Practice Makes Perfect – Learn Your Craft

Sometimes we massage therapists have to step up, as in try to pick up some massage skill fast because we have a looming assignment ahead of us. Hopefully we are at least leaning on our basic skills and quick-mindedness in developing a demanded specialty quickly.

One hopes.

A friends got stuck in “I do that” hell recently. The interviewer asked if she did myofascial release, and before she knew it, yes had popped out of her mouth. Yes, she really needed the job.

She went home and looked on You-Tube for some examples. An hour later she called me in a panic. She had lots of competing ideas off of the tube, and wanted a practice dummy. The web is a wonderful tool, yes, for massage therapists looking for ideas and starting points. But if you watch someone play the piano, do you think that your attempts to copy those moves on your own will result in the same music?

I tried to stay off the table: “Well, all massage is myofascial release when you look at it. If someone has taken a formal class and been deemed certified by the teacher because of their attendance, they have probably learned something about special techniques, but we massage folks are all about moving muscle and connective tissue from stuck to unstuck.”

My friend was desperate. “I at least have to look like I know what I’m doing by tomorrow. I have a practical. And I know you will tell me straight.”

The ability to say “that sucked” has never been in short supply in my family, but some myth out there says that some family, even friends, might be afraid of hurting your feelings and discouraging you, so they get off the massage table with great deliberation and croak: “That was great.”

That leaves you to find out the awful truth on your own, from some less-inclined-to-kindness stranger, or your first boss, or your interviewer, or the dust gathering on your sheets….

I’ve seen that effect enough to know it is not so kind. “I’ll come over,” I said, “But can we practice on your cat?”