Richard's Blog

Injury to wrist and pride…

I just realized yesterday that I've sustained my first iPhone overuse injury—by playing solitaire, which I'd been doing for a couple of months. The ulnar side of my right wrist has been sore and a little swollen for the last couple of weeks, and I was nursing it along until I realized what had caused the problem. Bad biomechanics AND just too much repetition! So now it's cold turkey for the solitaire for awhile…

ACOM starts this week!

We have a nice group of people signing up for ACOM this year in its new format. We're going to go more hi-tech this year: I'm going to video demos and explanations of key content and post them to this site. There's going to be a new blog (ACOM content) going up. I just have to figure out how to place it on the home page, then I'll password-protect it and go from there. Lauren and I have already figured out how to place video files in a blog for downloading. 

Whiplash Workshop at Cortiva, 6/12/10

I was invited to do a brief demonstration of myofascial work on the neck as part of a workshop this past Saturday. The workshop was co-led by Diana Thompson, one of the local/national massage luminaries, and Richard Adler of Adler Giersch, a PI attorney; it was about both the treatment of whiplash and the legal/insurance implications of accident cases. I was lucky enough to have Lauren as my model. 

Technique was also demonstrated by Taya Countryman (Structural Release Therapy); Arik Gohl (Ligament Release Therapy); and Diane Kincaid (MLD). It was good company to be in. I saw some old friends, including Carolyn Brady of Oak Harbor. We used to be study groups together in the mid-80's! Time flies. 

Meanwhile, we're finalizing the calendar and pricing for the new ACOM, starting December 2010. More about that soon. 

Reorg at ACOM in Port Townsend

Susan Rosen and I just finished up the 5th round of ACOM (Advanced Certification in Orthopedic Massage) classes at the Port Townsend School of Massage. We've had a good run—five nice groups of people in five years. Next time (late fall 2010) we're going to try something different: separating Susan and me in most of the classes, so that each of us can have extended periods of working with the students in our somewhat overlapping areas of concentration (Susan's more weighted towards the orthopedic/treatment realm; I'm more in the structural balancing realm). Blending the two, each day in each class, has worked well, but I think we can do better in this slightly different format. We'll see!

I also have some ideas about going a bit more high-tech in this next round. I would like to try making casual videos of each technique demonstration, and uploading them to an online drop box so that students can download them. This summer, I'm going to be exploring the technology.