Just came from my third workshop on Hawaiian Temple Lomi Lomi taught by Tom Cochran, and although it was very upbeat and ended well, there were some real issues and real problems, and it all came down to a couple students.
Heather had come down with me to take the class. It was her second workshop. It was nice having someone to talk to and go over things afterwards. (It was a Lomi workshop five years ago where we met. It was great that we lived close enough that we got to practice with each other to remember it.)
Temple Lomi is a very nice style of massage that is taught in ‘sacred space’. During the previous times I took the class, the students were very open and receptive. They had heard of this type of massage before and knew something about it. A good number of this group did not seem to really understand what it was, and they either tried to turn it into what they do, or they completely shut down.
A good example of how open the previous classes were, I would look at t my first class. There were over 30 students, all but two were female. Temple Lomi does work through the sternum if one is comfortable having their chest undraped. All but two of the 30-odd people there felt safe and comfortable enough for this.
In the class I just finished, I felt that the maturity level of the group was lower than it should be. With licensing renewal coming up in two months, people are scrambling for continuing education, and they will pick any class they can find that might be close. They may not have an interest in actually learning it, but hey, it’s close. I face the same thing with people coming for my Reiki classes. They come because it is cheap CEUs, not because they have an interest in Reiki. But I only have to keep them entertained for six hours. Temple Lomi is three days for a total of 24 hours.
At any rate, the first day started out with understanding concept, movement and breath. After that, we learned the basic runs (movements) on the back of the body. When it came time to split into groups of three to practice, I went over to my table to wait for someone to come to me. Billy and (I'll call him) G came over and asked if they cold work with me (I guess they felt I was safe). (G was an older gentleman who has not been doing massage as long as I have. I got the impression that he thought his way was always right, like he wasn’t there for anything other than CEUs. An annoying thing was that he kept his smart phone on him at all times even when he was massaging. Mine was in my bag on vibrate.) Both of them got to get on the table while I worked the first two sessions. They each looked at me as the lead as I had an idea what we were supposed to be doing (having had it a couple times before and all).
I think I felt that I had something to prove while I worked those sessions. I worked a little faster and deeper than I probably should have. It was what we did in the class two years ago. But afterwards it did not feel right. I was the last of the three of us to get on the table. I prefer doing this as each of the new people gets one practice session before working on me. (I actually had a realization about this. Since Lomi is so completely different than anything else we learn, even a good massage therapist can look like a novice as they are learning from scratch just like when they were in school. So getting worked on by people that are new to this is very much like going to a massage school clinic and getting worked on by someone that barely learned how to touch a body.) While working, Tom would come over and instead of showing the next move, would tell me, “Brian, show this move.” He did that at my last workshop once he realized I knew what I was doing.
When G was doing the basic run on me, it was painful. The run brings the forearm up into the shoulder/neck area with pressure, then easing off as it travels past the shoulder blade, then adding pressure again as it goes into the low back. He kept using the wrong arm (a move he does in whatever style he generally uses) but it ran his elbow down on top of my spine. I kept having to tell him he was starting off with the wrong arm to avoid injury.
So ended day one.
The next day was much better. It started off adding more runs to the back of the body. When it got time to spilt up, Heather and I ended up working together. It seemed no one wanted to work with either of us. But this was all right. It made us a group of two instead of three. But this was something we could both deal with.
She got on the table first. I slowed down my work a bit and evened out the pressure. I added a couple of things here and there that he had not yet showed us, but that worked too. Tom came over told me that if I needed help to call. One time he came over and asked if I remembered a certain move. I did it immediately while he stood there. He patted me on the back, laughed, and walked away. It was actually nice working as a solo practitioner, able to do my own thing and not worry about getting in anyone else’s way.
For the next session, Heather worked on me. And it was nice to have someone that knew what they were doing working on me.
For the third session, Heather and I ended up working on one of the instructors, Kim. Now we work together very well. In a lot of the instances, we would do the same things on opposite sides of the body at the same time. This creates a really neat feeling. Even when one of us was working from the top and one from the bottom, we matched our movements perfectly.
Kim’s feedback was outstanding. She told us that it was just wonderful. She said we were both so evenly matched that she could not tell us apart. She said that if it wasn’t for the painted toes, she could not tell who was who. (I knew I shouldn’t have painted my toes that morning. Just kidding.) But it was great feedback and made me feel much better about the work.
The third day started with reviewing the runs on the back of the body and showing the ones on the front. I noticed that Tom did not show many of the movements and we felt that this had to do with the maturity of the class and limited time frame. When we split into groups, I went to my table, but no one came over. I ended up getting put in with a group of two, one of them being Sandy who just got her license in March, and G. This was not a group I wanted to work in. I had no problem with Sandy, but just did not want to get stuck with G.
Sandy went down for the first session. She was not comfortable being on the table, and she was hurting a lot from sleeping in the hotel bed. I tried my best not to work deeply, and to gentle my moves to hurt the least, but it did not help. She could have helped by trying to release the pain as Tom told her, but it did not help.
I was the next one to get on the table. This was probably the worst massage experience I have had in my life. G kept using a lot of pressure in the wrong areas. One is supposed to work with pressure into the top of the shoulder, then ease off by the shoulder blade, then add pressure into the low back. He held heavy pressure all the way through which was painful over the shoulder blades. I should have said something, but he didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say, so I kept quiet.
It is a strange feeling when you are being worked on by two people and they are standing over you saying to each other, “I don’t know how to do that.” Tom came by and showed them how to work the arm, but that didn’t help. When G worked my arm, he was not holding it right. He needed to be cradling my arm at the elbow. Instead, he was digging his finger tips into the muscle of my upper arm which hurt, and then caused my hand to go numb. After I had had enough of being hurt, I grabbed his hand to show him what he was doing when he just uncorked on me. “You don’t tell me what to do, you can’t teach form there!” I told him he was hurting me and he said he would not do the move. So much for wanting to learn it right.
Now, I have never had a situation like this before, especially in a class. Had it been a massage I was paying for, I would have walked out. And I really debated doing just that. And I should have. After all, taking this class was not worth getting hurt over to the point that I can not work, and that is where it was headed. But I stayed on the table. On the flip side (face up), when G worked the chest, he did a lot of pressure. Thankfully it was only for a minute of so on this move as I was starting to have trouble breathing and it was hurting my back. But I struggled through.
Now, I do remember how it was when I first learned this work. I remember having trouble with the footwork, and the runs. I remember closing my eyes to make myself feel when I was in the right place and have proper touch. But I never muscled over someone.
After that, I had to work on him. Now, the first thought is that payback’s a bitch. But I am a professional at what I do, and I would never intentionally hurt someone. So I followed the training I pass on to all my students. I stepped back, centered, and let go of everything. I approached it just as I would any massage that I do in my shop. I did a good massage, not that he liked it, but as he told us, he only likes long and slow (not that he told us that ahead of time). And I truly think he was doing it just to complain.
Sandy told me she wanted to mirror me a lot as she felt I had a grasp of it, and this being my third time, I would hope so. As we worked, I showed her some body positions that helped her, and she was appreciative. G mad it difficult to do the under body work, it was like he was making himself heavy. But, I am used to working with heavy people, and with the right body mechanics, I had no problems. I was able to show this to Sandy, and she was able to do the moves as well.
All in all, it was a good workshop, but there were times that I was dealing with someone that was utterly pigheaded that kept this from being a really good weekend.
I know, calm, clear, let go.