April 21, 2011

School Update

The first three weeks of massage school have been totally awesome. I have class two nights every week - Anatomy on Tuesdays & Massage on Thursdays.

I've had my first anatomy test and got a great score, which made me very happy. The test covered the make up of the body with various systems and anatomical terms for body parts, so lots of good info to have as a base for when we get into the bones & muscles. It's full steam ahead in that class with our next text covering the chapters on chemistry and cells.

In massage class, it's been hands on learning since last week. I really like this part of how the school approaches the learning process. We have before class reading assignments where we learn about new techniques, then the majority of class time is spent practicing on the others classmates. Our instructor demonstrates the way to do the technique, then spends the class walking around each set of students and helps us with hand placement and body positioning. The basic technique we've learned so far is called gliding, where you use your hands to glide over the body to increase blood flow and circulation in the body.

I've done three practice massages on friends and family so far and they've gone pretty good. I have learned something new during each one of them. My massage room is all set up now since my table arrived last week, so I'm looking forward to the learning process and continued practice on people over the next few months. We will build new techniques and learn new areas of the body over the next month during class and be up to practicing full body massage by mid-summertime.

That's about it on the school front, I'm enjoying every minute of it and still feel I've made the right decision about things. There's an amazing energy I'm feeling in class that is very positive and exciting. It's something I haven't been around professionally in awhile and it's very cool to feel how that positivity can spread and make you want to learn more, do more, and be a better person. There are 13 people in my class, so they will all become my new buddies over the next 18 months as we go through this process together. We are all different and come from different backgrounds, but we're all interested in massage therapy and have choosen this new path for ourselves so we'll be needing each other to succeed in class and in real life as we move forward. So that's it for now, not sure how much I'll be able to update things here on CincySpin but I'll aim for at least one school update per semester.

Thanks to all for your support, it means so very much to me.

1 comment:

MacDougall Family said...

That's awesome Len! Maybe you can practice on some of us in a few weeks! I'm so happy for you that things are going so well with school so far, and that you're encouraged by the decision you've made. It's very brave of you to make this move, but I'm so glad you decided to do something that already seems to be making you so much happier. Love you girl!