Today was the first day of the Health and Retirement Show at the Avenues Mall in town here. All my fears and anxieties have been washed away. So, after three hours of sleep last night, it was a spectacular day.
The show opened at 10:00am, and there were people moving through the mall even then. Every now and then, someone would stop, and we’d chat for a bit. It was neat meeting people, and talking to them about the bodywork or energy work that I do. (I guess I have gotten over most of my shyness about talking to strangers, even on subjects that I know about.) One person whose business sold belts at a nearby kiosk, asked questions about Reiki. He told me later that he and his wife want to take Reiki 1. Cool. I told him to look at his calendar and get back to me with a date. Once in a while I’d get someone to either sit down in the massage chair, or lay on the table. That was when the real neat stuff happened.
I really had no plan or routine designed to work on people as they got onto the table. I was shown a 5-minute Lomi Lomi routine by my teacher, but decided to forego any preplanned movements. Instead, I looked at each person, and went with whatever my intuition felt they needed (or by whatever was guiding my intuition that is).
In most of the people, I did settle into a similar set of movements. I started out doing some nice effleurage strokes, getting them used to being touched, and starting to relax. Then I did the Advanced Lomi compression points in the back. Then I mixed in some nice fluff, and hit them with a little Reiki. So, most of them were getting some good feeling fluff, and some serious muscle stretching work, and some energy. Not bad actually.
But unlike the students from the school that had a booth a ways down the corridor, I wasn’t just doing fluff. I also wasn’t just doing some feel-nice routine. I was actually going in and trying to ‘fix’ some of the problems that these people had.
One guy I was talking to told me that he had arthritis in his hips, and that some day, he would have to have them both replaced. But he had pulled his back and was hurting. He was thinking about finding a massage therapist, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He was about to walk away when I suggested that he get on the table and let me see if I could do anything to help. About 10 minutes later, he got up feeling a lot looser and much less pained than when he had gotten on the table. (This is the way things are supposed to work.)
One truck driver told me that he loved what I did, and that I did things differently than most people he had been to. For a while now, I have had clients take a deep breath, then exhale as I did a deep long stroke down the back. He liked this as it prepared him for the deep work. He said that most people he had seen just go in and do deep work and don’t give any warning. He also liked the Lomi compressions (as did most people) because I was addressing his specific needs and doing it without hurting.
I had one person get on the chair for some work who was so tight, I wasn’t sure I could get to him well enough. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that until I had worked on him for five minutes. I really should have had him get on the table instead. What I ended up doing was going in with my forearms in a Lomi-esque manner to get the pressure he needed on his back. Hmmm. There’s something I hadn’t thought about… Chair Lomi Lomi.
Although no one bought gift certificates, and only one person actually made an appoint, through the work, I think I will get some calls for appointments. I think what changes I made on several of the people are enough for them to call and schedule a time to come in and see me.
Those that I couldn’t help as completely as I wanted to (because they were dressed and in the middle of a mall), I used Reiki, which helped get rid of their pain. Neat stuff that Reiki.
One lady said she had heard of me from a friend, but couldn’t think of who it was that told her. She has a daughter who has scoliosis (curvature of the spine). She had been seeing someone that had done cranial-sacral work on her that was helping. But the therapist had moved away, and she didn’t know where else to go. I explained that I had just taken a class in myofascial release which included cranial sacral work. I explained what that was, and how it could help her daughter (whom I believe was around 11). I explained that since her daughter was under 18, I would need a parent in the room with me, and I made her understand that this can only work skin on skin and made her aware of the draping issues iinvolved. (I’m not going to leave her uncovered, but some moves can be tricky.) I told her that I awould be glad to work on her, but I wanted to get a couple practice bodies under my belt first. I asked her to call me in a couple of weeks. I felt I would be ready to look at her daughter then.
It was just so very neat moving from one person to the next, figuring what they needed, and making it happen. It was neat changing what I did to meet each person’s needs, and making them feel better. This is what I’m supposed to do, and what I enjoy doing.
I am really looking forward to tomorrow, which should be a fuller day.