I Feel What I Touch - The Clay - Massage Connection

Live Holistically is a multi-author site.
This post was written by: Susan Blue

I am a very kinesthetic person. Can’t do math but I can feel stuff that most people read about in a book. I guess you could call it gifted.

While I was a potter, many of the people in our coop studio would ask for help with their shoulder, hip or what ever else was getting over worked. Of the 22 members, three of us were taking Tai Chi lessons. Several of us were reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

Most of us were fairly new to clay and to the entrepreneurship of selling our completed ware. We made jokes about the grunt work that was so much more than the time on a potter’s wheel, the hand building. That was the fun creative parts of pottery. It would take two trips in my station wagon to get my ton of clay. Boxed in 25 pound bags, two to a box, it was easy enough to load and unload. But towards the end of the day, there was a lot of grunting.

There are a lot of steps to pottery: the clay preparation, the wheel work, the trimming, attaching handles or ornamentation, the careful drying so the green ware doesn’t crack, the loading of the kiln, the bisque firing, the unloading of the kiln, making glazes, glazing the pots, the loading of the kiln, the firing, the unloading of the kiln, sorting the pots, shipping off the orders or driving them to the stores that carried my ware, finding new stores to carry my ware, etc…… Lots and lots of steps.

Clay is a fine mistress to learn discipline.
To tuning in and be present but aware of yourself. If you don’t have your body set, you cannot center a mound of clay. If you don’t stay relaxed while you throw, your ware will show it.

This served me very well when I went to massage school. My hands and body were already strong. Most of my class mates were exhausted if they did 3 massages in a day.

I would travel to where I had lived as a potter one week end a month while I was in school. I did cheap massages. I had the people who encouraged me to make the change in career as my clients. They spread the word. I had a full Saturday and Sunday with cash in my pocket for the drive back.

It was a big experiment. What could I get done in 15, 20, 30 or 45 minutes? They had a problem and only so much cash. I got to use what I learned and even made stuff up.

I also had a small group of friends who had massage experience before coming to school. We had ideas about what kind of body work we wanted to do. My little group was mentored by various professionals in the community. They were the big names in massage. They had experience and knowledge. They loved our enthusiasm, curiosity and creativity. Our fellow class mates were at a loss.

We were precocious. The teachers for the beginning classes almost always didn’t understand our questions and what we were wanting from them. By the time we got into the advanced classes, we had “reputations”.

Especially me. It was in my head then out my mouth. Which is OK if you are a potter. Clay people are earthy, realistic and a bit bawdy or maybe a lot bawdy. Massage people are meaningful and sensitive. It was not funny to be politically incorrect. Sexual innuendos were a no no (even if it was my own sex). Black humor was whispered. I was in culture shock. It made me an unintentionally difficult student.

I did learn to think before I spoke. Also I became more reserved, but I’m still outspoken. Luckily, my mentors provided the needed role models.

The role of a therapist is a lot like being a detective. Observation!! What is that I see, hear, sense, get impressed with, and ultimately feel? How can I make use of this information to match what my client knows? Can I be sensitive to what my client wants to know or not know?

Now that was challenging for me. I am what you would call a “straight up” person. Diplomacy and tactfulness have been guidelines for self improvement. Yes, my friends and clients let me know they have see me grow. And they like it.

All of that led to a deepening in the use of language. Languaging objectively. Languaging subjectively. My closet poet became the listener and reader of how meaning is communicated. I realized that education about the body needed to be in terms that were understood.

Mechanical, computer, gardening, cooking, sewing, dance, psycho-therapy, psychology, theology, philosophy, Buddhism, Vedic / Ayurvedic, Oriental Medicine, science, quantum physics, all offer symbology and metaphors to expand the dimensions of our minds to truly understand our body. In this we do our healing, balancing, and revitalizing.