He’s the best in town, Leta told me, and she should know. She just graduated in Chinese medicine, and he used to be one of her teachers. He does not live here, but once a week he comes to town and does a day of regular clients. So i phone him and tell him i’m a housemate of Leta and if it would be possible to have a massage (still too afraid to do acupuncture). Michael Alexander – i couldn’t help making it sound Russian in my ears.
Introduced through Leta in more than one way. By the time i get to his working space, he knows the story i had told Leta earlier this week. About the massage i got at the Community Bodywork Centre, which was good but especially the second time the context got on my nerves. A massage that gets on your nerves kind of defeats the purpose. It was okay as long as she was actually giving me a massage, but as soon as she started talking i felt my nervous and muscular system protesting. She felt like sharing her diagnosis, along the lines of: “So you’re new in town… hm, yes, that explains the tension in your shoulders. It’s all about communication. When you’re new in a place you need to connect to how people communicate. What about coming to the dance church we have here on Sundays? So you can loosen up a bit.” All of that wrapped up in a very new agie language, and did i already mention that it got in my nerves? It boiled down to a new age take on migration & assimilation: you come here, you better learn the lingo and mix in. The kind of thing that makes you want to say: hey, do you know what i think of your way of communication and your dance church? But i said nothing, retreating into a consumer attitude as my defence: i’m paying you for a massage, not for some cheap new age talk. (no, i didn’t actually say that, i only focused on that thought and tightened my muscles)
Leta, taking her profession seriously, had laughed at the story and said that there was a lot of that around. Michael is nothing like that, she announced, he has a solid (Chinese) medical training, and one feels the difference. So today i went to his cabinet and met this man who seemed like a big Russian bear to me. I only actually saw him briefly before i was flat on my belly on the massage table, so from that point onwards the image of the Russian bear became larger than life, materially supported by his low and deep voice. Whenever he tells or asks me something, i can’t help but hear it with a Russian accent. The pieces of the room i see through the face-sized hole are dominated by Chinese-styled furniture. Much is red, and as in my head it mixes with Russian fantasies and Russian red, i find myself floating somewhere in the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian express.
The massage is indeed brilliant. When he first touches my shoulders he starts laughing. “Waaw, that’s a lot of tension for a body as small as yours to carry. So you decided to take the stress of the whole world around on your shoulders?” (with a Russian accent) I smile – which he doesn’t see of course. Although his knowledge of bodies makes me hesitate now, maybe a smile shows on the whole body? I tell him that i’m more careful about that since a little while, but this (very Russian) laughter tells me he is not convinced.
His hands have such a sofisticated knowlegde of the body. It is truly amazing how he immediately finds those spots where tension is accumulated. Just in case i would start taking that skill for granted, his fingers stumbled a little bit when looking for one of those spots in my knee cavity. And i could immediately feel how precisely right all those other places he put his hands on were.
“Are you a vegetarian?” (with a Russian accent) Well funny that you should ask, i tell him, cause i’ve been for the longest time and a month or so ago i stopped being a vegetarian. “Good, I encourage that.” (with a Russian accent) I ask him why, already on the defensive about theories claiming that vegetarians miss out on some food elements. He explains that it’s about the texture of the muscles, that over many years muscles of vegetarians get harder, tougher and more unflexible and vulnerable to muscle problems and tension. Never heard of that, i tell him. “This is not much discussed about outside of Chinese medicine,” he replies, “and especially here people don’t like to hear it”. (with a Russian accent). And in contrast to the words of the woman of the Community Bodywork Center invested in what “people here do”, i believe him. Hm, how much one’s openess to the framework and vision of the hands that try to heal you matter. Ready for a bloody red steak now.