Chi Kung Tai Chi oral exams; full week at magic mystery massage school

This past week has been very full. We are learning Swedish Massage and we will start offering that to our clients on Monday from memory – there are only about 100 techniques to pack into an hour… oh and I sat in on oral exams all week meaning no breakfast or lunch break!
I am loving what I am studying though. For instance, here is some basic TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) advice which I wish I had learned in High School:
Yuan Chi – AKA pre-natal chi is non-renewable. When we run out of that, we are transitioning on to our next incarnation. The good news is that Zehn Chi – post-natal chi is renewable – we cultivate fresh Zehn Chi in many ways including eating healthy food (and the manner in which we consume it is important – saying blessings over our food increases the Chi), having a meditation practice, chanting sacred mantras, doing yoga or Chi Kung etc all can increase Zehn Chi. The kidneys determine how much Zehn Chi (renewable) and how much Yuan Chi (non-renewable) to use on any given activity. This is why we want to take care of our kidneys – in TCM kidneys are the most important organ. There is a ton more to say, but this is basically it in a nutshell – get good rest, practice self care, eat good food, breath clean air, get a reasonable amount of exercise (and you will probably live longer and happier) 🙂
I just have one more question to complete my oral exams Monday. That will be nice to get that behind me.
Oh – as a result of doing Swedish from memory, I am having to give 4 massages and receive 3 this weekend… (I know I shouldn’t complain).
We still have to learn Reflexology, although we have already started studying it and then that is all the modalities we are learning! Then it will be on to integrated massage where we combine elements with clients.
The last full day of massage school (in April), we are giving 4 treatments in 6 hours to mimic what it will be like working in a spa. It is called the Marathon Day – aptly named.
This coming weekend we have 3 full days of herbology – we will learn how to infuse herbs into our massage oil, how to make and use herb packs for pre- or post-massage bliss and more! I’m definitely looking forward to that! It does mean though that we won’t have a day off for two weeks.
We only have 26 days left of actual class but who’s counting? Pretty amazing how far we have come.
Oh yeah – I did 11 chair massages on Tuesday in a bank in just 3.5 hours! That was crazy – and my massage partner and I (she did 9 massages) did not get the message to put out a donation jar, so I only made one tip. Oh well. It was great experience – although I never want to treat so many people in such a short time again.
I have discovered a steep hill I can hike to and climb up in under an hour. I felt drawn to this hill for several weeks before finally summiting it 🙂  At the top there are hundreds of strands of prayer flags, a fire ring and a rock cairn of white-painted rocks which is a makeshift Buddhist shrine. Apparently just a hundred yards down the other side of this hill there are about a dozen retreat cabins with meditators in them year-round. No wonder I feel drawn to that location! (Longchen Jigme Samten Ling retreat center)
It is a nice hike too with an awesome view from the top – seeing for over 60 miles up and down and across the San Luis Valley – many snow capped peaks!
It is hard to believe that I will start packing my things in just 3 weeks! Then I am planning to visit Denver and Boulder for a few days – seeing a friend and his family and visiting a family friend from Hawaii days (haven’t seen her in over 20 years).
Finally, in Chi Kung we are learning a technique which myth has it, makes warriors invincible (I’m not going to do anything extreme, don’t worry). We are only practicing a part of the entire form that existed in the past. Actually it turns out I was doing this Chi Kung from videos for the past year, but now I know it a lot better and the breathing to go with it (it involves aggravatingly slow breathing, difficult to do at first)! Baduanjin Qigong
We are also learning a short form of Tai Chi which involves beautiful, graceful movements and foot work – it is slow motion martial arts. I LOVE IT! 24 Form Tai Chi Yang Style
Oh and I swear this is the last thing… we are about to start learning Water Chi Kung – having finished Tree Chi Kung weeks ago and just wrapped up Solar Chi Kung this past week. I’m excited about that as well! (If you only knew all that we were learning… this school really is an Alchemical learning environment)
Thanks for reading!
May all sentient beings known and unknown have all their needs met!
~km

1 Hour Coaching Session

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some budding posts coming soon

Hello dear readers!

I have been busy with Oral Exams for the past few days – as in this crazy intense massage school is made even more rigorous because during orals we don’t get a breakfast or lunch break. For instance, this morning, I was making salmon salad as I discussed the benefits of treating the chi and blood in the Triple Warmer meridian! I had to be present as well for the two people who came before me, meaning I only showered twice this week! (Because in the evening I am busily working on outlines and refining my wording for each question!)

