I've Just Been Walked All Over

Post by: Marie

So here we are in Saigon.  We’d traipsed the hot streets and markets through the best part of the day and then Chris and I decided to have a massage early in the afternoon.  Our hotel suggested and then walked us a few doors down to a massage place.  It was pristine clean and quite modern, which I was very pleased about. Chrissy was having a foot massage, she was taken to the 1^st floor.  I was having a hot stone massage and taken to the 3^rd floor.

Now, I’ve had many a massage in my time, some great, some not and some just odd, but today’s takes the cake.  In my past life as a beauty therapist I’ve also given many a massage.  But today’s massage was a totally different experience.  In the services menu, my massage was touted as a hot stone massage, what I got was minimal of the hot stone variety and ample of being walked all over. 

I’ve been to enough physio therapy appointments in my life time and I know what constitutes a good physio appointment and I suggest that this was actually terrific back therapy and I do feel wonderful post treatment although there was nothing and I mean NOTHING relaxing about what I just endured.

In Asia it is not uncommon for your therapist to jump up on the table and ‘straddle’ you to give your back a good massage.  So up my little lady pops and straddles, yep, yep I think, nothing unusual here.

Then I feel her feet go on my buttock region and she starts walking up and down my back bit by bit the pressure gets firmer until finally it is excruciatingly firmer.  She also digs her toes into the pressure points up the vertebrae and into the surrounding muscles. 

Next I am lathered up with so much oil, I think that I could possibly be cooked at the restaurant next door.  But with the moves that come next I understand why so much oil is required and I will give it my best shot to describe it.

Move 1: I will call the “Running Man”

She crouches on her knees on my backside.  Then she digs her knees in and one by one runs each knee up and down the back.  She gathers momentum at a rate of knots and is slipping up and down my back in what I am envisaging as the running man dance.   All with very strong pressure. Odd? Not as much as odd as this next move.
 

Move 2: I will call the “Sitting Dog, Kicking Frog”

So picture a dog which is sitting down.  That’s easy enough to visualise right?  Now picture this tiny little Vietnamese woman perched on top of me in this position with her hands sitting on the massage table resting between my neck and shoulders.  Then her legs start.  The only way I can describe it, is that her legs are moving in a breaststroke swimming like position all over my back.  When we were kids we were taught that breaststroke is also called frog kick and this is exactly what this tricky move of hers reminded me of.
 

After all of this carry on I did get some hot stone massage, but in all honesty this foot treatment on my back was realistically the entirety of my 1 hour!  When I looked up on the roof afterwards there was the horizontal pole on the roof which she had been holding onto to balance herself.  Seriously it was an oddly strange massage, just not the slightest bit relaxing!!  Although I can tell you that my back feels absolutely wonderful from these shenanigans! (Mind you, It didn’t feel bad prior to the massage anyway!)

 

Some of the thoughts going through my mind as this was happening….

·         Did she wash her feet before my appointment?
·         I hope her toe nails had been cleaned recently
·         How can someone’s toes be so strong?
·         I wonder if my internal organs could get squashed from this pressure and pain?
·         She should pedi-paddle her feet as I can feel the cracks in her heels even with all this oil
·         Had she just walked all over someone else and is now walking all over me?
·         Am I not going to be able to walk after this?

In my mind... The visualisation was far worse than this....