How much shiatsu is too much?
I have been treating a married couple for a while now but each partner on different nights. It seemed sensible to arrange appointments so that I treat both on the same evening. I have now completed three treatment sessions in this way.
Each study weekend requires me to work through the day but in short bursts of twenty to thirty minutes with a swap to allow my partner to work and interspersed with theory sessions. I have wondered how I would cope with doing shiatsu all day everyday outside of the classroom. This new arrangement has gone some way to answering this question.
The problem I have with arranging evening appointments like this is that I have little time between each treatment to recover and prepare for the next. I am doing two treatments in not much over two hours. Physically I do not find this a problem but sometimes it is draining. I would not like to do a third treatment in a row but after an hour I feel that I could treat again.
In the only student clinic that I have attended so far we had twenty to thirty minutes between each client. This seemed about right but again I only treated twice on that afternoon. It makes me wonder how I will cope when I start to treat several clients a day on a more regular basis.
I would be interested to hear of your experiences of coping with the demands of an increasing shiatsu workload. How did you decide how many clients to treat? What sort of recovery time do you allow yourself? Do you have a routine between clients?
Tony Brown @ October 2, 2007