So, one post I want to discuss has to do with the benefits of knowing just the basics of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Seriously, it has made some changes in me – just having this knowledge! Not to mention all the bodywork, the Chi Kung, Kundalini Yoga and Tai Chi we are doing… It has to do with the benefits of taking care of the kidneys (and more).

The second post is also tied into my oral exam material (we are learning awesome stuff here – see my previous posts for a lot more on that). I want to write about how my Enneagram analysis (of my personality type) is correlated with my personal astrology interpretation – if there is time.

I am starting to get more astrology clients which is great. I can easily do Skype and FaceTime sessions from here – so if you are interested, let me know! 434. 465. 0603 or email me at mkirbymoore [at] gmail

Thanks for reading! More to follow soon (should be within a week)!

~KM

Trauma-Informed Astrology Special

One Hour Astrology Interpretation. Get your Astrological birth chart interpreted from a Spiritual / Karmic / Evolutionary perspective. You name the topic (area of the chart) and we can dive in - these are some possible areas to look at: Timing Astrology, Relationship Astrology, Medical Astrology, Natal Astrology, Psychological Astrology. Thank you!

$150.00

Eve of 39th birthday, some progress, lots more growth ahead

As I sit here, my Solar Return is occurring, I’m turning 39 years old – I’m almost 40!! Good lord I’m getting on up there!

If you have not been keeping up with my posts or with Facebook, I have been in an intensive massage school program for the past 7 weeks now. It is magical, full, rich, and at times overwhelming (like right about now). Also, I have been brought face to face with my inadequacies, in a good yet uncomfortable way. Little messes I have made have come home to me days or a couple weeks later and I have to clean them up. I have heard that is the nature of Crestone Colorado – it is a very spiritual place, lots of potential growth to happen. And we either hide from it using substances or medication or food, or we set the intention to face it head on (apparently I have done this). No matter how uncomfortable it is at times.

Massage School will lead to good things though! I am very excited to share all that I am learning with clients and friends and even family! The acupressure is pretty easy to do and it is practically a spiritual practice to conduct it – I literally sit in my Chi Kung foundations the entire time I am giving an acupressure session. I am excited to open and sustain a professional bodywork practice – to have the credentials to put myself out there, to continue growing and learning one or two modalities on top of what I already know. And now that I have a significant Chi Kung and Tai Chi foundation under my belt, and I aspire to continue practicing at least 5 – 6 days a week, I feel like I will have the energy and motivation to maintain a thriving bodywork practice for months and years at a time. Of course I will take breaks for vacation or trainings!

Teaching – I foolishly or boldly felt that I had what it takes to teach bodywork starting this past year. Now I’m not so sure. Some days I have solid boundaries, other days they are a little flaky. I canceled a teaching gig I had down in the Tidewater area – it feels like I need to focus on one or two things at a time. Time to stop spreading myself so thin and actually take on pragmatic and realistic projects – and let everything else go! And say no to everything else 🙂

So I’m not sure if / when I will teach bodywork. The I Ching (one of my divination tools) says that I need to get on out there and share what I have learned. I do feel like I need to be teaching Spiritual Astrology. It was actually the I Ching that confirmed it was a good idea to cancel the upcoming workshop in Portsmouth. So I don’t know what is going on in this regard. I do know that I’m not going to share any Chi Kung until I have done a consistent, persistent practice for at least a year.

So I think this is what my next year looks like (my 40th year): focusing a lot of time and energy into getting my bodywork practice back up and thriving, taking an awesome workshop on Embryology in July and doing a restorative and potent 10-day retreat in December. I have big plans for 2019, but I will keep those to myself until they actually become tangible.

Spiritual Practice – when I actually practice on a regular basis, I feel like I am extremely blessed and I might actually have a blessing to share with others. But that has not been the case much – I am really good at practicing for a few days here, a few spurts there, but maintaining a consistent morning practice for more than a month – very rare indeed! I am the definition of ADHD Dharma practitioner – in the course of a given month, I will have done about ten practices, some multiple times (I admit rather sheepishly). I tend to practice a lot – considering I am not very good at the whole relationship thing.

