Sunday morning, several seminar attendees reported that when they worked on folks at home on Saturday night, they actually got astounding results--one woman's boyfriend who has been a loud-snorer every night for about 10 years DID NOT SNORE AT ALL.

Crazy crazy shit.

(Stay tuned for tomorrow's final installment of Misadventures of the Myofascial Kind)

Misadventures of the Myofascial Kind (Part I)

Twenty-two hours of seminar this weekend, finally done and gone. And I must say (very thankfully) I actually kind of enjoyed it, despite feeling like I was going to pass out from exhaustion on the drive home.

((As it was a long (but rather interesting) weekend, I'll be splitting up the entries into installments over the next few days so as not to overwhelm. Prepare yourself.))

As I mentioned last week, the reason I was spending twenty-two hours at school on a weekend was to take the first half of the Myofascial Release seminar I'm signed up for this month--this past weekend was spent on the upper-body, the next weekend seminar (at the end of the month) will be spent on the lower half. It's an extensive and exhausting weekend, and I can't even FATHOM how tiring it'll be to take the Precision Neuromuscular Therapy seminar sometime before I graduate, knowing that it encompasses not *TWO* weekends but *FIVE*. But I managed to get through it.

I went into the seminar knowing absolutely nothing about what myofascial release even is. And at first I wasn't quite sure what to make of it all--our instructor (who is obviously a practitioner) spoke of it as though it was one-up to the second coming of Jesus, as though it could cure anything and had unfathomable healing powers and could turn a toaster into a poodle if done correctly. When people start to sound a bit too close to facetious Tom Waits songs, I get a bit skeptical:

That's right, it filets, it chops
It dices, slices, never stops
lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn
And it mows your lawn
and it picks up the kids from school
It gets rid of unwanted facial hair
it gets rid of embarrassing age spots
It delivers a pizza
and it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that's been at large
under the chaise longe for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar
And it's only a dollar, step right up
it's only a dollar, step right up

So I had my doubts.

But then we were told that myofascial release involved very deep tissue work and *CAN BE PAINFUL*, and my ears, of course, perked right up. Obviously, I'm not into making my clients HURT. But as I've mentioned at least once or twice before, I really really enjoy giving massages where I'm able to put the full-force of my body into a stroke and have a client open themselves up to a beautiful wonderful ache and pain whose end-results will be pleasure. So I was intrigued.

The goal of myofascial release is apparently to realign the body in the gravitational field by working on the fascia (which runs continuously through the whole body) and returning the fascia to a state in which it is again flexible and able to act as a lubricant. This is done through fairly intense stretching of various body-parts and the underlying fascia (so intense that often, clients will feel pain when being worked on). Myo also apparently works as a fantastic complement to chiropractic adjustments as well, since they both have the same goal in mind. Cool stuff.

So despite the fact that I was at school and it was 6pm on a Friday night, I was a little bit excited and didn't dread quite so much the prospect of having to spend 22 hours of my weekend there, now that I knew what we would be learning.

There were about 25-30 people in the class, I'd guess, and they were a good and enjoyable bunch (thankfully)--a mixture of students who were required to take the seminar and professionals already out in the massage therapy field, making their marks. Our instructor reminded me of a (much cheerier) Sam the Eagle from The Muppets, though Sam the Eagle has less hair than I remembered, and our instructor is bountiful in that area.

Some of us knew one another, some of us didn't, so he *OF COURSE* made us begin the first night with the obligatory ice-breaking garbage-ola that folks always like to torture seminar attendees with.

This particular night, it was a staring/intimacy exercise that I'd done once before when I started my current job. And let me tell you, IT SUCKS.

What it entailed was standing across from a person, both of you placing your hand on each other's heart, and then both of you placing your other hand over the hand that is on your own heart. And then you stand in silence and are supposed to look the other person in the eyes.

