My First Day of Massage School
The sun blazed in the sky above, it was a hot and humid summer day. Standing outside for too long was like taking a shower in your own sweat. It was my first day of massage school and I had just peeled myself out of bed. I worked over nights at the casino dealing poker, it was a profession I endured to pay the bills. Each day I worked I was filled with dread, but I always put a smile in my heart before starting my shift. It was a boring, tedious job that ultimately accomplished nothing, and I hated it. Very few people who worked with me were aware of how much distain I had for the casino industry, this is because I was always fun and silly. The world is what you make of it, and I did my best to make it fantastic.
Driving to school was an adventure because my car had a few problems. The AC worked, but when it was on it kicked out a cloud of oily air that sticked to my windshield and smelled like maple syrup. I’m not a fan of pancakes, so that wasn’t a perk, nor was how it clouded my ability to see. Clearly I opted out of turning it on, even on hot days.
My window was down, and though the wind cooled my car it was still meltingly hot. My suspension squeaked as I pulled into the parking lot of my school.
I stepped out of my car and took a deep breath. The outside air smelled like rotting fart, this was from the partially radioactive landfill nearby. I tried rolling up my window, but it wouldn’t budge. With a shrug I gave up and headed inside.
There were a few people standing at the entrance smoking, they were administrators for the school, and I said hello to them with a smile, but they didn’t respond. Entering the school the chill of the inside air was refreshing. It felt great, especially compared to the candle melting heat outside. The paseo was pretty looking, but messy. Within it were rock gardens filled with little trees and bushes, between the shrubberies was a pathway that weaved between them. I bet this area looked fabulous twenty years ago. I was quite early for class, so I took my time to take a look at the place.
There were several doors in the paseo, all of them were closed except one. It led into the admissions office. I heard a popping sound emanating from the room, so I peeked in. Inside was a popcorn maker and the room had a thick smell of salted butter and popped corn. I headed down the hall leading away from the paseo. I took some time to look at the various school projects hanging from the wall. I noticed they were from every program except massage therapy. They looked orderly, but untouched. The projects seemed like they hadn’t been dusted for a long time.
I stopped into the bathroom and was met with the strong smell of urine. I held my breath and headed toward the urinal, distracted I stepped in a small puddle of mysterious liquid. I looked down with a frown and shook my head. I did my thing and walked over to the sink to wash my hands. Unfortunately there was no hot water, and all the soap dispensers were empty. Maybe they just ran out of supplies, I thought to myself.
Meeting the Other Students
I headed to the classroom and picked out where I wanted to sit. A few moments later a student entered, he set down his belongings and introduced himself.
He said his name was Jarnell, we made small talk and spent some time getting to know each other. I learned he was a carpenter and decided to go to massage school to escape the grueling hard work of construction. Another student entered and introduced herself as Dallas. She said the reason she wanted to become a massage therapist was because it looked fun. Later I would learn that I was the only person in the class who had ever received a professional massage. I thought this was weird at the time, but later in my career I discovered this was normal.
I chose to be a massage therapist because it was one of my natural talents. Throughout my life people have consistently complemented my ability to bring them joy through the experience of touch. I loved science, reading, and learning new things. My mother went to massage school in the 1990’s before regulation had taken effect. Her training was much less than it is today, and probably a lot more effective.
Mr Lounds
The rest of the students arrived, and the class was ready to learn. Everyone sat and chatted waiting on the instructor to show up. After about fifteen minutes he walked in. He looked disheveled and out of sorts. His hair was half one way and crazy looking on the other. It was clear he was in a rush to get to class. “Quiet down, we need to start class.” He said as he walked to the whiteboard. “Most of you already know me, but those of you who are new, my name is Mr. Lounds. I will be your instructor throughout this program.” He spent a good half hour talking about himself and his adventures through the massage industry. At the end he turned to the white board and raised his marker. The class seemed to know exactly what he was about to say, and they groaned with displeasure.
“Massage school is easy if you know how to study. I am going to teach you guys something I wish I was taught, it is called Data Mining, and it will transform how you learn.”
He taught us his study system and spent the better part of an hour doing it. It seemed far too simple to spend an hour on, but I assumed there was something more to it than I realized, so I listened intently. In summary it required the student to skim through the chapter searching for each major heading, and bold keyword. He wanted us to write these down in our notebook. Then we would look up the definition of every title, and keyword then read the chapter really fast. He advised us to avoid reading deeply into the source material, because our text books weren’t very good.
DATA MINE, DATA MINE, DATA MINE!
After his lecture he sent us off to break. The students chatted and spent time getting to know each other. It was clear none of the current students liked the teacher. They said he was a bully and treated them poorly. Each student made it clear it was difficult to learn in his classroom. One of them said she reported him to the administration for how he treated her, but no action was taken.
I like giving people the benefit of the doubt, especially when they are accused of something. The world would be a terrible place if we were punished for something without evidence. I noted my classmates’ statements, but returned to class with a clean, open mind.
