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Client Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:48:00 +0000

A client posed an interesting question to me today; she asked if I thought that a person should be quiet during their massage in order to get the full benefit of it....in order to really experience their body. I surprised myself when my response to her was no. Because, technically, yes. No? If you are talking, you are not breathing. If you are not breathing you cannot possibly be focusing your breath into your body. If you are not focusing on your body, you cannot be fully experiencing it.

This is no instruction manual folks. I need opinions here.

But, I said no. Logic=it depends on why you are receiving massage. It depends on if you are chatting to ignore what is going on or in response to it. This particular client is chatty. No problem to me, I do not care either way. I do not encourage talking but I will be attentive and responsive to those who choose to talk during their session. Anyway, she chats. She needs to chat. For her massage brings up thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Emotions are stored in tissue and therapists often stir them during a session and then experience the result of the clients new state. Accessing tissue generally calls for a release of some sort. Often we ask people to breath. Some people curse or laugh or hum instead. Some people talk. I realized that as she asked me that question. I realized I accepted it as a valid form of release no more detrimental to the session than laughing or crying in her case. Whatever I rub out of her hamstrings goes zipping up to her brain and demands contemplation. She happens to think out loud.

Politics

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:11:00 +0000

And now a message from Al......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idlJDcr669o

If only it were easier to get the entire population of a continent actively working towards the same goal. I have seen a lot of people naked--physically and metaphorically--and we really are NOT all the same. Which is probably a good thing.

Timing

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:54:00 +0000

My absolute biggest annoyance is being late. I hate being late. I show up to movies 30 minutes early and sit through the horrible commercials. I am 20 minutes early to every doctors appointment. I am first person at the party.
One of the hardest things to get used to after becoming a massage therapist was the fact that most of the rest of the world is five minutes late. Always. Client simply are not on time and when your entire day is established around defined time blocks this can be a bit upsetting. For me. I am, however, learning to be more relaxed. (in part due to the internal clock of my girlfriend) After five years, I am okay with that. I don't even think of calling people until they are 15 (!gasp!) minutes late.
There is nothing worse than a stressed out massage therapist.

Starting a Massage Practice

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:13:00 +0000

Still on the topic of jobs; I have a massage therapist friend who just became a massage therapist early this year, found her first spa, had her first bad experience working for someone else, and is now in search of a new job location. We were discussing her options for growing her own little practice and all of the ups and downs that come with that. She and I both have attained business licenses and run our little side business in order to maintain monetary stability. As well as for fun. The hard part about having/starting your own business is all of the costs! After you become a massage therapist you are already in debt from the cost of school and now you must find yourself in the Home section of Kmart (only store were decent single twin sized sheets could be bought for less than the price of your left arm) calculating how much money is coming out of your account to cover 12 sheets, 6 pillow cases, and 2 throw blankets. Oy. Honestly, you could venture to the nearest massage supply store but I have found that they tend to charge way too much money for a single sheet/face cradle cover. Sheet from Kmart=$7. Sheet from massage supply store= $14. I hate Kmart. I hate their stores, I hate their business practices, I hate what their very presence stands for and I drove to every store that sold sheets in a 15 mile radius and had to break down and give them my money because it was either that or tighten up my $20 a week food budget. If anyone out there knows a better place to buy sheets, help a woman out!
So, if that does not sound horrific enough, we have yet to discuss the price of a table, business cards, work space, cloths, music, music player, cleaning supplies, gift certificate printing, lotion/oil, etc. I think the best way to go about these things is to start buying them while in school. Save up for one item at a time, take advantage of sales, and buy in bulk. Also, craigslist.
So, now you have all this stuff and......you need clients. Starting your own practice alone is hard, slow, constant work. As I have said, join massage association groups, sports massage teams, volunteer. Whatever you can do to get your hands on bodies. I think every single massage instructor I had told me to get my hands on as many bodies as possible. At this point we are talking probabilities and it is better to have a higher denominator, it improves your chances of a growing numerator. I started out as a fill in for a therapist who already had a thriving practice. I took overflow clients from her which worked out great. She was still able to help people who called her business even when she was personally unavailable and I got to get my hands on bodies. My deal was unusual, I think, but the outcome of having cheaper rent and more flexibility can be achieved by renting a work space with a fellow (perhaps established) therapist. This cuts your cost and provides a stable location from which to begin.
There are so many ways in which to begin your own practice that it really depends on what you personally are interested in doing. I have friends who have turned their mother-in-law house into fantastic massage office and does quite well. I decided I liked the support of a clinic. My, now seeking, therapist friend is in the midst of working all of this out for herself. Just as it should be.

