I escape from work for an extended lunch hour. It may be a bit irresponsible of me to turn off my pager and silence my phone in the middle of the day, but the reward is decadent - an hour of true relaxation. Also, I don’t want anything to detract from my cupping experience. The spa is located in a cozy cottage in the Montford historic district of Asheville. Without GPS assistance, it would be nearly impossible to find. As I enter, I am greeted by a diminutive blonde woman who will be my cupper – if that is the appropriate term. She hands me the requisite form to list why I have come and to give my past medical history. There is a line to indicate if I have any communicable diseases. I pause and think of some cool diseases I might write down. After a bit of contemplation, I decide to write “leprosy” on the line while enjoying a small chuckle. I also note that I suffer from chronic lower back pain and bilateral shoulder tendonitis.
When I have finished completing the form,
she leads me into a small room with a massage table in the center. She explains that the session will be an hour
in length with some initial deep massage followed by cupping. She asks what I hope to gain from the
session. I say that I would like to have
two fully functional shoulders, relief of my back pain, and at least one
Olympic gold medal. She gives me a
sideward glance and says, “Special Olympics maybe.” She is a funny one. Doesn’t she realize that humor is my shtick? She then shows me the cupping machine, which
is about the size of a bread box with numerous dials and gauges along with
several tubes connected to glass cups.
Basically, it is a small vacuum device.
She says she will step out while I get undressed. She indicates that I can fully disrobe or
leave my underwear on. I sheepishly opt
for wearing my boxers.
When she returns, I am safely tucked in
face down between the warm sheets on the massage table. For the next hour, my visual field is limited
to the shadows and movements which I can see from the hole in the head
rest. She is barefoot with painted
toenails – that is about all I know. She
tells me that she may be small, but that she will do her best to give me a
good, deep massage. “Think of me as a
hefty Russian woman, rather than a small woman who weighs 100 pounds soaking
wet,” she says. While I lay there
waiting to begin, she says, “I see you suffer from Leprosy.” I laugh, forced to reveal my little joke.
She dims the lights and turns on some
soothing background music. Then, she
gets down to business. She kneads warm
lotion into my back and shoulder muscles.
I am in my happy place. For the
most part, I enter a zone of semi-consciousness. She thoroughly works me over, from my shoulders
down to my upper buttocks. After about
40 minutes, she pauses and turns on the cupping device. She applies the vacuum cups to my back and
shoulder. It feels like she only applies
one or two at a time, but I am not sure.
The longer the cup is applied, the more intense the pulling
sensation. It feels like a strong vacuum
cleaner being applied to my skin. She
alternates between leaving one or two cups in a single place while massaging a
different region of my back – using massage as a distraction so that she gets
me to relax areas I would otherwise naturally tense up. She also uses the cups like vacuum cleaners,
rubbing them up and down my back and shoulders with intermittent stays for a
few seconds in different regions. The
cups create a little discomfort, but nothing too unpleasant. They do little to jolt me out of my state of
relaxation. After about 20 minutes, she
clicks off the machine, and we are done.
Prior to her stepping out the room, she tells me to take my time getting
dressed. She also encourages me to drink
a lot of water throughout the rest of the day. She also says I should expect to get a few
stares if I go swimming or participate in group activities without a shirt in
the next few days. I pay 105 dollars,
and after a little small talk, I am out the door.
When I get home, I strip off my shirt
and examine my back in the mirror. I
look like Michael Phelps, minus the big shoulders and V-shaped back. A number of silver dollar sized bruises pepper
my back. I tell my kids I was mugged by
a man with a baseball bat on the way home, and I am lucky to be alive. They almost believe me. They act concerned, but then I reveal the
truth, and they again regard me with typical indifference. They are used to my kidding. I do look forward to showing off my marks at
the pool.
Aside from the new experience, are my
shoulders and back better? Time will
tell.
Please check out my recently
published book on Alternative Medicine.
It makes a great Christmas gift!
