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Student Stories
DRAPED
— An online journal about what is going in (and out) of the mind of current Massage Therapy student Christopher Shelley.
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July 29, 2008
Water: Our Journey through the Five Elements begins in Water,
the Wettest Element of Them All
In Shiatsu class, you will learn about the five elements and how a Shiatsu practitioner can use them to understand their clients' energy.
The five elements are Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. First, let’s explore Water. Grab your snorkel.
Where would our oceans be without water? How would we shower? And what about the ice
capades?
In Shiatsu, the water meridian flows down the back, down the back of the legs, up the inner thigh and then tastefully up the chest.
Our bodies are composed of 75% water (15% muscle, 10% attitude), and most of our meals in restaurants come with water. When it rains, water is Yang. When you press the button on the water fountain, water is yin (although it goes right back to yang, which just goes to show you how tricky water can be and why it is so important to understand it.) When your girlfriend throws water at your face after you make a disparaging comment about her choice to become a vegetarian, water is yin, but as it dribbles down your chin and onto the expensive steak you’d prepared for her, it is yang again.
In Shiatsu class, you will learn about the Generation Cycle, the Control Cycle, and the Wash Cycle. In the generation cycle, Water is the mother of wood. I would kill to be a fly on the wall in that delivery room. Congratulations, Mrs. Water. You’ve given birth to a tree.
Allow me to give you a demonstration of the Control Cycle. Water controls Fire. Find a building you own, on which you are well-insured. Light that building on fire. Watch the blaze and imagine the large insurance check you will receive. Observe the Fire department arrive and douse the flames with water. See how the water puts out the flames? That is because Water controls Fire.
In the Wash cycle, you have to do your laundry. Wash your sheets, and your socks, and your school uniforms. This has nothing to do with Shiatsu; I’m just saying. Wash your stuff. Seriously.
Eww.
The water element is associated with winter, and fear, and cold, and ice, and the National Hockey League. Water is blue and black, like our school uniforms, and members of Blue Man Group.
Water is the child of Metal, and frankly, Metal is a horrible Mother. I mean, look at Water: trembling, bruised, crying, diapedesing all over the place, sold in bottles, polluted by tankers, flushed down toilets, rinsed through teeth, frozen in freezers, tossed into pitchers of Sangria, flattened under zambonis, cut by figure skaters, dropped thousands of feet by clouds. Is Metal too busy working multiple jobs (Razor Blade, Elevator Shaft) to take care of Water?
And yet, Water has done well for itself, all things considered. At any point, it lives simultaneously in Europe, the US, South America, South Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and parts of the Great Lakes region. It attends sporting events and dines in the best restaurants around the world. Water is everywhere, like CNN or gossip. Water makes fish possible, which therefore makes Sushi possible, which therefore makes Japan possible. Without Japan we might not have Shiatsu.
What would surfers do without water? Learn how to read?
Water is bladder and kidney. Bladder helps us move forward in life, which makes sense, right? Sometimes, if you have got to go, and you don’t get to a bathroom, I don’t care who you are, you can’t do a thing before you take care of business. Am I right? High five.
Kidney is hearing. I said, KIDNEY IS HEARING. Kidney is that part of us that is hunkered down in the fetal position, wrapped up in our L.L. Bean Weather Challenger Jacket with waterproof, breathable TEK2.5 nylon shell, removable Polartec Windbloc polyester fleece inner liner, wishing the howling winds of winter would die down and the lovely wooden sounds of spring (baseball bats whacking baseballs) would return.
When our Water element is in imbalance, we’re a mess. We freak out when we hear a noise in the other room, convinced it’s a zombie. We dwell on bad things. We can’t sing in the shower the way we normally do. We don’t say that perfect joke that we’re thinking, or ask out the girl of our dreams. We hide from risk. We buy mutual funds instead of single stocks. We write poetry instead of humor.
You know what’s really good for water? Cups, aquariums, pools: structure, the kind provided by Metal, Water’s workaholic Mother. Also, sometimes Water needs to gather its thoughts by becoming a lake or a pond, therefore surrounded by Earth, its controller. Sometimes it just needs to rain down on all of us.
