Feel the burn...

This weekend (Sat-Mon) I am taking a continuing education course for massage. It is called Schweitzer's Deep Tissue Therapy and it has been really cool for the last two days. The main focus of the course is on teaching therapists proper body alignment so you don't hurt yourself while treating, and the other focus is teaching us some good proper techniques that won't cause our shoulders, wrists, fingers, thumbs or back to burn out. This was much needed by me. I have found that since graduating (can you believe it's been almost 2.5 years!) I have gotten lazy in my body mechanics as well as techniques. Other than my quads being INCREDIBLY sore (I can barely lower myself into a sitting position without wincing), it has been a super 2 days so far. I am really excited to incorporate these techniques into my practice and I hope that I can do so in a way that is accepted by my clients. I am sure that some people cringe at the thought of 'deep tissue' therapy, but I have lost clients in the past because I just couldn't give enough pressure. Now I feel like I have the tools to give all the pressure that anyone could possibly want, but also to vary that pressure to take into account those that don't want to 'feel the burn' ;) I am not sure that I will break out the independent elbow technique on my 85 year old client on Tuesday, however my partner at the course yesterday afternoon was a 79 year old nun. She has been practicing for 26 years, and treats 7-8 clients per day. She told me that she figured that she would probably let her MTAS membership go in a couple of years, and probably still do some treatments for friends....at age 81. Wow, and that woman had some power behind her techniques. She had me cringing and asking her to lighten up. Cool stuff :)