Here in Crestone, at Massage School, where I have very limited time, I am loving the amount of practice I am doing. Some mornings I will wake up an hour before my alarm and do mantras for a while. Some days I even feel up to doing prostrations, although there is limited private space – so I do half prostrations in my little bedroom! =^D

On the weekends here, I visit a beautiful Dharma center and then later I trek up to a large stupa that is up a 4-wheel-drive road that I dare not bring my little car up again! It is fun to hike it though – I meet neat people and have incredible views of the San Luis Valley.

Speaking of relationships… I feel that I am finally ready to put in the work to have a right livelihood where I can take a few days off to go enjoy myself (with a healthy romantic partner). Up to this point, I was really good at talking the talk, but not so good at walking the walk. But I really want to put in 40 hours a week building client-base, marketing myself, giving treatments and getting compensated for good work. I do have high standards in a potential partner, so I’m not rushing into anything. But I would like to meet her soon… we shall see – maybe it will be best to focus the next few months on getting established.

I’m excited about what’s ahead. I have big dreams and I am doing better about being realistic. Some days I feel like I don’t have a clue as to what my destiny is (if there is such a thing – that could be summed up in one or two sentences?!) and other days I feel like I am walking my path with clarity and radiance.

May we all discover balance and equanimity and stable contentment!

Thanks for reading my rambling words,

~km

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last major hurdle in massage school

Here in Massage School in Creston Colorado, we have to take 3 sets of oral exams. The main teacher asks us questions and pries into our knowledge to see how well we understand the topics he has been covering for the past 6 weeks.

We are now on the last set of orals. And it is pretty crazy – we have to know about 15 pages worth of material covering everything from What is Chi Kung (foundations, principles, etc), Tell me ALL about the Yin and Yang Meridians and the Strange Flows, What is the TCM view on suffering and pain?, Go In Depth about your Enneagram numbers gifts integration fears etc, and much much more. We have to be able to elucidate on 10 separate categories – all at least a page long(!).

So if you don’t hear from me for several days.. its because I am reviewing and hopefully cramming this info into my mind! It looks like I will start my test Wednesday afternoon or Thursday.

I am learning a ton, packing an awful lot into 12 weeks here. Oh and tomorrow we go into the nearest city and we will be treating 12 people each in the course of 4 hours! Then we have a physiology test and then we treat our normal practicum people… If it sounds exhausting, it almost is. But I think the Chi Kung we do daily helps to keep our chi levels high and radiant.

Until soon,

~km

Mantra as a rudder in vacillating times

In case you are not aware, I am presently in an intensive program for massage in Crestone Colorado. Most weekdays, we are in training or studying 12 hours / day. And for me, the most intense part of it is being around the other students 8 – 10 hours / day – the studying is easy compared to the constant establishing and re-establishing boundaries and centering.

My birthday is also coming up this week. So… I have been gifted some ice cream and my mother sent a delicious care package with cookies and treats in it. Which meant that on Friday evening, after a full week of school, I ate a pint of coconut (dairy-free) ice cream. So needless to say, when I woke up yesterday morning, I was a grouch. I had resistance to going to the Vajra Vidya Dharma center where they do a nice hour-long practice everyday – which includes opening prayers, brief Manjushri practice, long life prayers for the Lamas, a 20-30 minute meditation session and a brief Mahakala puja.

Up to this point, I have gone at least one day / week to this delightful little reprieve from massage school. And it is a gorgeous Dharma center with a huge Buddha Shakyamuni statue and an amazing shrine room – 21 Tara statues, 1000 little Buddha statues and dozens of ornate thangkas (scroll paintings).

I somehow dragged myself away from the massage school house and got over there. The first half hour of sitting and doing the practices were tough – I was resistant, grumpy, gritty, etc. But somewhere during the meditation, things lightened up.

Then after that practice, I hiked up to the large stupa, about a 1.5 mile hike each way. Every weekend I try to get up there once. It is a pleasant hike, with an amazing view of the valley vista – the San Luis valley with the snow-capped mountains about 40-50 miles away. And I usually meet some interesting people on the trek as well. Oh and the 30+ minutes or so of walking affords me time to do more mantras.

This time I sat at the stupa and meditated for another 20 minutes. This was very pleasant. I had to zip up my jacket in spite of the 50 degree temps – the wind was really whipping around the stupa. Supposedly, these breezes carry the blessings of the stupa (relics, medicine, precious substances are inside of it) all along the mountains and the valley (and to anyone nearby the stupa as well!). This was very peaceful.

