Massage update



Ok so it's been a while since I've actually posted something on how I am coming along on the massage front. The last couple of posts were mainly on the spiritual journey but I thought I'd focus on the massage or "body work" front.

 It's essentially coming along well - can you believe this week is Week 8 out of my first trimester?! There's only 4 weeks left to go and then that's my halfway mark as I'm studying part-time. I'm so incredibly impatient with this because I just want to jump straight out of the law and into the massage but obviously I need the qualification before I can do anything.

 So over the past few weeks, I've been practicing my massage and been increasingly confident with most of my techniques. At the student clinic, I was allocated 2 paying clients so I essentially had to do these 2 one after the other. My first client gave me some good feedback that I seemed less confident around the neck area but was really good with the rest of the areas. That was great feedback because yes, I hadn't spent too much time practising massage on the neck area because when I have people come over my place during the week, I end up concentrating on the areas of their body that actually need the work and the neck isn't necessarily one of them (although I get to some of the neck via cranio-sacral stuff that I'm "dabbling" in at the moment).

 Fast forward to this week and I received my assessment for my first practical exam for our massage techniques course (this is different to the clinic assessment in which I passed with flying colours). It was unsatisfactory, as I got some of the draping wrong (I knew that) and my c-scooping apparently wasn't good enough. That kind of hit my confidence a bit, but then figured it's feedback I needed in order to improve and get better. I'm doing the rest of my filming today so hopefully I will pass!

 Anyway, so yesterday I'm at clinic getting excited about having another client to massage on. I only ended up being allocated one during the second hour so I spent the first couple of minutes (I arrived early) to read up on the client's file. As myself and my friend didn't have a client in the first hour, my supervisor (the one who marked my first clinic assessment) told us that we could use that hour to practice so we jumped on it. I really wanted to practice techniques on the neck, and it was great because as I whilst massaging my friend, she was giving me feedback on what she had done on the neck, and then our supervisor came in and was teaching us a bunch of really good techniques that I'll apply in the future.

 After that, back in the student room we went to get ready for our next client. I was told they swapped my client around with someone else so I had "Adam Gilchrist". Now if you like cricket, you will know that name and I am a BIG fan so I was thinking "REALLY?!?!?!". Anyway, my supervisor came and plonked his file on the desk in front of me and I was confused until it registered that HE was "Adam Gilchrist" - sigh. He wanted me to massage him which freaked me out on a few levels because 1. he knows MM and said MM keeps banging on about me and 2. he's my bloody assessor!

 Anyway, it was really good to work on him because he gave me a lot more tips on how to massage the chest area and the other supervisor came in and taught me some remedial massage techniques working on both the pec major and the upper traps at the same time. I also received some tips on how to stretch out the neck too which was invaluable! He said my pressure and flow was really good so that was great to hear.

 Now for a bit of a downer. It seems like I underestimated when I was going to finish my Cert IV next year. Now looks to be June 2016 as the next trimester starts around end of Feb apparently. That pushes back when I can start the Diploma in Remedial Massage which now has been extended to a longer course which means it'll take even longer for me to get my qualfications! :( Hopefully something will happen that will let me get out of the corporate life relatively soon!

 Also at the Mind Body Spirit festival yesterday, I came past this Qi Gong stand. I didn't really know what it was about so I spent quite a bit of time chatting to the practitioners there and they said they'll send me some information about the courses. I also came across another place that teaches kinesiology (I did a weekend course there years ago in Touch for Health) so went in a draw to win $2,500 off the course price. Over the last week or so I'd been really confused about what "energy" healing I wanted to study - whether it was reiki or something else. I've decided that let's just see what the Universe has in stall for me and I'll do whatever pops up at the right time. 

 P.S The reason why I was mentioning I needed to buy that black obsidian was because I wanted to ensure that when I massaged clients, I didn't take on the energy of the client myself. Because massage is quite intimate in that I'm touching someone else, it's inevitable that energy would be passing between myself and the client and vice versa. In order to ensure that I don't take any negative energies of the client onto myself, I needed to get one of those crystals.

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