Bark

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:26:00 +0000

So, I have been dog sitting. Some people say that a Massage Therapist cannot support him or her self entirely on massage. This is circumstantial. Many therapists keep their current job while they build their practice, how good a job they do building the practice will determine how long the day job sticks around. When I became all licensed I was living in a groups situation, single, not in school= plenty of time on my hands. I kept my day job as a part time gig because I liked it so much and accidentally started a little dog sitting business on the side. Note: if you dog sit for someone and you do a good job, they WILL tell ALL of their dog owning friends and those friends WILL call you. In the end, I was working three jobs. Its like I was saving to go back to school or something......
The point is, if you truly focus on building your massage practice, by working in a salon or clinic that is doing well, networking like crazy, getting involved in the massage community, etc. You can do massage and only massage and pay all of your bills. The dogs, however, are harder to get rid of than the day job. I have little to no internet while staying with Dog and have managed to catch a cold. Thus, my absence.
I am going to climb back onto the couch now and continue to prepare for a Spanish exam.
Hasta Tarde!

Physical Therapist...for a day

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:48:00 +0000

Because my life simply must be full up to every minute, I have decided to spend every Monday of this summer following a Physical Therapist around. This PT is my boss which makes it easy because we already know each other and have a good working relationship. I see her work all the time, no big deal. Following her around all day is another matter entirely.
In order to even apply to Physical Therapy School you must have between 100 and 200 hours of observation/experience in various physical therapy settings. Great logic; how bout ya'll see what you are looking to get into, eh? I respect that. Many of the PT's I have spoken with say that they got into their career partly because they did not want to sit at a desk all day. Prayer's answered. We hardly sat down all day. PT's seem to spend 30-45min with each patient they have. Divide 7-10 hour days by that and that equals a lot of folks. There are no breaks between these people either. Watching my boss walk out of one room after asking her patient how their god-child is doing and into another room to ask how her new patients knee is doing, without stopping to breath is pretty freaking amazing. People skills people skills people skills. PT's may see 10-16 people a day and it is imperative they be able to remember each person's treatment plan and the names of their four dogs. If they are good, they will also know the breeds.
Do not get me wrong, a good grasp on anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, kinesiology, and psychology comes in handy. A PT seems to integrate all of these Ologies at the drop of a knee brace. To start the day, charts are reviewed and coffee is had. We then spent the next 5.5 hours moving from patient to patient. This is made possible by the aids who greet patients and warm them up so that all the PT does is stream into the room once they are prepped. Following that we took an hour lunch. This is a great time to catch up on charts. As a massage therapist, I book myself enough time to do my charts between clients. I may have to let go of this luxury, it seems. The afternoon looked much like the morning, except I cut out early so that I could study for a Genome exam.
This is what my Monday's will look like for the next two months. Updates sure to follow.

Physical Therapy Training Requires Spanish

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:07:00 +0000

My break from school has officially ended. It was a whole week long, and trust me, that can be a lot when you do school and work year round. My sister flew into town for a visit and managed to use up most of my time. She is the next youngest of my sisters and the one I am the closest to. We grew up to be two incredibly different women. She embraces that whole feminine persona much better than I do and grilled me about whether or not I have lotion, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and a blow dryer in the house; otherwise, she was not coming! Toothpaste? Seriously? If my sister wonders these things about me I fear what my family twice that far away may think of me. Once assured I did have all of life's necessities in my bathroom she jumped on a plane and we spent the week laughing the way sisters do when they are together and remembering each others childhoods.

For the summer I am taking both Spanish and Genome Sciences. Neither of these classes is directly required to gain entrance to PT (physical therapy) school, however an undergraduate degree is. Most universities like to demand that one year of a foreign language* during their undergraduate programs.

[*Which, in my opinion, is entirely for show. Not a single person gets off taking one year of a foreign language in college and leaves knowing how to use it. Unless you have already studied a language, chances are you will begin and end a monolingual individual. If they want us to leave the higher educations knowing more than one language, they should start teaching us in elementary school. Oy.]

