9. Spiral. One of my regular clients will have boxed at the Golden Globes on April 18, 2008. While I won't be able to see her in her action because I have a chair massage event that night, I may stop afterwards at the bar that she manages for her post-fight birthday bash. 

I met her at a Sheque Chicago event at a former bar on Clark that she was managing, and when I first saw her, I said to myself, "I would like to be her Massage Therapist." So, I went up to her, and gave her my card, and said, "I want to be your Massage Therapist." Not too long afterwards, she came in, maybe by accident, to the salon that I was working at. 

A week before her fight, she developed what may have been a ligament sprain or tendon strain. She was having a hard time moving her arm up and back without experiencing pain. Since it had been a couple of days since the pain started, I felt like it was appropriate to try to work it out within the context of a 1 hour full body massage. 

When she was lying on her stomach, I stretched her arm in front of her, which I learned from receiving a massage from a different MT. This was extremely challenging for her. Then, I had her try a stretch that I learned from one of my clients by having her stretch both of her arms behind her back. Very tight. Then, when she flipped over on her back, I did a combination stretch with one of her arms across her chest, while my fingers penetrated into the shoulder groove. Nope. 

The problem was somewhere in the ball of the shoulder. Since I didn't have the technology to get a better sense of what the problem was, I had to be content with locating the general ball park of the pain. The technique that I think ended up being most helpful was a spiral starting from the center of the painful area. Altogether, we probably spent 10 minutes on the problem area. 

The final stretch with her arms reaching behind her should have been as uncomfortable as the first stretch, but she didn't having any problems doing it. Maybe I put a spell on her with that spiral technique, because I received a $30 tip afterwards!

The Fruits of my Labor: a massage album by Michael Dubensky.