Hear I am
The first semester of massage school isn't really about massage. I mean it is, you do learn Swedish Massage strokes, practice using good body dynamics and master appropriate draping, but what you really learn is how to get all that periphery out of the way so you can get down to what's really important, connection.
It's like this. I started massage school like Lucy climbing into that wardrobe. I had all sorts of ideas of what might be in my learning future, but none of them included entering an unknown world of human connection that I didn't know existed. In Massage Narnia (also known as Potomac Massage Training Institute), there are mythical creatures who manipulate tissues with the most subtle movements of the hands. Energy and matter are carressed and changed. More importantly, in Massage Narnia, you discover yourself and how you are the most important resource you have. You learn that body dynamics is about finding the most ease in your own body and connecting with your own weaknesses, pains, awareness in order connect to another body and guide it into its own place of ease. You learn that you have immense power and that your feelings, moods, traumas and scars can come through your hands. Knowing them, accepting them and finding ease with them is fundamental in doing the massage strokes with balance, client focus and awareness of the tissues. We can only be fully present in our connection to others if we can be fully present with ourselves.
My hands are becoming more sensitive. I can feel people breathing through their hands. But the greatest sensitivity I've achieved has only brought about the awareness that I really have no idea what's going on in the body and I still have so much to learn. I began a three part series this past Wednesday that is all about training our hands to feel. But again, it's not really about my hands. It's about being fully present in my body and bringing awarenss fully to the information coming in through my hands. And all of this goes back to empathy, for others and for the self.
"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."
- Jack Kornfield
So, I'm learning to listen. I'm learning to trust myself. I'm learning to be okay with not knowing. Basically, massage school should be required learning for all humans entering the world.
"Welcome to the world, little one. Here is how we connect with one another."
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