Hour 8

Day/Time: April 15, 2013, 2PM to 3PM
Patient: Tyler Valen
Body Type: female, 5'3'', skinny, but toned

I massaged my teammate, Tyler Valen, for my seventh hour. She is the setter on my team so she has a lot of stress built up around her upper back and shoulders, and her arms and hands.

I did the same routine as described in the previous post, but it was different this time because Tyler has a total different body type than Sarina. That took some getting used to because at first, I felt like I needed to be more gentle with her massage. As I continued to do so, however, she had similar knots like my sister. I realized that no matter what body type a patient is, I just needed to do the same routine and make sure they were comfortable with it.

Although each body is essentially the same, how each person reacts to the massage is different. What Sarina found ticklish, Tyler found normal, and what Sarina found normal, Tyler found very sensitive. It was interesting to see the different ways they reacted to each part. Both of them reacted the same to the thigh and calf presses, though. I think everyone dreads it a bit.

I found a lot of knots around her shoulder blades and traps. This was due to repetitive exercise without proper stretching. By the end of her massage, I had kneaded out most of them, but a couple were still evident in her back. As I learned from MAng Adring, hot and cold compress patches called Salon Pass, should help. I applied some and then Tyler was on her way.

My hands were pretty tired after the second massage of the day, but all I could do was stretch and massage them out.