As you know, if you've been reading this at all lately, I'm in a program to become a Licensed Massage Therapist. While doing this school thing has slowed down my knitting production (and my blogging), it is a wonderful thing that I'm really glad I chose to do.
Among the challenges we face as Massage Therapy Students is the need to give massages every week as part of our homework. And that means that we need to find people willing to get massages.
I know, I know, how hard can that be? A free massage? DUH.
And yet, until now, each week has not been a full massage -- just what we've learned so far.
And it's a massage that must follow a strict pattern, even if you need extra work on something, I'm not supposed to be varying from our routine until I've got it down really solidly (and can do it in exactly 60 minutes).
And... we're supposed to be working on different people each week, not the same ones over and over. After a point, you run out of close friends and have to start asking people you don't know that well to trust you enough to take off their clothes and lie on your massage table with nothing but a sheet between them and the world -- and then let you touch them, and use them to learn on.
One of the people who has let me do this for her refers to her role as that of "stunt body". I find that amusing (and so much less ominous than "victim"), and thus have adopted it.
I'm very grateful to all of the people who have trusted me enough to let me work on their bodies. And I'm even more grateful to all of the people who have not only accepted the massages that I could give, but have given me constructive feedback. And for those who have let me work on you more than once, your feedback on the learning process has been invaluable. You've helped me learn so much!
and... I'm grateful in advance for those who will continue to let me learn, trusting me to give a good, safe, healing massage even though I don't have my license (and won't for close to a year).
I wonder... should we get T-Shirts?
I wish we lived closer together -- I would volunteer as a stunt body :-)
Posted by: kmkat | November 10, 2011 at 10:21 PM