I attended Temple Lomi Lomi classes this past weekend, and it was an amazing time that totally surprised me.
It was really great meeting all the people that were there, especially since most were local. But what made the class special was the work.
Now, I took this class two years ago, and before coming to this class, I did three practice sessions in the studio. And I felt pretty comfortable with the work... at least until I saw Tom’s demo on Friday. I was seeing things I did not remember, and things that I knew I was not doing. It was like I was seeing it and realizing that I did not know anything.
Yet, at that moment, something in my brain kicked in, and I looked at it a little differently. Instead of the movements that were part of the process, I was seeing and feeling the flow. And then something else kicked in and I got a feel that this was no different then Esalen massage where it is all what you feel is needed at the time. And then we came together at tables and worked.
As soon as I touched my first body, every movement, every nuance was there. It was like it just flowed from within. Everything I saw Tom do in his demo was there. Every position was there. The pressure was there. It was amazing. I actually think I surprised the teachers too.
When I took the class two years ago, I came away with an understanding of the work, but not as good a feel for it as I would have liked to. This is usually true for any massage that one takes for continuing education. It is good to do the work, but remembering enough to bring it back is always the hard part, especially when you travel somewhere far away, and there is no one local to practice with. (I was lucky last time as I met someone that lives an hour north of here to practice with. We managed to remember most of it, but having a better feel was another matter.)
The other thing that was a concern was the height of the table. In Temple Lomi, they teach one to put the table at the top level so that one does not hurt their back bending over. The problem I have with this is that I can’t get my body over the subject to get pressure. When I did my first test ‘victim’, I was hurting before I was 20 minutes into the session. The next two, I did at my normal table height. I figured that I already used my forearm a lot when doing a massage, and get good pressure through body mechanics. So I figured that I might be able to do the same for Lomi.
What I found out was that I need to have the table at one notch higher than normal. The reason is that the first part of the long move down the body starts very low, and I couldn’t get my knees down low enough at that level. One notch up made the difference so I can get low enough, yet still have the table low enough to get good pressure.
I was really in the zone. I remember two years ago when it was all I could do to get the movements. I was spot on with most of it.
As the session went on, Tom or Donna would go by to correct problems and show new movements. Most of the time they did not correct what I was doing. Every now and then when Tom would come by to show a new move, he would ask “Brian, do you know this move?” and when I responded with a yes, he would tell me to show it to the other students at my table. Cool.
So, all in all, it was an awesome class and I now have people local that want to get together and practice.