Tribal Paint, Mangos & Massage

For the bulk of fourth quarter our afternoon bodywork class was CranioSacral Therapy. I'm still unsure how I feel about this modality. I appreciate that the subtle work has great effects on the mind and body but I'm certainly not passionate about specializing in it.. yet.  The technique is soooo slow, concentrated, and subliminally intentional that the client (and possibly the therapist) usually drifts in and out of conciseness. Your on a level that is not quite sleep but not completely present in your body. During treatment I lost the ability of knowing where I was in space.. physically and mentally. I checked out and didn't realize where I had placed my arms (on my abdomen or on the table) and I often felt disoriented when the session came to an end. A couple times I was surprised that I was still in the classroom? It's unreal that I disconnected from my environment within minutes. When we exchanged 30 minutes of this work, our time was spent holding our clients head, listening to our clients body, and subliminally moving, shifting, and rotating their cranial bones. This work is extremely intuitive and therefor intriguing. Our teacher Leesa, explained that she has a sense of knowing. In other words she knows what I'm feeling from my client only by looking and being present with my work.  One time in class when I was receiving the treatment she walked over to the section of the classroom and said 'someone over here has a headache' and I said 'well, I have a slight headache from straining my eyes' and she responded 'I thought so'. If you can even imagine how flabbergasted I was. I still wonder how much of it is guessing and how much she can actually sense on another level. Practice or innate ability? It took me a few days to begin to understand, feel, and stop trying so hard to define what I was supposed to be doing. As a class we joke about doing less.  Touch your client with the weight of a nickel, 5 grams. Yup, almost, but do less.

Every time I work in the student clinic I fall in love with massage all over again. It's always inspiring and motivating to work on a variety of people and above all - to work within a relaxing environment. My favorite memory from working in the clinic would be massaging as the jungle rain hit the tin roof. It's one of the best sounds. I feel blessed that I can enjoy my work so much.

Another favorite memory would be eating, drinking, and throwing mangos over trees and onto the church behind our house. Because some of the mangos can be too stringy to eat, Jill taught us to massage them until they're soft and juicy and then poke a hole in the skin to drink the mango juice.. instant smoothie mMm! A simple memory that I'll remember and smile about.

A couple weeks ago there was an electrical fire at the top of a telephone pole on main street. It was amusing to watch the fire department react to the situation on 'tico time'. There.. was.. no... real rush. They drove up to the fire.. leaned their tall-ish ladder against a tree.. climbed up the ladder.. and I'm pretty sure they put the fire out with a garden hose. Dayann and I were laughing because it looked like he was using his thumb on the end of the hose to create more pressure. Before they could spray the electrical fire with water, they shut off the power for the entire town of Samara. It was crazy to witness all of this activity in town, simultaneously tuning into the sounds of the ocean and the darkness of the streets. We ended up at a bar by candlelight. (The Glenohumeral Joint).

Welp, I've given up on learning spanish. Hands down, the most frustrating element of this experience is not knowing a lick of spanish. Communication is so important for so many reasons and situations and to have that taken away from you is a terrible feeling.

The other day I gave a presentation on my 5 year plan for my life and my business.. the business of my life. I surprised myself when I came to the conclusion that I am interested in sports massage and more specifically pre/post surgery. This target market developed from the combination of planning to move to Colorado and my innate nature to nurture others. This was a challenging assignment, but I'm happy I was able to manifest what I want to be doing for the next 5 years. I've released a version of it into the universe so I'm curious to see what finds me.

I hear that the rainy season is beginning early this year. It's been raining more often.. usually around sunset. I think as the fruit blooms and we find more crabs walking around campus, the season is shifting. It was pretty powerful when, moments after we completed our written and hands-on finals, a strong and loud downpour of rain dropped for a solid hour. A sign for ahhhh we can release, let go, and breathe as one chapter closes another great one opens.

Last week a big weekend-long bull fight was in town. We were warned that people would be traveling from all over (especially from San Jose) to be here for the fight, which means an increase in people therefor an increase in thieves.. in town and possibly trespassing our campus. We were all safe for the most part, nothing was stolen. I was shocked as I curiously soaked in about 10 minutes of the bull fight. As I walked through the isle of food vendors, past the dance floor, and up to the rickety wooden stadium - I witnessed ~ 25 men and 1 angry bull sharing the ring below. It was wild to actually see a bull kick up dirt behind him and charge someone. It was just as I imagine it but it was really happening in from of me. From what I heard, people could pay 2,000 colones ($4) to dodge the bull.. people we sliding under and jumping up onto the sides of the stadium to stay clear from the bull. I saw one guy get charged and his legs trampled and that was enough to make me leave the stands. It's amazing what traditions are created for entertainment.

I also decided to ride this 'wheel of death' ferris wheel.. twice. Once with Matthew and again with Dayann. It was fun to spin around and around and upside down. weee!

Last week in our pathology class we played an intense jeopardy game to prepare for our final. As we walked into class that morning, we picked a number and randomly divided into teams of 4.  The grand prize for the winning team was a lomi lomi massage from 4 people (8 hands) simultaneously. Our team won. It was interesting.. there was a lot of touch to pay attention to, it was slightly overwhelming (yes, there is such a thing as too much touch) but overall it was a cool sensation especially when 4 people facilitated a tapotement (percussion) train down the backside of my body.

To complete our fourth and final quarter we were surprised (yet again) with dedicating our class time to painting each other with tribal designs from head to toe. After our canvas' were complete, we all ran through town and straight into the ocean.

Today was our cleaning day for equipment on campus. We inspected massage tables, cleaned exercise balls, yoga mats, bolsters, skeletons and loaded everything into the clinic for the 3 week storage period before the next class arrives. With all of us working together it only took about an hour. After cleaning and a swim in the pool, we were invited to the directors house for the first time for an afternoon brunch. We had a feast of fresh fruit, rice and beans, hand chopped salsa and guacamole, uber fresh orange juice and coffee with almond milk, followed up by chocolate cake filled with dulce de leche and vanilla ice cream. I'm really looking forward to graduation tomorrow, I know it'll be a day filled with positive waves of colliding emotions. Happy, sad, excited, anxious, relived, exhausted, proud.

I imagine myself walking off of the plane and laughing.. did that just happen? Is this real? Did my mind and hands really just retain all of that information? Hello world, please welcome 20 more incredibly passionate massage therapists.