Sunday, January 23, 2011

Pain Relieving Workshops


On Friday the 28th, I’ve asked several friends to critique a dry-run of a workshop I’m setting up to teach people how to relieve their own and each other’s muscle pains in the shoulders and neck. I’ll also be teaching them how to get rid of headaches, how to wake themselves up with a good head scrub, and how to calm themselves down with a good head rub, and yes, it does mess up hair. Last, I’ll teach how to relieve hand pains and foot pains using a little rubber ball, and yes, you have to take your shoes off for the foot part.
Note that I said ”relieve” and not “cure.” These tricks are meant to help people get through the rest of their work day or perhaps a long car trip, and the results can last anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days, depending on how badly people are damaging themselves. 

A person can’t relieve their own muscle pains anywhere near as effectively as somebody else can, even somebody who’s had very little training. On long car trips, I’ve asked perfect strangers at rest areas to do “the elbow trick” on me, and they’ve picked it up in about thirty seconds. 

This is a dry-run among friends so that I can work out the bugs, and instead of them paying me, I’ll be bribing them with promises of chili. My teaching style is much like my blog writing style, and much like my stand-up comedy style, come to think of it. I like to make things fun and tell lots of little stories and really connect with my audience, along with teaching them an extremely practical skill they can use for the rest of their lives.
So far, two and possibly three community organizations, one beauty salon, and one church has “expressed interest” in having me teach this workshop to their people.  And I’m really excited about that, because it is so very satisfying to watch people sort of melt into this smiling heap of humanity, just from doing one (on each side) elbow trick on their aching shoulder muscles. 

The plan is to schedule at least two workshops per month, and I have a friend who has agreed to design and print my advertising posters for me for the price of the printing ink. I’m also working on a fact sheet about the workshops to hand to churches, organizations, businesses, etc.

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