High praise

Got a really nice compliment today. Mark, one of the teachers at school, came into the bookstore this afternoon. He’d started running again the day before and his calves were very sore. He put a little arnica oil on them, but was still groaning and achy-stiff. I offered to work on him (it was very slow in the store), and he accepted. I was a bit nervous--I hold a lot of respect for Mark and wanted very much to do well by him. So I got him laid out on one of the tables and went to work.

Enter lots of groaning. “I only get one girlish scream,” he said, but I think there were a few more. He praised me on my depth, pressure, and speed--I did some petrissage, some deep compression, some acustretches, etc. On the whole, I spent over half an hour just working on his gastrocs, with a little peronius longus thrown in on one leg for good measure (although he definitely needed more!).

The groaning made me a little nervous--I was afraid I was hurting him--but apparently it was a good kind of hurt. At one point, kind of joking, I said, “So, do you think I’ll make it as a therapist?” I got nothing but complementary replies from him in return.

Then, the biggest one. He brought up the suggestion of doing trades. Mark said that he generally doesn’t do trades, that there are a lot of therapists who have a tendency to kinda fuck him up (especially energy-wise), but that he’d like to trade with me.

Wow. Made my whole day. :)