My education in massage did not stop with graduation from a massage school. If anything, it intensified. Now a practicing therapist, I was learning every day from the most prolific of authors, the best logisticians, the brightest of the best.
It has been hard to keep up sometimes, but very rewarding. The classroom has been my therapy room, the teachers: my clients. 
Lessons learned go from the obvious to the subtle.
Some favorites:
Don’t smack your hands together like humpy honeymooners to warm your oil. (Can we get that one on a billboard?)
Don’t breathe on your clients face while doing neck stretches. (Again, billboard?)
Do listen to a client without distractions when they are speaking to you, even if you are getting a text.
Do ask every client to return. A genuine invitation goes a long way in a society where millions of people don’t mean what they say.
I was pondering some of the big lessons I garnered from clients the other day, after I heard that a former client, a very prominent man, had died at age 91.
Sad, yes, for I was thinking he would reach 100. But I remembered what he taught me about massage. He was a connoisseur, having had massages all over the world for many years.
He told me he liked me because I did “real” massages. He never told me how many therapists he had interviewed, but one day the house manager let it slip that a parade of therapists had come, once, and gone before he picked me.
That was good for my ego, of course.
So what did I learn? These were big lessons and small.
He always apologized if he was late. Always.
It’s important to take time for oneself.
And always buy the best seat at the ballpark that you can afford. Otherwise why go to the game?
Hmmm. Is it April yet?
