by caren banke

Created on: May 30, 2008

I am just completing my first year of training as a massage therapist. I know that to most people, this "training" sounds as though it must be quite simple, but I assure you that it has been very rigorous, and that I, as well as my fellow students, have been held to strict standards. These standards cover areas such as draping a client's body when giving a Swedish massage; draping standards are quite strict-I am certain that you-as a potential client-would be happy to hear this. Two other standards we have been trained to be very conscious and thorough about are grounding in and out with our patients, and setting boundaries with our patients.

I have been very attentive to all of these standards; not only have I had over five hundred hours of classroom learning, but I have also worked in our schools public clinic for over six hundred hours, and in all that time I have practiced these standards to the letter. But all of my hours of training came undone in a single day at my externship.

Our school requires us to not only work in our public clinic, but also to work for at least 56 hours off-site. For my off-site hours, I chose to work at a yoga studio. This was my last day; I had already completed my 56 hours, and was actually working over that to complete a total of 59 hours. Why? I do not know. Thinking back now, I believe that I was meant to be there when my last two clients came in. They both challenged my boundaries, and my abilities to ground in and to ground out. The male client I had challenged all of my draping standards.

I started with the male client in a Swedish massage. He was lying on his stomach under the sheet, and the blanket. As I was massaging his back, using deep tissue techniques, he suddenly raised his head to explain that he had intense pain along his inner thighs, and to ask if I could do something about that pain. I hesitated. In Swedish massage there is very little that a massage therapist can do for a client's "inner thigh" because the client is fully naked, or has just his or her underpants on. So, in my hesitation, I thought to myself, "well, I could put him on a mat on the floor and do Shiatsu." So that's what I suggested to him. I said, "well, you can get off of the table, and put your clothes back on; then I'll put a mat on the floor, and we can do Shiatsu." Doing Shiatsu, I can get deeper into the glute area, and deeper into the inner and outer thigh.

My client thought for a second or two, and then said "Okay, but I don't need to put

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>