Cheese-whiz. So many of my posts are so MEANINGFUL. And possibly helpful. Ugh. Are you getting tired of meaningfulness? Sick of helpfulness? Want a bit of levity? A bit of frivolity? Me too.
How about this . . . I have some seriously smart-ass clients and students. Not all of them, but a good number of them. Maybe it’s the pain they’re in while on the table that brings it out. Maybe it’s because I really ask them to work hard on the mat. After all, it’s almost impossible to release pain without feeling some pain or gain strength/flexibility without actual work (ACK! Getting too close to useful information . . .) Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, amusing things.
One of my favorite things a client ever said to me was, “You know, you should really hang a set of jumper cables on your wall. That way people know what they’re getting into when they walk in.” I get lots of suggestions that I could be helpful to the CIA. As we were working on the inner leg just above the knee, one martial artist/abdominal adhesion client asked me if I had ever tried to take someone down with that particular pressure point – I think she was making conversation in an effort not to knee me in the face and make a break for it.
In one of my classes last week, I gave one minute of double leg lifts to start us off and my most polite, soft-spoken student yelled, “It’s a trap!” Which, for the record, it kind of was. That one minute of double leg lifts was immediately followed by another 11 minutes of varying other abdominals. (But only one minute of each kind . . . that was nice of me, right?)
The adductors (the inner legs) are a seriously underestimated area of the body that often need a lot of attention (along with serratus anterior under the arms) . . . uh oh, drifting into usefulness again . . . One day while I was working the adductors on one of my abdominal adhesion clients I said, as usual, “Are you doing ok with this? Is this too much?” and she responded, “If you were my husband I’d punch you in the face, but you’re Isabel, so it’s ok.”
As I write this I realize this is maybe not as funny to others as it is to me. It’s all pretty violent imagery for someone who is offering help with healing and self-knowing. And yet these comments come from long-time clients and students who show up week after week to hand me money in exchange for a session of hard work. Are they all just brilliant folks who understand the value of hard work? Probably. But also, I think we all like being pushed when we know it’s going to create genuine change in our lives, change that we are actively seeking. (But, ack! That sounds serious . . . .)
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: Uhhhh . . . I have no idea, I haven’t heard a chicken joke in about a hundred years. I think I need to get out more.
Author Profile
- Isabel Spradlin is a Registered Nurse (RN), Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT), and abdominal adhesion specialist in Portland, OR. She specializes in educating people about manual treatment (massage) for abdominal pain and dysfunction, especially when it is adhesion related. Please see the "Programs" page to see her offerings.
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Great post, Isabel. I love the “If you were my husband I’d punch you” line; I must remember that one.
And in my experience, chickens cross the road for the same reason that Kamikaze pilots get into cockpits. Especially in Hawaii.
Thanks, Tina!