I did some brief Chi Kung and then departed, walking back to my car. I knocked out another 600+ mantras on the journey.

Arriving back at the Dojo house (where I stay with another student), I promptly sat down and ate half a dozen cookies with almond milk. It was delicious! And it jacked me up on sugar and gluten… and then I started watching soccer highlights from English Football.

In other words, my internal pendulum swung briefly toward light and liberation and then upon returning to my old habits, it swung toward attachment and grasping!

I got some good studying done yesterday in spite of the internal chemical soup playing bongo drums on my cells and brain. I felt the need to do some prostrations in order to focus my mind – so that helped. I kept getting pulled back into sports though – the University of Virginia is my basketball team (college) and I listened to them win the ACC championship last night as well.

Oh before that though, I felt the need to do more mantras and get some exercise. So I went for a short walk which turned into a beautiful hike – 2 hours. I discovered a rock cairn shrine on top of a large hill that was surrounded by dozens of prayer flag lines (Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags). There was a fire pit as well – although considering how dry it is around here, that seemed a little risky. I kept going in that direction and I discovered some retreat cabins in the distance with a sign saying that retreats are in progress and “Do Not Disturb.” No wonder I felt a pull toward that hill!

Having done mantras throughout that 2 hour hike, I returned to the massage school clear and sharp – meaning when other students mentioned little nagging issues (which were none of my business), I just stayed silent, focusing on my internal process. I loved how crisp my boundaries were. I was focused and I kept the students I was working with on track and on time – stating my intention to begin with and attempting to stick with that.

I don’t quite have the 3+ hours of time to do mantra like yesterday, especially not on the weekdays. But I loved how my mind was able to recover from a sugar and gluten hang over so rapidly (I don’t normally eat much sugar or gluten, in case you can’t tell). So today, more Vajrasattva practice and mantra, along with studying for the last oral exams coming up later this week.

Yay for quality practice which yields results! And for a body / mind / heart that is able to change for the better so rapidly (now if I can just rest in equanimity free from attachment and aversion..)!

Thank you for reading and may all beings lean into support and clarity!

~km

Halfway done with Massage School, know a lot of Oriental philosophy!

If this Massage School were an acupuncture school, I suspect we would complete about 7 months of their program (in 3 months!). It is amazing what we are learning and covering here. In just 6 weeks, we have learned basic theory around TCM, 5-Element traditional medicine, Chi Kung, Tai Chi, Kundalini Yoga, Acupressure, Shiatsu (floor and table), Chi Kung massage and now we are getting into chair Shiatsu (massage) and passive stretching Shiatsu! Soon we will start learning Swedish massage and then in about 2 weeks we will learn Reflexology. I think that is it for modalities – we will basically be doing integrated massage for the last three weeks of school.

Plus I think we will end up giving over 50 treatments to “clients” throughout our 12 weeks here and not to mention our practicing on each other (fellow students) every day. In other words, we are giving high quality treatments to clients after just 5 weeks of practicing!

Oh and don’t get me started on how much Physiology we are flying through. We cover a major section every 10 days or so – we have gone through basic Biology, many aspects of the Nervous System (CNS, PNS, ANS, etc) and now we are studying the Endocrine system and hormones. I have taken A & P one and two for nursing, plus I took several Bio-Psych (neuroscience) classes at UVa from 2007 – 2009. Even with this background, I have to review extensively for these crazy tests! Whoa!

Anyway, by the time we finish here on April 18th, we will be solid practitioners!

If anyone wants to make a sizable donation ($65 or more) to my training / blogging efforts, please let me know. If you live in Virginia, I will give you an Acupressure treatment in exchange for it when I return. If you live between Colorado and Virginia, let’s talk (I will be driving through in late April). And if you live further away, we can do Spiritual Astrology.

Thank you for reading and for all your support!

~km

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Pictures from Crestone

Here are various pictures from around Crestone Colorado

I love the snow being blown up into the sky by the strong winds! (Some of Crestone’s 13K+ peaks) Less snow now in March. They had a very odd winter – very little snowfall.

There is a large stupa just south of Crestone. Just follow Baca Grande road to its end, then be on the lookout for what looks like a driveway – that is Dream Road which will take you several miles later to this large beautiful stupa which is dedicated to the 16th Karmapa.

