Bloopers!

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Comment by Camille Urueta on October 13, 2009 at 6:25pm

I have actually done this -TWICE! When getting ready for a massage I usually say "I am going to step out of the room now so you can get undressed." My blooper was I have instead said "I'm going to take my clothes off now." I got surprised looks from my clients. Fortunately they were women and laughed when they how horrified I was for my error!

Comment by Marilyn St.John on October 13, 2009 at 2:19pm

Ellie, you may be right about the difference a location makes in the way people tend to embrace massage. I have only worked in the Detroit suburbs but have had clients from all over. The clients from other parts of the country and especially Canada, seem to have a much higher respect for bodywork in general.

FYI, the "blooper" that had to include judo took place at a massage school and involved me quickly extricating my shoulder from a rather demanding grip without hurting myself or the client. I guess my Blooper was letting it happen in the first place, but at 55 it didn't occur to me that I had to keep my guard up, especially at a school! I am in a chirporactor's office now, a medical environment tends to change peoples' mindset too.

Comment by Ellie Smith on October 13, 2009 at 1:25pm

Boy, I just thought of another mistake I made once. When I was making a new appointment, I was flipping pages in my book while we found a mutually acceptable time. I wrote the person down in my book on the wrong week, and did not catch it. I did write the correct time and date on their appointment card. Then, I booked the appointment time to someone else, since my client's name was not written on the right week. Imagine my embarrassment when the original client showed up for her appointment a few minutes early and I looked at my book and realized that in a very few minutes I was going to have another client on my steps.

Thank God neither person was a new client, both had been coming to me for several years. I confessed what I had done and asked told them I had numerous options open for rebooking for both of them. What wound up happening is that one of them went off to go shopping for a couple of hours, and I did them both back to back. We all had a good laugh about that, and it has made me much more understanding with people who miss their appointments because their calendars were messed up.

Comment by Barb Endicott on October 13, 2009 at 1:18pm

Hi everyone,
have just started school and have completed my first 10 weeks. I know that this is the work that I was meant to do and nothing really earth shaking has happened to me yet. But I know that there is the possibility. Thank you all for sharing your "bloopers". I have had quite a laugh reading all of them. I start working in my school's student clinic soon- I'll let you know if anything happens with me.

Comment by Ellie Smith on October 13, 2009 at 1:14pm

I have to say that I believe that where you are working (that is geographically) has a lot to do with whether people make inappropriate comments. I have done massage in big cities on the west coast and now I am located in a small town in the Ozarks. Only here have people ever assumed that massage had anything to do with sex, and I believe it is because the places I was on the west coast were more cosmopolitan and the people were better informed. I know this probably sounds "regionalist" or "classist", but I believe it is simply reality.

Now that I am way over 50 no one ever gets inappropriate with me. I think that it is a combination of my very straightforwardness and the fact that I tend to do deep tissue work. Once I have dug into their supraspinatus and rhomboids, I think they are afraid to ask me to touch anything so delicate as their penis, actually.

Now my ego is deflated. No one has ever asked to marry me!

Comment by Marissa on October 13, 2009 at 12:51pm

You know, I've been an MT for 7 years and I have never had anyone request anything inappropriate. Other than my hubby. He doesn't count. I have had several marriage proposals by both sexes though. Hmmmm... What little ego I have is rapidly deflating.

Comment by Ellie Smith on October 13, 2009 at 11:27am

The "happy ending" story is not really a record of your blooper but rather of your client's big one. Amusing, but I am still confused as to why your judo skills were needed. I've been a massage therapist for over 20 years now and every time I have had a guy request a hand job all I have ever felt the need to do is tell him "Not happening, hon" or words to that effect. I do have a fly swatter in my room, but I've only ever used it on flies.

My worst blooper was when I was a fledgling energy worker and I forgot to ground myself before I started doing chakra balancing on a person (fortunately my friend and another massage therapist) who was carrying a load of energy about her life and her husband dying of brain cancer in particular, and as she relaxed and trusted that negative charge to flow out of her it stuck in my energy body momentarily and actually knocked me out cold -- I was unconscious, slumped on my stool at the head of the table and my arms stretched out along side my client, head down, and as I began to recover I could hear my friend/client calling gently "Ellie, are you all right?" What a lesson that was. We expect to have to deal with issues for our clients and are not prepared for when something goes dreadfully wrong with us! I knew there was a reason why they always told us to be sure we were grounded before we did energy work, I just didn't realize how extremely powerful energy can actually be.

Comment by Tracy Mason on October 12, 2009 at 8:09pm

Very cool Gloria! Glad I could help. LOL!

Comment by Gloria Coppola on October 12, 2009 at 4:18pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnMX1HGnPSg

Tracy, this one is for you, inspired by you!
Candles in your massage practice :)

Comment by Marilyn St.John on October 12, 2009 at 10:34am

Yeah, Marissa, I still roll my eyes when I look at that part of the wall. ;o)

My first massage session out of school was equally entertaining, but in a different way. We've probably all heard about eventually getting a client who expects the~um~happy ending? I got mine at my VERY FIRST session. I guess it was never a serious consideration on my part because of my age...and in this case, I was old enough to be his mother. But as a newbie, I was just concentrating on using my new techniques on somebody other than a classmate. It was at the very end of the session when any lack of confidence in my own skills was dispelled in the space of a few seconds, when (1) I realized how valuable my past judo training was; and (2) how grateful I was to have learned to think on my feet after years in a corporate environment! Of course this was all done with as much professional poise as I could muster as a fledgling therapist. The guy left and still plopped a sizeable tip on the desk on his way out ... and I now focus mostly deep tissue work!

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