In Shiatsu class, people like to brag about what element type they are, and after the first thirty seconds it can get pretty annoying. So the next time a fellow student starts moaning about being a Water type, don’t hesitate to throw a plant at this person. If he complains, tell him that the plant represents Earth and that Earth controls Water. You’ll feel smart and he’ll feel like he’s covered in plant sod. The rest of the class will thank you privately in the lounge, or when you’re partnered in Swedish the next day.
That’s it for Water, the wettest element of them all. Next time we’ll explore Fire, the Drama Queen of the Elements. Until then, may your kenbiki be
rockin’.
VOCABULARY:
5 Elements: An elaborate metaphor for balance which takes 16 months to fully explain to massage students.
Ice Capades: For older figure skaters who wished they had gotten into musical theater.
National Hockey League: not certain, probably not important.
L.L. Bean: clothing store for water types; not to be confused with L.L. Cool J.
Kenbiki: jostling move to warm up the Bladder meridian.
Blue Man Group: The funniest show featuring bald blue men that you will ever see.
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July 7, 2008
Break Time
An hour and a half into each class, no matter how fascinated we are by IT bands or cross-fiber friction, our gaze turns to the clock, and to our instructor, waiting for her to tell us to take a break.
For morning students, it’s time to seek out and apply thumb pressure to coffee and bagels; afternoon students hunt down lunch, evening students grab dinner, and students doing the mythical midnight to 4 a.m. program get tattoos, howl at the moon and go clubbing.
The morning students split to take care of different needs. Some look for organic vegan scones at Whole Foods
(7th Ave/24th), others gravitate to the familiar pink happy of Dunkin’ Donuts
(7th Ave/26th) and others simply visit the student lounge for a luxurious vending machine snack and quality time on the internet.
For those of you new to the area, be advised that there are two fine quality bagel places in the zip code. The one that is farther away is known to Fascianistas as ‘Distal Bagels’
(6th/24th) and the one that is closer is ‘Proximal Bagels’
(8th/24th). ‘Distal Bagels’ requires a break of at least thirty-five minutes, anything less than that and you’ll be late back to class. ‘Proximal Bagels’ (by the way I have no idea what the real names of these places are) is pricier and aspires to double as an art gallery, although frankly I could make better paintings by covering my body in paint, kneeling down on a canvas and doing the Earth Makka Ho. Oh, and their coffee is awful. Still, it’s close by and they get a B+ for seating options.
I can’t speak for the night students but I bet that they have found every pizza place, deli and Chipotle in the neighborhood. I also can’t accurately speak for the afternoon students, but I assume that they pack lunch boxes - what else could they be doing all morning?
But break time is about more than eating. Break time is a chance to get away from school, to lose ourselves temporarily in our chic neighborhood, in the bustling crowds. It’s a time to notice architecture, and, past it, the sky (excellent source of sun). It’s time in a busy day when we are not learning or working or being tested. It’s time to day dream and imagine. The mind takes quick leaps. Here are some of mine.
Chipotle, for example, leads me quickly to Mexico, resorts on the beach, and the thought that at the resorts are spas and in the spas there is massage.
Dunkin Donuts makes me think of Boston, where I grew up, and all the fine hospitals and medical facilities there that have massage for the sick, and the injured, and the dying. And the tourists.
The Fashion Institute makes me think of twiggy runway models twisting their ankles on the catwalk, and of all the twisted hands that knit their clothes together, and how all those twisted hands and twisted ankles could use a massage.
I see the audience line for the Tyra Banks show in the studio across the street, and I think about how I want to get us onto the show, doing chair massages for the audience (and Tyra, if I must.)
I think of how all of us have our own fashions and how everyone wears things to look the best they can while they do their best at what they do. And I wonder what I’ll wear when I am no longer required to wear the school’s blue polo and white pants while working in clinic.