Thus, here I am. I actually like Spanish and do not mind spending my summer polishing it up. Because I did not know what I wanted to do with myself when I left high school, I did not see the point in going all the way through college with no goal. It has been a while since I took Spanish. Once I figured out I wanted to go to Physical Therapy School I knew I was looking at a long road. I still needed to finish my undergraduate degree. Sometimes I kick myself for not just finishing college the first time. Then I realize that if I had I would be very good at stage lighting and know absolutely nothing you need to know to get into PT school. I would still be here--but I would have even less money. See, it all works out.

Touching is Too Close

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:56:00 +0000

As a massage therapist, you get to experience all kinds of quirks in human nature. Today I experienced one of my favorites. Favorite Human Quirk #11 occurs when you have a person on the massage table (face up, face down, doesn't matter) and you touch their arm with your arm/side of your leg/any body part belonging to you and they apologize and move their arm. ?! If I have my elbow in your gluts whats your hand against my forearm? This is a massage. The entire point is that we make physical contact. In fact, you are paying for it. People seem to be very uncomfortable with any amount of contact that goes beyond what was laid out in the massage plan.
I understand that many folks are probably just trying to avoid the situation wherein I think I am being violated, and I totally appreciate that! But it still makes me laugh. I spend at least an hour treading circles around that table in order to my job and if I run into your hand along the way, that's what it is. I will use my legs to bolster an arm if need be, but as my leg is not my hand it is as though some rule has been broken. It makes me smile every time.
While we are at it....Favorite Human Quirk # 9: The Adult Grasp Reflex. I have found that quite a few adults seem to have retained the infant grasp reflex. The one where a baby will close its hand if its palm is touched. Technically, this reflex is supposed to subside after a few months. But I have found people who will close their hands around mine, just for a second, if I begin massaging their hands while they are chatting about something else. They will be explaining some injury to me, or what their kid did last night, all the while gently clasping my fingers. It is easy enough to work free of this, but it too always makes me smile because I truly do not believe they know they have done it. So many possible explanations for this but apparently we respond favorably to touch at all ages. Who knew?

A Day

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:11:00 +0000

Ok, finals are over! Everybody stand up, spin around, do a dance, then sit back down. Tonight there will be the traditional post-final-hot-chocolate-with-stuff-in, to be had by all who suffer through this with me. Go Team. So, the most exciting aspect of this end of final examination week is not what I am going to do with myself for the whole week I have off of school, but what I am not going to do. Have you any idea what the day of a working student looks like? I shall tell you.

Good Day. Wake to alarm at 5:45am. Ignore, go back to sleep. Wake to second alarm (oh yes, plural. what if one alarm fails!?!) at 6:15. Snooze til 6:40, at which point we are very late. Do the shower thing and catch the bus by 7:21. 8:30am physics lecture. 9:30am Physiology lecture. 10:30 study, surf internet, study, surf internet*. 12:30pm Physiology lecture. Two in one day? Physiology major does not play. (anyone notice the rhyming, what, why?) 1:30pm go home! Study, Study, Vacuum. Days like this also hold prolonged periods in campus coffee shops. Every department seems to have its own coffee bar which is, supposedly, distinct to the demands of those students. Physics has the h-bar, named beautifully after a form of Planks Constant, which is one of the few shops that puts soy milk on its bar. Chemistry has the Think Tank, which is a TINY hole in the wall that will only give you cookies or bagels. Its as though they try to be just as frustrating as chemistry itself. There will also be walks around the city and excessive amounts of time spent in grocery stores.

*I absolutely refuse to capitalize the word "internet". I have no good reason for this, what-so-ever, aside from the gut twisting feeling that fills me when the internet tells me that internet should be capitalized.

Bad Day. Sleep through alarm one. Snooze though alarm two. 7am, wake up very very late. 7:37am, catch bus. Then it goes like this: one hour lecture, followed by one hour lecture, followed by two hour lab, followed by one hour quiz section, followed by running across campus to catch the bus, followed by 6.5 hours of work. 8:30pm go home, make dinner with the girlfriend, do homework. Depending on amount and extent of homework sleep may be omitted for the good of the GPA.

The stress of this is all eased by the packing of lunches, the preemptive assignment completion, and the occasional 7 hour Battlestar Galactica binge. Your brain needs a vacation, too. For example, I plan to do none of the activities mentioned in prior paragraphs for the next 9 days.
Plan: Nothing.

