Tonight was the next to the last class for this current group of students. Last night I had shown them a video on Esalen massage, and the movements form that were so totally different to what they were doing, that it just blew them away. Tonight they wanted to see some moves, so I chose a ‘victim’ and did a massage… from nothing.
I have done this a few times before, but not too often. I started by centering myself, and opening myself up to ‘possibilities’. I wanted to do a massage that was not scripted, and that did not use many of the standard moves that I had shown my class. What came out was amazing.
I started with one move, and that morphed into another and another. I kept my eyes closed a lot, allowing myself to be directed, and things to come to me. There were a couple of times when I simply moved my hand over my client’s back in a way, and liked it so much that I turned it into a move. There was one point where I was using my forearm on her shoulder, and I created a pattern. I managed to repeat this pattern on the other side.
I was definitely ‘on’. One of my hardest things is that if is make changes to my routine, to remember what changes I did and repeat them on the other side. Tonight, I managed to duplicate everything perfectly, even though I had never done some of the moves before.
I surprised my students to working the arms while my client was face down. On the front side, I still worked the arms some, and kicked myself because I couldn’t find anything new for them. I was doing a lot of forearm work, even in places where one would not expect it, like on the abs.
When we were done, I talked with the class and asked them what they saw. Their responses were really good.
They noticed that I had slowed down a lot, making this massage geared more for relaxation. I didn’t do many if any deep compressions. I used my forearms a lot to do the moves. (I had actually combined moves from two styles of Lomi, Esalen, and whatever else came up.) They also saw that I had good body mechanics and I used my body to make the moves (instead of my arms) and my body weight to get the pressure I needed.
One of the students described my movements as almost erotic, but I think sensual might be a better term. I was definitely a part of each move, extending my flow through my entire body. I was just one fluid healing motion.
One of the students asked if I had this routine on paper anywhere so they could learn it, or if I could teach it to them. I told them that I didn’t even remember what I did as I was making it up as I went along. It was funny watching their eyes go wide and their jaws drop open.
I told them that when they got to a certain point, and had taken classes in various modalities, they would have enough ‘tools’ to be able to pull out anything they needed at any time.
I feel like I was showing off, but seeing this, live, on one of their own, and seeing the different types of moves possible not only amazed them but gave them a good feeling for what is possible. This alone was a good thing in their education.