A Troublesome Sign
The school operated on a rotating mod system. Basically there is no start or finish. The first thing you learn is dependent on when you start. A class is always running with this system, so you just jump in the water and try to swim. Unfortunately we entered in the most difficult mod, and some students were having a challenging time. This was evident on the very first day of class. We were talking about the Nervous system. Most of the new students didn’t know what that was. They had a vague understanding of nerves, but they couldn’t grasp what nerve synapses, or the autonomic nervous system was.
None of the established students raised their hands or asked questions. I assumed it was because they already knew about the nervous system. Mr. Louds lectured for two-hours. Many of the new students raised their hands to ask questions, but he would tell them to wait until the end of the lecture. Dallas was increasingly getting frustrated, and eventually pressed the instructor to answer a question.
She didn’t know what a nerve or cell was, and as Mr. Lounds talked about them the lecture became increasingly confusing to her. She held her hand up, but he ignored her. Eventually she skipped the hand raising step and asked him a question. “What is a neuron?”
“It is a cell of the Nervous system.” Mr. Lounds replied, then immediately went back to his lecture.
“Ok. What is a cell?”
“Have you read the chapter?”
“No, this is my first day. How would you expect me to read the chapter?” Her tone manifested her frustration.
“You were supposed to read the chapter before your first day of class.” He shook his head. “You were told this when you enrolled and on the day when you got your books.”
“Well I wasn’t.”
“When you go home tonight, read the chapter and it will explain to you everything you need to know.” Mr. Lounds exited the conversation and started his lecture again.
After a few minutes she raised her hand again, when he noticed her he said to wait till the end of the lecture to ask questions.
“What is the point of listening to you if I don’t understand anything you are saying?” She was getting angry.
“What do you not get? This is pretty easy.” He replied.
I thought it was strange he didn’t take even a second to address her actual question.
“What is a neuron?” She asked again.
“It is a cell.” He replied like her question was the most absurd thing he had ever heard.
“What is a cell?” She kept on.
“I told you, if you read your book it will explain it to you.” He sighed.
I turned around to talk to her. “You said you were a baker right?”
“Yes.” She replied.
“Imagine the human body is like a cake. A cake is made up of a bunch of ingredients. The cells are like those ingredients…” As I was speaking the instructor cut me off.
“What was your name again?” He addressed me specifically.
“Shawn White.” I replied.
“Well, Mr. White I am the instructor. I am the one who is responsible for teaching the class. If someone has a question they can ask me!” His words were filled with heat.
“Ok, but I was just trying to help her.”
“She doesn’t need your help.”
I looked back at her with a shrug. Now I understood why the class never asked questions.
At the end of his lecture he sent us off to break. When Dallas asked him if he would explain what a cell was he said he would address it once we all got back.
Break
On break we all went outside, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. It was like she was blowing out the steam her inner furnace was building up from the confrontation with Mr. Lounds.
I looked at her and smiled. “I could teach you how to data mine if you would like?”
“No, please don’t.” She smiled.
“You said you were a baker earlier when we met?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, imagine our body was a cake. Like a cake we are filled with all sorts of ingredients. Each ingredient type is an organ system and the little bits that make up each ingredient is a cell. So, flour as a whole is an organ system, but each grain of flour is a cell, specifically the flour cell.” She nodded her head as I spoke.
“So, what is a neuron?”
“A neuron is a type of cell. Just like how flour has its own kind of grains. A skin cell is like a neuron, they are both cells, but they are not the same. Just like a flour grain is not a sugar grain, they both have little grains that make them, but they are different kinds of grains.”
“Why couldn’t he just say that, or at least try to explain it?”
Returning From Break
When we walked back into the classroom Mr. Lounds’ face was flushed with anger. He was staring at the clock. “You are late.”
I looked at the clock, and he was right, we came back about a minute late.
“I don’t have time to answer any of your questions from the lecture, we need to start hands-on training.”
At least we were going to do something productive. Even though the rest of the class experience was brutally boring and stressful, at least we were going to do some real massage stuff.
Mr. Lounds pointed at Jarnell. “You would be a great person to have on the table first.” He pulled the privacy sheet around the practice table. “Get undressed behind this and cover yourself.” Jarnell did as instructed, and he let us know when he was ready. Mr. Lounds pulled open the privacy sheet, undraped Jarnell’s back, then gasped. “Wow!” He said under his breath as his face flushed red.
“We are so lucky to practice on such a handsome body.” Mr. Lounds ran his hands across Jarnell’s skin. “Can you see how sexy his muscles are?” Jarnell was a muscular man who took care of himself.
My eyebrows raised at his statement.
Mr. Lounds rubbed his hands together, then slid them over Jarnell’s back to cover him with oil. “Yeah this is good.” He said under his breath. He massaged him for about fifteen minutes but didn’t highlight any techniques. The instructor seemed to be engrossed in eerily describing various muscles with a flirty, sexual undertone.
Afterward the instructor gave us some homework and ended the day. It was an exceptionally weird start to my massage school journey, but it was only the beginning.
I went home that night and tried his data mining technique and found it was not effective for me. It wasn’t how I was accustomed to learning. The instructor’s method might have been great for short term retention, but I wasn’t in massage school for that. I was here to learn, to grow and enter the workforce with a great foundation.