Prep for Life

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:40:00 +0000

So, it is finals week. I began studying at 1pm today and now, as it reaches 8:40, I find myself a pile of not so well contained bones on my couch. My head hurts. The upside to this round of finals is that it is one with circumstances that rarely occur. Both of my exams will be covering Physiology. All I have to do is program my brain to think like a physiologist for the next four days. I will find determining factors, and gradients, and catalysts, and resistance in all things! I will find myself dreaming about the hormone pathway of ovulation and cellular mechanism of the respiratory Po2 sensor. And I am not kidding. It is, however, a step up from physics exams which would induce whole evenings of dreams consisting almost entirely of equations. Two years ago, during an intense study period for my biological anthropology course, I dreamed up Homor Habilis! It was awesome because he looked just like a Habilis Homor Simpson in full animation. Your brain has some interesting ways of processing what you put it through in a single day. If you are considering going back to college, I suggest you do so, if only for the nocturnal experience.

Tomorrow will be almost a full day of study. The only good thing about all of this is that I get to sleep in. The sheer joy of not having to get up at 6:27am is enough to please this woman. I am off to summarize an endocrine system.

Informed Choice - Finding a Massage School

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:21:00 +0000

So, I went to massage school 6 years ago. This is not an awfully long time ago, but it is enough time to observe a huge change in the education industry. The three major massage schools in my state have all changed ownership, been sold, or been eaten by a monster company. I have people who ask me where they should go for massage school. Well, I have no idea! When I went to massage school, I looked at massage schools all over the country. Since I was moving, and was not exactly set on where, this was no problem for me. Luckily for normal people, most states have more than one choice of school. Even with many of the schools being owned by the same company, every school is different. The schools philosophy and the individual people who teach there will have the greatest impact on the education you walk away with.
When I started school, I knew I wanted to do something that looked more like treatment/medical massage. Thus, I considered the curriculum of each school, the internships available, AND the cost. I am far from provided for, and some schools require you provide a lot of your own equipment early on. This can get pricey since you have no idea if bamboo fiber sheets are really that much better than flannel, or if you will really use that extra low table feature....ever. Some schools are farther left in the world of natural healing than others. What matters is finding the school that is marching to your own little beat.
This worked out for me.
I picked the school that seemed to focus the most on the treatment of injuries and maintenance of the body. I went through a full year of anatomy, physiology, and knesiology (instead of the 6mo some schools provide). Also, I got to intern at a hospital. These extra learning experiences made all the difference when it came to my confidence in treating clients and my eventual move into training and managing other therapists.
Another thought to consider beyond what I wanted to do in my practice, was where I wanted to do my practice in ten years. Since massage is not regulated at the national level, every state has its own set of requirements. My way around this was to attend school in a state that had some of the highest standards, that way when I moved again (nomadic much?) I would not be finding myself back in school. Thankfully, there is the National Board Certification which also covers folks who find themselves less rooted.
The truth is, you can find a school almost anywhere. The key is to find YOUR school. Mine, unfortunately, is gone. Sold, then sold again, I can no longer herd seekers that way with confidence. Ah well, in the words of Tori, "all will find its way in time". She probably means us, too.

Truth and Exfoliation

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:52:00 +0000

So, I had the kind of day at work where I saw only men. Seeing how as I see 4-5 people a workday, that is something that rarely happens to me. Men, in huge massive general terms, tend to receive massage less than women do. There are many reasons for this and it is not at all the point of this post. The point is this; my friend asked me if I was more tired after working on men all day and to answer completely honestly I had to say, no, I was not. The upside to working on men is that you get to use my forearms all day, since they tend to have broader surfaces, and the high body hair to exposed skin ratio makes for the best darn natural exfoliation ever! My girlfriend probably has no idea that the soft arms she so adores comes, in part, from me rubbing hairy men on a regular basis. (.....until she reads this blog, that is.)

Infinity

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:56:00 +0000

"Note, there is no difficulty in focusing our eyes to infinity; we do it all the time."

This sentence was stumbled over in my physics lab manual and while it speaks of relevant issues to the physics of light, I found it to be especially insightful. Quite literally, we do focus our eyes to infinity nearly everyday. We day dream. We slip deep into thought. We stare out over the ocean. We stare at the blue sky. We stare at our ceilings. It is natural. It comes naturally to us.
I am in the last year of schooling for my current degree. Since I have no idea what school will accept me into their physical therapy program, beyond graduating from this college the rest of my plan looks a lot like infinity. I can visualize the end that I am aiming for but everything in between looks like a yet formed molecular web. There are a few constants I hope to hang onto, a few luxuries I would rather not part with, but the goal is simply to reach the end, whichever end that shows up as. And honestly, considering what I am trying to do and how much work still lies ahead, it may as well be as far as infinity. So, I suppose, the take away lesson here is; relax, keep your eyes open, we do this all the time.

