The Plus Side of Being a Klutz

by Pallas Hutchison

As I have said for years, my sister Marina got all of the grace. The gawky, loose-limbed adolescent gait that most people outgrow has stuck with me. As a result, I'm a bit of a klutz. After years of ridiculous injuries, I found a positive aspect to being accident prone. It makes me a better massage therapist.

How does that work?

Many of the injuries my clients come in with are things that I have actually experienced, which means I can empathize better. It also means that I have a better idea which muscles were involved and where the pain is located. My clients often comment on how quickly I find their problem areas. This is not intuition; this is experience.

From top to bottom, here a list of injuries/conditions that I have personal experience with:
---Dislocated shoulder (from an unfortunate incident involving a roast beef)
---Tendonitis (both wrists)
---Arthritis (lower back)
---Rotated sacrum (from martial arts)
---Broken pelvic bone & femur (from a car accident)
---Torn miniscus (cartilage in the knee; from falling down stairs but thankfully only a minor tear)
---Sprained ankle (both, multiple times from school sports, trampoline, high heels, falling in general)
---Fractured ankle (with bone chip! from martial arts)

My personal experience does not make massage an acceptable substitute for emergency medical care. It actually makes me more likely to refer clients to their physician for an x-ray or MRI before working on an injury. Liability is not the only reason for referring clients out before giving massage. The more a massage therapist knows about what is going on, the better they can help the client. Sometimes that means not giving them a massage right away.