While heading to the Crestone Ziggurat today, I happened upon (yet another) Dharma center with a stupa! The Padmasambhava stupa. It is smaller than the Karmapa stupa above. But it was still fun to circumambulate and see rows of prayer flags in the desert!

When the Karmapa (the 16th) came to Crestone in 1980, he had a vision of a large community of monastics and lay practitioners. He envisioned a medical institute, a small monastery and a large group of lay practitioners. At that time, 200 acres were given to him for this project and since then I think another 100 or more acres have been donated. So far, they have a Dharma center, the large stupa and several retreat cabins.

Also on their land, is a Zoroastrian structure, the Crestone Ziggurat (below). It was fun to visit. The winds were whipping and gusting like crazy though, so I had to crawl up to the top. The view was pretty grand though – 360 degrees around the San Luis valley. Including a view of the Sand Dunes Nat’l Park to the south. The dunes were in a frenzy of sand storm madness as the winds reshaped the parks features.

 

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1 Hour Coaching Session

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a Full week at massage school

This is / has been quite the week!

Fellow participants (students here with me): I have never been a part of a group of higher consciousness individuals – in terms of knowledge of herbalism, nutrition, diet, yoga, etc. Yes there are 4 students who are 24 or younger, but they too are incredible! If this is the upcoming generation for this planet – there is definitely a LOT of hope!

There are people here who can’t eat gluten and a couple who can’t do gluten or dairy. Therefore I am amazed at what they are preparing food-wise. I never knew gluten free cookies / baked goods / quesadillas could taste so delicious!

Oral exams: There are 3 parts – the first part is over (everyone passed the first or second time). 1st part – acu-point identification. 2nd part we are doing now (I am sitting in on the person before me now, meaning I will start tomorrow or Monday). It is assessment – we must accurately take Chinese medicine pulses (of the 12 meridians), chart the pulses, look at client complaints and then formulate a treatment plan for the teacher. Each part 2 oral exam takes about 1.5 hours – which is split during breakfast break and lunch break, meaning one person might be going for 2 days… I am learning a ton though!

Part 3 orals will be all about Traditional Chinese medicine philosophy and those will take about 2-3 hours / person!

We are flying through Physiology. Considering we study it about 1.5 hours / day, I’m pretty sure we are going much faster than a typical Anatomy and Physiology class! I am so so thankful that I have those A & P classes under my belt – because that is what is allowing me to have the time to write this email.

We are now doing solar Qigong – drawing Chi from the Sun (and more). My bone marrow or tendon cleansing Qigong is still producing heat really quickly. It’s nice to have that resource.

Plus when I am in my qigong foundations and giving acupressure or shiatsu sessions, if I imagine light streaming out of my finger tips, my clients always report incredible movement of Chi through their bodies.

Speaking of clients – the practicum participants who join us give us excellent advice. They basically have to say something constructively critical – and most of the people who attend are very energetically sensitive meaning I have been learning a ton from them! It is like attending a mindfulness meditation teacher training blended with a Toastmaster’s class fused with a yoga teacher training class… if that is possible.

Pretty soon we will be teaching a Kundalini Yoga class to the group (we each have to do one) and we will be learning a new form of Tai Chi very soon.

More to follow soon!

Donation to Kirby’s blogging efforts

Hi dear Readers, Help me buy tea so I can continue blogging. So if you enjoy what you are reading, please make a little donation. Thank you very much!

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another wrinkle at massage school (not all birth educators are the same)

Hello Dear Readers,

I hope you are finding my recent posts palatable and engaging. You should know however that we are extremely busy here at massage school – think we are busy most weekdays from 7 am until 7:30 pm with two one-hour breaks for breakfast and lunch. So if my writing has seemed a little raw as of late, well, that’s because I’m a bit raw  =^P

Let me just provide a little context. Because of my years of experience of doing bodywork (Craniosacral Therapy, Visceral Manipulation, Zapchen Somatics, Working with the Polyvagal System, some birth process work), I made a promise to the director of this massage school that I would keep the angels of beginner’s mind and humility on my shoulders at all times. Most days I am doing good with that. Keeping my mouth shut, keeping my head down and overall attempting to take a modest position.

With that said, I told myself that the only subject where I am not willing to keep my mouth shut is if someone starts teaching about working with babies and they are saying the wrong info or if they are causing secondary trauma to half the audience because their delivery is faulty. So let’s just say I spoke up a little today.

