In 1988, after my wife died, and I was in the middle of the long process of applying to Peace Corps, something that I had wanted to do ever since I heard Kennedy say the “… ask what you can do for your country.” speech, when I was 11, I enrolled in Massage School. I had always wanted to learn massage. It seemed a good tool to have in my belt, as I started a new life without Jenny. And it was evident that the application process to Peace Corps was going to go on for a while, so I wanted to do something interesting while I waited for them to realize what a great Peace Corps volunteer that I would make.

Classes had been going on for a month or so, and I was learning anatomy, physiology, massage techniques, and all sorts of interesting and useful stuff. One day, there was a short, kind of roly poly guy in the front of the classroom when I arrived for class. He was balding, and pudgy, and his clothes looked like they came from Goodwill. I wondered what he would have to offer us. You could never tell. Kenny, the massage instructor had brought some interesting folks in to talk about aspects of massage, but not all of them had been good speakers.

When class had assembled, Kenny introduced his guest as Larry, a master of the art of Chi Kung style of martial arts. Larry didn’t look like a master. He looked like he would be a man named Al, who could tune your car up quick as a whistle. His voice was mild, and his manner humble, as he told us of growing up in China, a child of embassy worker parents. He had studied various martial arts during his childhood, and worked his way into mastery of Tai Chi, Karate, Judo, and by the time he had graduated college, he had become so proficient that he had invented his own form of martial arts, in a blend of styles he called Chi Kung. It all centered on using your Chi, your inner fire, which you could manifest thru practice and specific exercises, and breath control. It was a fascinating talk, but he seemed like such a nebbish, that I had some doubts about whether he was really this master that he painted himself to be.

He showed us some breathing techniques that would help to bring up your chi, into your body and hands, so that it was available for you to use. He had us all practice it. The breathing was like huffing your breath in short powerful bursts, and we all stood there, huffing and chuffing. I didn’t feel my chi rising, if I had such a thing in me, and was kind of disappointed. Evidently, Larry saw my disbelief on my face. He stopped us from snorting and huffing, and said that he would give us a demonstration of the manifesting of his chi. I must have rolled my eyes or something, because he said, “You, what is your name?” and pointed to me.

“Sam,” I said.

“Well, Sam, Come up here to the front please.”

I walked to the front of the classroom. He asked the other students to clear the chairs to the side. He pointed to the biggest guy in the class, a behemoth of a man, appropriately named Bear.  He had him stand behind me. “Just in case Sam loses his balance, you should catch him by the shoulders, to keep him from falling down.”  Right. I was standing there relaxed. Bear took position behind me, sort of ready to grab me if I fell back. Larry said to just relax and stand quietly. Larry suddenly clapped his hands together forcefully, rubbed them together palm to palm quickly, and went into the breathing to marshal his chi. He didn’t look any different. He huffed and chuffed for a minute or two. holding his hands in front of himself.

Then he stopped, and put his right hand up like a cop stopping traffic. Then he pushed his flat hand towards my chest kind of slow, and let out one final huff, and his hand stopped. All of a sudden, it felt like a speeding train had crashed into my chest, and I flew backwards off the ground, and crashed so hard into Bear,  that we both tumbled all the way into the rear of the classroom, ass over teakettle. I stood up, and helped Bear to his feet, and I looked at Larry wondering if he had kicked me or something, so quickly that I didn’t see it. The class was in a hubbub.

Larry turned to the class, and pointed to a woman, and asked, “What did you just see?”

“You never touched him,” she said, ” your hand stopped about a foot from his chest, and then he flew backwards.”

“Did anybody see me touch Sam at all?” he asked the class.

Everybody shook their heads.

“That,” he said, “was my projection of my chi from my hand toward Sam. It is not something you can do without practice, and I have had years of practice.”

“Then how is it useful for massage therapists?” someone asked.

“You will be working hard with your hands, doing massage,” he answered, “and being able to marshall your chi, and put it into your hands, will help you work less hard at the massage, and will also put your energy into those recalcitrant muscles as well. It works, even at an elementary level of ability. It just takes practice.”

So we spent the rest of the class practicing how to do it. I practiced it as the classes in massage continued to their end, and I graduated and got my massage certificate. After massage school, I did outcall massages for the next 3 months until Peace Corps finally called me to go to Africa. It worked for me. I had some clients that were runners, and often was faced with leg muscles that were overstrained, and knotted up as hard as a board. I used the techniques I had learned. I would warn my clients that I was going to clap my hands loudly, so they would not be startled, and would clap my hands, and rub my hands together, and breathe like I had learned, and marshall my chi, and put my hands on the hard knots, and send my chi into them, and they would relax. It always amazed me, but it always worked. Sometimes my clients would say, “Ow! Your hands are as hot as fire, Sam.” 

“That is just my chi helping you to relax,” I would tell them.

Never judge a person by how they look on the outside.   <3

Truth is crazier than fiction   <3