Now, I don't know how many of you have stared a stranger in the eye for about five-minutes straight without talking (and without diverting your gaze), but it is a surprisingly and disturbingly uncomfortable experience. It sounds easy enough, but you can't even begin to understand what a horrifying experience it is to be forced to gaze into the eyes of someone you don't know at all. It literally is like opening your soul up to them and staring into the gaping maw of their own. I kid you not. Do it sometime--with a complete stranger. You will see what I mean.

This was made even worse on Friday by the fact that I have a hard time maintaining eye contact with folks as is. It creeps me out and makes me feel itchy and awkward to do so with people I don't know, and I have a tendency to stare off into space when talking to folks for that very reason. I also am a person who has very carefully built a protective fortress around myself, and I rarely let people in or myself out. So staring someone directly in the eyes is effectively taking a big ol' wrecking ball to this damnable fortress, and I'm not a big fan of doing that. I'm not a real big fan of vulnerability period, if you haven't yet figured that out. So when I realized this is what we were doing, I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

We didn't stay with one person the whole time either. We switched up with about 3 or 4 different people in the course of what was probably 15 minutes (but felt like 4 hours). The first few people I had were girls, and we kind of just giggled uncomfortably and stood around awkwardly. The pattern of interaction went something like this: giggle, accidental eye contact, abrupt and uncomfortable looking away, staring at your hand on their heart, accidentally making eye contact again, giggling, looking away embarassed, accidentally realizing you're staring at their boobs, looking away quickly, staring at their chin, giggling.

Awkward--yes. Uncomfortable--yes. But the other person was clearly feeling the same way, so no real harm done.

The problem arose when I got paired up with the teaching assistant for the seminar, a short older man in his fifties or sixties. Clearly he had done this before. Clearly he took the activity seriously. And clearly I could not giggle awkwardly the whole time without feeling like a total ass.

The man's gaze remained on my face consistently throughout, despite my constant, unavoidable, almost reflex-like diverted gazes, and I felt terrible because he was trying so hard to let me in and make me comfortable with his eye contact. So, goddammit, I decided that I would make an effort and would attempt to maintain eye contact with him (despite the fact that it's about as painful as having my wisdom-teeth extracted). So I tried tried tried tried. And I kid you not--it was literally one of the spookiest experiences I've ever taken part in.

Now, I'm not a big fat new-agey person who's all about energies and the forces of love and chakras and light emitted from the body and out-of-body experiences all that. I believe in a lot of that stuff, but not in that spooky-eyed kinda glazed-over kinda way that some new age folks do. Moreso in an uber-rationalized tied-down-to-the-scientific-workings-of-the-universe kind of way.

But I've gotta tell you, after finally forcing myself to stare at him without looking away, I had the most bizarre and sudden cataclysmic moment where I literally felt like I'd slipped into some sort of otherworldiness and was being swallowed up by the energies of this person. And it scared the crap outta me. I felt simultaneously warm and safe and exposed and vulnerable. I felt like I'd in that one moment told them EVERY SINGLE DASTARDLY SECRET ABOUT MY LIFE THAT'S EVER MADE ME CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT, and it was a goddamn intense experience. I actually had to look away for a moment at one point because I felt so exposed that I literally thought I was going to start crying. Had I not looked away, I think I probably would've.

I think the teaching assistant experienced something similar (although perhaps not precisely the same) as well--at one point, his eyes got kinda watery and he looked kind of uncomfortable and then eventually, when it kinda felt like it was done with, he kinda just smiled lop-sided at me.

I guess you would say "we had a moment." And man oh man, was it amazing but spooky.

The whole experience literally freaked me out so much that when I went to pee afterwards, I realized I had broken out in a hive below my lip from it.

I never ever ever get hives.

Clearly I am mental.

And clearly our TA was some sort of hive-inducing witch-doctor.

* * * * * *

Until tomorrow, here be some links, in case you're interested in reading more about the kinds of stuff we were learning...

• Myofascial Release



• Hellerwork



• Rolfing

(Stay tuned tomorrow for More Misadventures of the Myofascial Kind.)