So today we went through a morning of learning about working with babies. A woman with 30+ years of doing infant massage came to talk to us.

Let me play the devil’s advocate with myself. She is a very well-meaning person. She does have decades of experience working with babies. And she is one of the only resources for this in the area (teaching about babies in general). Also, she is older and I suspect it would be very difficult to retire on baby massage wages alone. So I want to make certain it is obvious I have compassion for her as a fellow human being.

Having established that… I want to mention ways in which she could have taught us in a well-contained, safe, resourced, settled, integrate-able manner.

To say everything I would like to tonight would literally take 10,000 words. And I obviously don’t have that kind of time (see above). So I will touch on a few things and mention resources for you to go look something up if you want more info.

Speaking of resources, here’s a good website to look at Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Polarity Therapy and working with the autonomic nervous system: John Chitty’s site for somatic therapies

By the way, whenever I say the acronym PPN, that means Pre- and Perinatal therapy or birth process work. It can also refer to pre- and perinatal psychology.

Back to my topic at hand – how to present information on working with babies without leaving half your audience scarred by secondary trauma (or re-triggering primary traumas).

First I want to mention what should be a glaringly obvious fact if you want to become a birth educator of any kind: Do Not Talk About Activating Subjects without establishing serious levels of support and resource – I’m talking weeks or months or years of resource and support. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR TO LOOK AT PREVERBAL WOUNDS without a sustainable amount of resilience in the audience’s system. This is basic information if you study with Ray Castilleno – Ray Castilleno’s site for PPN therapy training

Why do I say this – do not open the door to preverbal wounds too early? Because we want this work to be kind, relatively gentle and safe. Key word there – SAFETY. If I don’t feel safe, guess what – I hop right out of my cerebral cortices and I am suddenly in sympathetic activation – that would be the Sympathetic branch of the ANS. And that means I am wary, looking around for threats. And learning goes right out the door. So does having fun, smiling, laughing with ease, being present as my body in my body – all that goes too.

That is number one. It has to be honored and approached carefully. There is a reason that Ray Castilleno only wants people in his trainings who have taken some degree of embodiment-promoting bodywork training or therapy, etc (e.g. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy or Somatic Experiencing).

Second, a good birth educator has done enough of their inner work such that they are able to look for, discover and easily lean into resource and health. If we are confronted with a trauma that we have not dealt with in ourselves, guess what? See above about how we hop right out of our creative intellect and jump down into reptilian instinctual threat-scanning brain. Therefore we must have done a lot of our inner personal growth work – including and especially our pre-verbal wounded parts work – to be able to present this information in a settled, safe, sustainable manner.

We look for resources in people and situations. We give the doctors the benefit of the doubt – yes some hospitals have a ways to go before they become baby conscious – but the obstetricians are doing the best they can with the evidence-based medicine they have at their disposal. We see that basically all parents are doing the best they can. We don’t blame parents unless something egregious is going on – and even then we look for ways to make repair. This means we look for the good, we look for the health, we look for ways that people are coming together – connecting, creating and innovating. We look for ways to teach that are fun, that are life-affirming and that identify the health that is never lost.

This critique is about to get heavier, so gird your loins. In other words, find your inner resources – connect with wisdom beings, think about someone you trust implicitly (if you are lucky enough to have that in your life), think about your favorite pet who you felt really close to and possibly even supported by, connect with an animal totem if you have one, etc.

Speaking of resources, one of my main teachers in PPN material is Myrna Martin – Myrna’s website for PPN training

So the educator today did not have a clearly defined intention. I’m not sure she even had a plan for what she wanted us to come away with. Then there was the fear spraying.

I don’t mean to sound judgmental or condescending or didactic, but I could have taught today’s lecture in a safer, more resourced manner. You do not mention rape, breach birth and prematurity within ten minutes of each other – period. The amount of ancestral (or direct) wounding that she might have stirred up in those ten short minutes is colossal!

Then she seemed extra focused on showing how unbonded (disorganized attachment?) babies grow up without a conscience and they are the ones who become mass murderers. Okay, saying that once is chilling – especially in this context. But then she mentioned it at least twice more – focusing on what is wrong with the situation or society rather than mentioning the dozens of potential resources out there about what is going well! Not only that, she mentioned the word serial killer at least three times and she actually named two or three mass murderers… Ugh! Serious overwhelm in the audience. Some people who are more numbed out fared better than the ones who are working on feeling their stuff arising and today’s lecture what too much to handle.