Scholar-Ship

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:58:00 +0000

So, I got a scholarship this past week. 67% as a an excuse to take a Friday night off of work, I attended the awards dinner. Which was great. My friend, Knave, who accompanied me was commenting on how novel it was to be in a room full of people who seemed genuinely optimistic about the future. In truth, if I had just paid that much money to help send other peoples kids to school, I would want some freaking optimism served with my wine, too!
Aside from the evening being an honor parade it was actually uplifting to see that many people turn out to say congratulations to some hard working students. Most of these folks overcame difficult backgrounds in order to become abnormally productive. Seriously, I was an honoree and I could not believe what all these people do. I tell people I just gave up sleeping and a social life to meet my goals; some of these kids must have given up breathing. Oy. It just goes to show that anything is possible if you have the will and a little support.
I worked through high school. I worked through massage school. I am working through college. The good thing about massage school was you had two options for when you wanted to take your classes. If you got kids, study when they study. If you got a job, study when you get off. It was really nice to have that flexibility. And, there was a ton less homework. A ton. Speaking of, I am going to go write a paper about what will happen to you if you hold your breath while 20,000 feet above sea level.
It is going to be a very short paper.

Calculating Uncertainties

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:45:00 +0000

Once a week, for the past 7 months, I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out why the creators of the physics lab classes decided that the best way to go about this whole thing is to design activities especially good at draining all the fun right out of physics. Oh. My. God. They should re-name the class "calculating uncertainties" just so you can prepare for what it is you will actually be doing for the next year of your life. Why encourage us to engage in more active observation or make cool discoveries about the laws of the natural world when we could just plug numbers into the same bloody equation over and over and over again? That is where the fun is! 3 hours a week I do this and I feel bad complaining about it because I like physics. I get to actually see how magnets and waves and collision forces act on the real world......for about 10 minutes and then it is back to uncertainties. The funny thing is, no one in my class is on their way to becoming a physicist. We are all in the physics class for people who are not going to do physics. Or math. Or engineering. Or probably anything wherein knowing exactly how wrong you are is going to matter so much. Oy. Four more weeks and it is over.

An Introduction of Sorts - Beginning Thoughts from A Student of Physical Therapy, Massage, and Furthering Education

noreply@blogger.com (The Natural Beat) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:45:00 +0000

You never notice how much you do until something grabs hold of you and makes you stop doing what you do. The realization comes once you are put back down and find yourself lost in the race to catch up. Oy...

My mom came into town this past weekend to visit me. Much like any parental visit it was filled with moments of glee for experiencing what I have missed, deep reflection on the possible implications behind the fact that you look EXACTLY like them, and the overwhelming relief of driving them very far away from your house. Today, I put her on a plane headed home and have spent the last four hours staring at my desk wondering how the hell I got myself into school, work, and a relationship, all at the same time. As of now, I have 51.5 hours to complete a summary of the human digestive system, get really good at the physics of sound, and polish up a workshop on how massage therapists can most effectively communicate with their clients. .......35.3 hours, minus sleep and travel time.

For those of you who do not know me, I am a three quarter time massage therapist, full time physiology student, overtime girlfriend, and aspiring physical therapist. I accept gifts of stolen spoons, dark chocolate, and mathematical advice from physicists. The physicists part, I thought I would never hear myself say. I went from four years of theatre to three years of massage therapy and no one ever asked me the intensity of a sound wave bouncing off of a moth from 3 meters away. In truth, it is kind of fun. I find I do not mind that in order to get into any school of Physical Therapy, anywhere, you have to study physics for a year. I moved to Seattle to study massage therapy because it is one of the better places in the country to do so. I enjoyed the education I received here. I sat up on warm Arizona nights searching the Natural Healers website for schools (as folks in Phoenix need the Internet to find anything natural) and landed myself in Seattle, where I was taught that the body is just a very impressive tower of levers. I fell in love with all the mechanics of the body and I let that affection carry me all the way back to a big university that now requires me to examine that love from molecule to radian. It is true that love can deepen with knowledge.

Speaking of knowledge, I have an exam in 58.84 hours. My mom called to let me know she landed safely. My sister called to ask me how things went with mom. My girlfriend called to let me know she has safely arrived at her business hotel. My cat would like dinner. And I hear 8 hours of sleep is a good thing.