Day 2: Massage

So this project is becoming much more developed as I go along and much more a real thing that will become a part of my life instead of just a silly blog idea I had. At first I was thinking I was going to write about things I learned randomly throughout a day... and I'm sure I will continue to do that sometimes. However, today as I took part in a local massage school's exploration day, I realized that is dumb.

The whole point of this thing is that I love to learn, am no longer in school, and don't want to stop. What I realized is that not being in school gives me even more freedom to learn the things that I want and not have anybody else have to dictate a schedule, a selection of courses, or a list of requirements that I have to touch upon. It makes no sense for me to NOT seek things out that I want to learn about and make them happen via classes, books, museums, interviews

Today I began a list of what I want to get out of this and things that I want to learn how to do or learn about. I tried to brainstorm everything I have ever asked someone to do for me because I didn’t know how, anything I’ve ever been curious about, anything I’ve ever had a desire to learn about but haven’t had the time/resources to be able to do it.

I’m not even more excited about this than I was before. I’m also more excited about life as this project develops. I’ve been really concerned about my time in Albany and finding a network of friends and build a social calendar but I’m starting to think that maybe this 1-2 year period that I’m living here doesn’t need to be about that. Maybe this time could be about ME and developing myself and doing what I want to do. Through some of my efforts to learn new things, I’ve been meeting people in the process and having great conversation and great experiences. Would it really be such a terrible thing to not have a huge network of best friends in this area? I’m going to do my best to document things as well via photos and videos.

I want to call on you all to help me develop my list of things to learn. If you ever in your day find yourself wondering about how something came about, why something works the way it does, or anything that you wish you knew—PLEASE e-mail me or leave me a comment about it. I’m going to need everybody’s support on this and I think that this has the potential to be a really cool thing.

With that off my chest, today’s new thing I learned was about how to give massages. I attended a local massage school’s “massage exploration day”. We first had a science class where we learned all about the way that the heart works. I didn’t even realize that licensed massage therapists learned all of these things!

Also, did you realize that the heart beats over 2,000,000,000 times in a person’s lifetime?

Or that your stomach sits right below your diaphragm. Your diaphragm is basically the bottom border of the series of organs and internal body parts that protect your heart. When you overeat, your stomach expands and pushes upon the diaphragm which pushes upon the heart and that is why when you have eaten a HUGE meal (something I am familiar with) you sometimes feel like you can’t take deep breaths in!

We also learned what exactly your “blood pressure” is and what the numbers mean. When you say someone’s blood pressure is 120/80, the top number refers to the pressure of the blood coming out of left ventricle against the artery and the bottom number refers to the pressure of the blood against the artery when the ventricle is relaxed. I think I explained that correctly? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

We also learned some actual massage techniques and about Shiatsu massage. Shiatsu is an Eastern form of massage that is big with traditional Chinese medicine and is all about holistic healing and being able to center yourself. A Shiatsu massage will begin with the therapist evaluating your balance of energy by checking your “hara” aka poking around your belly. I was picked to be the person that our teacher demonstrated on and it felt AMAZING but before she started she poked around my belly a little which was awkward, especially with the whole class watching. Afterwards I asked what my “hara” said to her and she said she “was getting energy from my bladder” which meant I was drinking too much water. That was kind of funny because I actually really had to pee and while she was poking my belly I was thinking how awful it would be if I peed my pants in front of the whole class.

I learned some different techniques for Shiatsu massage, which I’d be happy to try on anybody in person! As well, I learned some traditional Swedish massage techniques and a lot about the transfers of energy that take place while giving/receiving massage.

Note to everybody: if you ever give/receive a massage and you feel you have picked up some negative energy from someone, or I guess if you just feel like you have negative energy in your life—you can cleanse that with the help of the herb sage. Our teacher was so convincing that I decided I am going to go to an herb store and pick up some “sage spray” which I guess you can use in your office/bedroom/home/car/wherever to erase all those nasty vibes. Pretty cool, huh?

So that is all for today! I hope everyone out there in internet world has a fabulous day!