Hour 19.5

May 6th 2013
Tim Husher
5'11

After being at poly fest all day and massaging my teammates, the stress really built up in my back. Some personal issues happened with me on Sunday and I also played in a 3 day tournament the previous weekend and I didin't get a massage so I was really aching for one. I asked one of my best friends, Timothy Husher, to massage me.

Since he didn't have any real experience with it, I coached him throughout the massage. Things like, rather than putting a lot of pressure on your fingers, focus more on the pads of your thumbs; vary the pressure according to what your massaging, like, concentrate more pressure at the tips of your fingers here, the pads of your thumbs here, the inside knuckle of your thumbs here; avoid pressing on the bone to prevent pain and potential injury; find the grooves of muscle between the bones and be sensitive of the ligaments and tendons; make sure each hand is mirroring the other because if your hands are in different places, the patient will notice and it won't reach the desired relief; and things like that.

I realized, that even though Mang Adring never told me any of these things, I learned these from experience. Just from people trying to give me a massage, me massaging other people, and the comments and feedback people give me. It really boosted my confidence because 1: it confirmed that I knew what I was doing and 2: I know it well enough to teach other people and to teach it to them right. Since Tim was doing it right, I realized that I know hilot well enough to teach even the most inexperienced person the positions and techniques hilot uses. I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but now I realize that I've learned so much just from practice and experience.

After my massage, I massaged him and went through the regular routine.

I think being an athlete definitely helped me in instructing Tim. I have been under a lot of volleyball coaches, been coached by paddling coaches and the more experienced paddlers, and just from Mang Adring. This helped me in getting familiar with people and improving my speech skills. The better I know something, I more confident I am about it and the better I am at it.

My coaching and massaging lasted 18.5 hours towards my 25 required hours.