The Starbucks at 7th and 28th reminds me that there are Starbucks nearly everywhere, and so I remember everywhere I’ve visited, and remember the people there, and all the fantastic places to set up a massage chair to work on them: St. Peter’s in Vatican City, by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, any bridge in Amsterdam, La Rambla in Barcelona, La Boca in Buenos Aires, a beach in Bermuda, Old Town Square in Prague, next to a statue of Mozart in Vienna, or a castle in Edinburgh. Some day I’ll do a book of photos of people providing massage all over the world. I’ll call it ‘Ushasi’s Revolution.’
No matter where my mind wanders the same thought occurs to me: they’ve got massage there. I’ll be able to work there, wherever there is.
People walk by me on their way to wherever, carrying their bags, clicking on their blackberries, selling sunglasses, pushing baby strollers, canvassing for Greenpeace, hustling to their talk show, and the sight of them makes me think of how tired their feet and shoulders must be and how they need a massage and how we have massage here.
And that reminds me to get back to school.
Once the bagels are eaten, the coffee is slurped, the jokes find their way out of our system, the important phone calls are made, and the bathrooms are visited, we’re in a different place than we were: we’re back to where we need to be.
Break time isn’t just about getting out of class; it’s about remembering why we go in the first place.
VOCABULARY:
Tyra Banks: talk show host, works on 26th St across from Swedish Institute; I hope to get her to invite us to be on her show.
Cross-fiber friction: perpendicular thumby-rubby technique; way to treat taut muscle like guitar string
Distal: Far
Proximal: Not as far
Earth Makka Ho: Stretch to open up Earth meridians Stomach and Spleen; if unable to perform the stretch, it is a
Makka No.
Ushasi: Heart and soul of the Swedish Institute.
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June 16, 2008
When Hara Met Shelley
All of us have a hara. You have a hara. That person next to you has a hara. I lived 37 years before I knew I had a hara. I went through high school, undergrad and grad school, all with no knowledge of the hara under my shirt. In undergrad, I had a bald acting teacher who convinced all of us that we had an aura. I had heard that my aura was blue, though others swore it was grey.
In Shiatsu class, I learned that I have a hara. I wondered immediately if it had a color like my aura, and if so, what color it was, and if I could change it, so that I wouldn't have a white hara after Labor Day.
I learned that haras were not about color, but they were something one could read, and I thought that was great because I like reading.
Turns out, reading a hara is not as easy as it looks. It's supposed to be right there on the abdomen, but get this - you're supposed to use your fingers to read it. I'm not kidding. The hara is Shiatsu's main guide for reading human energy, and it's in there with all of your partner's vital organs. You don't need to remove any of your partner's skin to read their hara (I won't make that mistake twice), but you must be sensitive to specific zones that correspond to each of the body's 12 meridians.
I observed my instructor, to whom for the sake of anonymity I will refer as Reggia Grazitom della Caesarnasiak, when he (or she!) read the hara. He (it was a he) placed his hands on a student's abdomen, poked several spots under the ribs, around and over the belly button, and in seconds reported back to us that the student had a jitsu* spleen and kyo* lungs.
How could it possibly be, I wondered, that he could know that by merely poking the abdomen? They must have met privately before class, and the student must have confided in the teacher that she had a jitsu spleen and kyo lungs. Surely this must be some kind of parlor trick.
My suspicion rose the following week, when, by simply asking a student to stick out her tongue, Reggia Grazitom della Caesarnasiak determined that she needed to drink more water. My skepticism got out of its chair. It thought, who among us could not stand to drink a little more water? My skepticism stood, looking around for fellow skepticism to flirt with.
My own attempts at reading haras were clumsy. After a few weeks I determined that I was hara-deaf, or rather, hara of hearing. At best, I could determine that someone had a full bladder, or that their belly-button meridian was pierced. Reggia Grazitom della Caesarnasiak told us not to worry if we couldn't feel anything when we palpate the hara, that Shiatsu is an ongoing conversation with our client. Regardless, I assumed that such a test would appear on the State Boards, and so I chose to panic.