I only spoke up when it was getting particularly icy in the room or I mentioned several areas that things are better than how she was describing them. I also talked about the research on the Vagus nerve and how the autonomic nervous system can reflect wounding and how this is connected to addiction (I will write more about this soon).

All in all though, today I was left feeling that I was just ripped off. This massage school costs $8,000 in tuition for 12-weeks. That comes out to be about $135 / day. And I could have taught today in a manner that would not have left the audience lying around in comatose napping positions. It is not my job to resource, support and assist my fellow students. I shouldn’t have to!

Yet another great resource: Kate White’s site for many PPN resources Kate White is one of my teachers and she is the Director of Education for APPPAH – the North American Pre- and Perinatal Psychology organization. APPPAH’s website (so worth a glance!)

So basically this post boils down to this: First, have the Principles in place such that everyone in the group feels safe to begin with. Go slow when considering whether or not to teach birth dynamics. If you are unsure, you should not do it. If you are triggered by the current news about school shootings (in such a way that you cannot find your inner resiliency and inner resources and inner feeling of being settled), you should do your inner work first before teaching. Move through your fear, terror, anger, rage, jealousy, etc with an established efficacious modality – like Somatic Experiencing or Birth Process work. If you are able to read the energetic field of a group, then make that your benchmark – you must be able to notice if you have started to overwhelm your participants or students. If overwhelm starts to show itself, you must have solid resources already set up ahead of time to help to move people back toward resilience and supported safety.

These are my two cents. I am not an expert. I have been extremely (!) blessed with my teachers and learning opportunities. And hopefully there won’t be too many more of these bizarre days here at massage school.

Massage school update, and wrestling with Kundalini Yoga conflict

This is my weekly (or biweekly) update from Crestone Colorado, where I am attending a magical, transformative and intense massage school program.
It is truly incredible how much we are packing into these weeks. With a schedule from 7 am until 7 pm, we rarely have any free time.
I have completed part 1 of the 3 oral exams. We were tested on about 150 acu-points in various sequences. The nice friendly teacher turns into a gruff sensei for oral exams – questioning my confidence enough so I have to really push the right answer. It was good though. Next week is part 2 – the assessment portion. We are already doing complex Oriental assessments and acupressure formulas for various issues and complaints.
We are forced to do Kundalini Yoga once / week. And I typically dread it. If you are a dedicated Kundalini Yogi – turn away, skip the next couple of paragraphs, etc. I come from a place of radical kindness – from Zapchen Somatics where we rest a lot to allow the brain to integrate and soak up the neurological nourishment of playful, dynamic, soothing exercises or whether from a Pre- and Perinatal place that uses science to back up the fact that as babies we needed 20 – 30 minutes of rest time after a very challenging transformation from dim, quiet, private, cozy womb-resident infant to bright, semi-harsh, overwhelming-amount-of-new-senses air-breathing human new-born. Here is the problem though – needs like that rest time and other needs are often not met in most hospital births. And we develop the belief that life is tough and that we must push through, we must work harder to get what we need and want.
But this is not true. It is an impossible job to control everything in our world (but we try!). And I believe that some people transfer this inner unease onto their yoga practice. There is another way! A kinder, gentler, easier way to move toward ease and grace. Down the road I plan to teach this style. (there is an irreverent part of me saying, “I can call it Kundalini Recovery”) (if Kundalini is an authentic beneficial practice for some people, then I apologize)
So I am sitting with this inner conflict and pushing through my objection (not good!). I need to express my objection and let it out. Fortunately there are only 8 more sessions of Kundalini Yoga. Oh – and we are forced to teach an hour of it too. Hopefully I can find the gentlest Kriya there is – one where we are not holding our arms at awkward positions for 7 or 11 minutes straight.
Actually, the stretch pose (where you lift your legs off the ground as you do Breath of Fire) reminds me explicitly and distinctly of my time in the military. That was one of the positions the Drill Sergeants put us in when they wanted to “smoke” us (humiliate, punish, deprecate, etc). Not cool – I left the militaristic paradigm 13 years ago. I’d rather not go back to it.
Thank you for reading my rants and more to follow soon,
Big hug,
Kirby
P.S. I am gazing out at frosted mountains with a couple inches of snow on the ground with flurries wafting through the air. There is much to be appreciated here!