1st practical exam
jimswife said:
Hello. I'm a newbie to this forum. Been lurking for awhile. I'm in my 5th week of school. We are having our first Practical exam and I'm very nervous. I'm a bit behind on things because I was sick. Not able to do much practicing. We are being tested on the strokes as well as progression and draping. We are massaging the back and legs in prone position.
Can someone help me with any tips or suggestions? Do you have a regular routine that you do when giving a swedish massage on the back or legs?
Welcome! This forum will give you a lot of information that you will need as you progress into your career. I suggest going to the very beginning of the forum... dig wayyyyyyy back into the threads and work your way to the most current thread. It will give you a feel for how the forums have progressed over the years and you'll grow along the way as ideas have changed and new items have been implemented for our practices.
I don't know how your instructor taught you, so it is hard for me to say how to do your progression and draping, but I'd be happy to give you a general routine that may get you going.
In practice, you can go either way, but, for a practicum you may be better off to start with the back, so that your instructor can see that you actually know and follow completely through with your strokes. I'd progress from long flat effleurage strokes for your initial swedish work into deeper work
(consiting of any compression you may have been taught) and then on to vibration and tapotment. Finish with
one long swedish effleurage in the same vein as you started with. Personally, I prefer to stand at the head when I am doing this kind of pattern.
For the draping, keep it simple - don't get tangled up, which is easy to do at first. Initially, stand next to the client
(I prefer my right side to my clients left, facing away from their gluteals and toward their head) . Take both hands and pull the blanket to the area at or near the top of the center crease of the buttocks
(the client should still be draped with the sheet, but this gives you a very simple way to work into that next layer... the sheet. It removes some of the bulk of the blanket from the waist and will make you feel like things are flowing better.). Next, pull the sheet back with both hands, dropping it just above the waist, follow through with a tiny tuck into the underware and then a tuck at each side of the clint. If you don't know if the client is wearing underware, just tuck under anyway and pull down to where the lower back is exposed without exposing the fold of the buttocks. For the side tucks, you can achieve this easily by taking just a little extra from the sheet which is laying on the table at this point (a little further from the clients' side) and then tucking. That way you are tucking "in" and "under" the client, not fidgeting and pulling sheet here and there while trying to push and pull and make it work... if that makes sense.
For the leg, I'd start at the ankle and work my way up (facing toward the head of the client). Long strokes of effleurage
- (both of my hands are usually working the inside and outside of the leg simultaneously, but that is a physical/personal preference for how I work. - Ex. left leg--> my left hand is on the outside and back of leg, my right hand would be on the inside and back of leg, sweeping up, so that the left hand strokes all the way up to the lateral border of the hip/glute and then sweeps downward - and the right slows down around mid-thigh and then sweeps downward again. Next I do a full sweep up into the buttock and back to the ankle via the lateral aspects of the leg or spreading my palms and fingers so that I catch all parts of the leg that I can access.).
☼ If you have a better way or something that works for you, definitely use that, since your instructor may not want you to get that high into the buttock yet. All schools are different.
then I would go through the strokes like you did on the back, as your instructor requests.
Do the same for the right leg.
Leg draping: take a section of sheet at the lateral mid-thigh, bring it in and tuck at medial mid-thing. Keep sole of foot covered when possible. It makes a world of diffrence in keeping a client calm, if they are nervous. And, it is possible that your partner will be nervous or shifting, since it is the first practical.
Hope that helps.