MASSAGE DAY

What happens if you wake up a given day, say, a Monday morning, and decide to overuse a muscle of your body, say, your right arm? It gets sore, right? The guys amongst us know the result.

Well, yesterday, my German friend Chris and I decided to hire this Costa Rican dude called Ito to initiate us in the holistic arts of massages & backrubs.

So today, Monday morning at it happens, we took the launch boat from San Pedro to San Marcos (10 Quetzals) and strolled up the dirt paths of the tiny village until we were standing outside the San Marcos Holistic Centre.

Inside, Ito, our trainer and masseur was eagerly waiting for us to start. We were chit-chatting when a tall American girl joined us. Ito introduced her as Jessie and started our first lesson by informing that she would be his guinea pig for the training session ahead of us. For us it meant that we would be able to see his technique in action, for her it meant a free full body massage. I guess that we call a win-win situation.

We walked behind him towards his studio, a tiny but very cosy room on the second floor of the main building. Inside, the place felt rather cramped with a huge massage table, two chairs and the four of us standing but Ito quickly changed the atmosphere by giving us his unique take on massage therapy.

“Intent and present”, he said, “If you don’t have any intent and you’re not present, in the moment, HERE NOW, you can’t give a good massage. It will show to your client or patient that your mind is elsewhere.”, he continued, “I’ve been doing this for fifteen years and I love massaging and teaching it. It’s my life. When a client selects me to give him a massage, I will firstly sit down with him and ask his reasons for being here. Secondly I ask if he has any tension in a specific part of his bodies and find out if he’s had a massage before. If he says “Yes” I’ll say “that’s cool, you know what to expect”. If he says “No” I will gently remind him to breathe at all times, as it will help to relax. Then I say what I consider the most import thing in the interaction “I trust that you know more about your body than me. I trust that you’re aware of what is good for you. I trust that you understand that this experience is for you. So you can choose to express yourself during the massage or can choose to be silent. The responsibility is yours.” Lastly, before I lay the client on the massage table I will ask him if he has any questions.”

Finishing his spiel, Ito proceeded to walk-the-walk and, with our constant prying eyes over his shoulders, he gave Jessie the massage of her life. He rubbed her whole body starting on her back, moving down her arms and hands then changed to her feet and legs then finished with her neck and head.

During the session, Chris and I crossed our glances a few times, reassuring one another that we’ve selected an amazing masseur and teacher.

When Ito was done, he silently asked us to go outside with him leaving Jessie to get dressed. We talked about his technique, his breathing and most importantly - according to him - his stance.

“If you don’t stand properly, you’re the one who will need a massage afterwards!”

A few minutes later, Jessie exited the room and joined us. The expression on her face was of pure bliss.

“That was the best massage ever. Thank you Ito.”

Ito sent Jessie on her way then rubbing his hands, turned to us.

“Who’s ready for learning massage?”

For the remaining ninety minutes, Ito showed us a back rub sequence, tweaked our moves, corrected our mistakes, fixed our postures, gave us some amazing suggestions and answered all our questions patiently.

When he felt that the sequence taught was second nature for us, he left us to practice it on one another for another hour.

Afterwards, tired and hungry we got down to the dock and took a boat back to San Pedro de la Laguna.

We will pay 1500 Quetzals each for the privilege of learning with Ito, and if the remaining sessions are anything like today, it is money very well spent.

After a remarkable day, I can barely write as both of my hands, wrists and forearms are ever so sore.

So, what happens if you wake up a given day, say, a Monday morning, and decide to overuse a muscle of your body…?

Ciao 4 now

~ Paulo ~