Frustrated, I turned to the good people at Rosetta Stone, whose language learning series had recently expanded to include Hara. Rosetta Stone promised to have me reading haras in six weeks. Equipped with a full collection of interactive CD's, phrase books, and a Hara-English Dictionary, I hunkered down to study this mysterious thing called Hara.
What a fantastic course. After dozens of hours studying, and of course several Shiatsu practice sessions and classes, I was finally capable of reading the hara fluently; I was a graduate of Haravard.
Now, I can have a wordless communication with someone's body. Some of the tidbits I touch upon while reading the wild varieties of haras in an average Shiatsu class: I allow my fingers to settle into the spot for the Heart meridian, and I learn of a long, drawn-out breakup with a boyfriend. Gall bladder has big plans - BIG PLANS! It's going to Vegas to be a ventriloquist. Stomach tells me that there is excess there, probably due to a daily parade of sausage-egg-n-cheese sandwiches. Liver confesses what its owner won't, namely that she drinks herself to sleep each night while watching Pop Up Videos. Triple Energizer sings of blood flow compromised by too many hours at a desk. A pair of Lungs makes sure I understand that her owner's line about 'only being a social smoker' is dubious. Spleen wrote a TV script about a belly button, called 'Cordless', and wonders if I have any connections in the business. Small Intestine asks me to come back later after it cleans. Large intestine launches into some long, twisting story but I can tell with a touch that it's completely full of it. Kidney is rolled up in the fetal position, rocking back and forth, whispering some of Ophelia's lines from Hamlet. Bladder grabs me by the elbow, looks into my eyes, and pleads with me to get it onto the show Dirty Jobs.
No matter whom I work on, after reading their Hara, I now know intuitively that I should give them Kata 1*.
Put your hands on your class partner's hara, close your eyes, listen to what it tells you, and don't be obsessed with answers. The answers are in there somewhere, maybe. But questions lead us in new directions, and sometimes, you know, people are just mid-journey in a question. Sometimes you just have to hop into the question with them and turn up the radio when a really good song comes on.
(PS, 3 points are being deducted from my Pathology II final grade for the Haravard joke.)
*VOCABULARY:
Jitsu: whacked-out (American); rather solid, somewhat like a knuckle, I should say, what? (British); Jitsu (Japanese)
Kyo: soft (American); rather less than would be desirable, what? (British); Kyo (Japanese)
Kata 1: Shiatsu sequence of Water, Earth, Metal meridians taught in 2nd semester; also a little-known folk-duo from Saskatchewan, who wrote songs like 'Tonify the Mother, Send the Child to Boarding School', 'Five Elements, One Accordion', and 'Let Me Yin'.
Dirty Jobs: The best show to watch on television when you feel bad about your own job.
State Boards: Gigantic wooden planks shaped like States; also the biggest, most important test you will ever take in your life so start studying now.
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May 14, 2008
Greetings, Fascia-nistas!
Welcome to Draped, a new adventure in comedic journalism on the Swedish Institute website. This column will explore current issues, obsessions, fears, dreams and anecdotes of current students, or whatever the monkey in my brain happens to be thinking of when I start typing.
It’s difficult to get to know people at the school, what with our busy schedules, full-time jobs, families, parole officers, homework and practice sessions. I hope that my journal entries will help us all get to know each other through our shared recognition of the joys and stresses of studying massage at the Swedish Institute
(a.k.a. the “Harvard of Massage Schools”).
Draped will include my take on important vocabulary words, classroom dynamics, and anything else that may be stimulating our fight-or-flight response. I will explore all things indicated and contra-indicated. I will examine things from Eastern and Western perspectives, as well as from Northern and Southern perspectives, plus from a few I picked up in Europe.
I hope to include brief interviews with fellow students, with the hopes of providing some fun and temporary relief from the pressures of everyday life here at school. Above all, my goal is for
Draped to be a massage for your mind.
Enjoy.
Christopher Shelley
PS: You should really read
SInews
and explore the rest of the Swedish Institute website. It’s relevant to your career, and shorter than
Pride and Prejudice. Also, it will make you rich and famous. And you will lose 5 inches from your waistline in just 6 weeks!
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