Anterior Superior Iliac Spine

Who loves Massage School?????  I do!  I do!

We have completed two days of orientation and 3 days of actual classes and I’m loving every minute of it.   You may remember the school I chose is the Arizona School for Integrated Studies or ASIS, and as you can see in the title of this post, ASIS could also refer to the Anterior Superior Iliac Spine, more commonly known as the hip bone.  Taaaaah Daaaaaah!  I’ve been studying bones, can you tell?   And today we started our muscle overview.  Who knows what the gastrocnemius (gas-trock-knee-me-us) is?  Anybody?  Anybody besides Devin and Carol?  It’s the calf muscle which actually lies on top of another calf muscle called the solerus.   It’s awesome.  (not the muscle, but the school)  In addition to getting to color in my Anatomy Coloring Book every evening, there are really cool online anatomy arcade games where I can  reinforce my learning by playing such games as Whack- A-Bone, similar to Whack-A-Mole, but with bones.  What’s not to love?

School is generally set up so we have lecture in the morning and massage practice in the afternoon.   The first lecture series is Anatomy & Physiology followed by the first massage modality, Swedish Massage.  Over the 6 month course, the lectures will change as will the massage modality, so by the end, we will have had 800 hours of both academic and hands on learning resulting in a certificate and at least a basic working knowledge of the Body and how to massage it.  Cool, huh?

There is not a desk in sight and class usually begins with quite a bit of yoga like stretching and breathing.  There is a lot of circle sitting, occasional poetry, occasional dancing, lots of tangents, and lots of class participation.  I’ve never experienced a learning environment like this and I must say that I really like it.  Information is sticking to my brain like glue, even all the weird bone and muscle names taken from Greek and Latin.  Go figure.  Perhaps if my Business Law or Corporate Finance classes had more dancing and circle sitting back in college, I would have attended more often and learned more instead of skipping out to ride around on Fraternity fire trucks while swilling beer in the middle of the day, but I digress…and that was a long time ago.

The class consists of 16 students and 4 teachers in training.  Our ages run from about 19 to 60 or so.  There are 4 males, the rest females and to add an international flavor, included are 2 from Japan, 1 from Dubai, and 1 from Amsterdam.  I am the only one from Alaska, though I understand there was an advanced class taught over this past weekend that had an Alaskan in attendance.

Here are some shots I took over the past couple of days.  This first one is of Joe, our delightful Anatomy & Physiology (A&P) teacher, fellow student DeborahLynn, and Mr. Bones.  DeborahLynn is working her way through naming all the bones.

And here we are in the afternoon doing the lecture portion of Swedish Massage.  At the moment we are learning a few basic strokes, but are mainly focusing on our own body mechanics (how to stand, hold our hands, place our feet etc), so we won’t hurt ourselves over time and how to effectively communicate with each client.

After the Swedish lecture is complete, we pair off and set up the massage tables.  In the photo below, you can see the lovely Tanya giving a demonstration of the techniques we just discussed.

Once she has completed the demonstration, we head to our respective tables with our partners for the day and practice on each other.  Tanya and the teachers in training are there to offer helpful tips and gentle corrections as we go along.  So, yes, you are right.  I’ll basically be getting some sort of massage every day for the next 6 months.  How ’bout that for some schoolin’?

That’s it for now because I’ve got to walk the dogs, hit the books, do some serious coloring and online gaming.  Lot’s to learn ya know, so stay tuned for more from the ASIS Clarkdale Campus.  http://asismassage.com/