Medical Massage 2

Second day of the weekend class. I got up when my alarm went off, but somehow, I still didn't leave the house until 10 minutes before I am supposed to be at class. I don't know how that happened. Maybe my inner ear was not working hard enough to keep me in the correct place in time. I got almost to class and decided to buy a muffin and a roll for breakfast and lunch at stop and shop, then since I was already late I sat in the car for a little longer trying to wake up and get my brain in order.

On the way in I spilled my tea twice, and when I walked in the door, the teacher told me I had to do 50 pushups later. I guess a lot of people came in late. I sort of just ignored him, I think that I am at the point now where he's not quite sure what to think of me. He's got the rest of my classmates figured out but the ones who ignore you or don't talk to you or respond to you are the ones that could surprise you with anything at any given moment, and this morning, that was definitely me.

Then we did postural analysis which is basically learning on each other how to assess movement and posture so we know what muscles to work on, on a client. As it turns out, when I stand, I stand as if I'm a skiier that's just gone off a jump (back straight as a board, but leaning over my toes). Apparently it was one of the more pronounced skiier stances in the class because all my classmates were going, "Oh my gooooooodddddd." Which of course improves my mood.

A. asked the teacher, "What could cause something like that?" and Jim said something about how it probably started in my hip or feet, more than my back or anything. That made sense since I had a hip injury which caused me to be over-protective in such a way that I compromised my toe and most likely fractured it, which resulted in swelling all the way into my ankle, which made me walk crooked, which further agitated my hip... although I didn't say that much. I just said, "Yeah I had a hip and ankle injury." But it annoyed me because I thought that hip-ankle stuff was mostly behind me except for the ankle-swelling-in-bad-weather part. Apparently I never really got over it.

Then we learned specific techniques for creating "good pain" in a muscle. Jim walked up to show my partner, A. how to find it and he just reached up and grabbed my SCM (neck muscle) until I felt like there was a needle in the top of my ear. He was just winning points with me right and left all day. Then A. couldn't find the right trigger points on my back so I ended up having four people poking and prodding my back (including Jim again- this time the needle-like pain radiated into my elbow). After class we filled out evaluations and for the question "Where did we goof?" I wrote that it really irritated me that ten times in this course I will have to skip church on a Sunday for a class that is really too long to begin with. I didn't curse them out and I wasn't mean about it, I was just more firm than I normally am. I think having everybody touch me at once really threw me over the edge and also messed with my moods somehow. I was jumpy driving home too and I pretty much wanted to pull over and make my passenger drive me home, except that I couldn't because I didn't have a passenger.

I am hoping that a nap will settle me a little so I can go to church tonight. Lets hope I wake up in time.