“New age”, rhymes with “sewage”

I’m taking a professional-level massage class. Three days a week, 3.5 hours per day, for three months. 125 hours towards a license or certification, if I want to go that far. Say goodbye to free time. But I’ll enjoy it, I really will. I took two massage classes through a local community college about four years ago and I really got a lot out of it. My daily work in the computer industry is very left brain, linear, analytic, and utter passive physically. Body work, by contrast, is much more right brain, intuitive, sensing, and relatively physically active. I have really enjoyed the balance this has brought to my life in the past and I’m looking forward to regaining that.

But…

Two of the teachers that I’ve dealt with the most are far too… “new-agey” for my tastes. One has been talking about cleansing auras and how “gravity doesn’t just pull towards the earth, you know; gravity also pulls you up, lifts you to the sky”. Huh. I must have missed that day in 8th grade science class. After 20 years of body work and 10+ of teaching, she says she’s just now getting into anatomy. The other teacher is very big into talking about sacred space, and the “energy we’re building in this room”.

I dunno. I don’t want to sound like some republican. But I’m a realist, technical by training and vocation. I trust observable phenomena, I like measurable results, I like documented and verifiable assertions. My previous massage training was very solidly grounded, heavy on anatomy and kinesthetics, very no-nonsense. Which is to say, very unlike the classes I’m in right now. This side of the class is fairly challenging in that regard.

There’s another teacher who is a former engineer with PacBell. I’m hoping to corner him after class and ask how he handles that side of the profession. But I’m vaguely worried he’s going to say something like “I can tell by your aura that you’re really bothered by this. Have you considered talking to your guardian angel about this?”

While I’m on the topic, this class includes a requirement that I perform 16 massages outside of class. I’m not too comfortable asking people at work, and as sad as this might sound, I’m not too sure I know 16 people outside of work. Interested in a massage by an enthusiastic and partially trained amateur? Drop me a mail.