RUN.EAT.GOSSIP

Saturday, February 21, 2009

An Unconventional Chinese Sinseh

A fellow runner friend recommended this TCM practitioner in Tampines. This friend of mine goes to see him every few months to 'iron' out the kinks in his body. So I thought why not? - since the foot was still not fully okay.

The very first sign that this was not going to be the usual twist and pull of the typical 'tei-ta' sinseh was the guy was playing on a video game when I walked in. On his very cluttered there was a host of game consoles from all the major brands. There was also an iGallop.

Waited for him to finish his game first before proceeding to the treatment bed. Another surprise awaited me. He picked up another Osim product - an iSnug and proceeded to put my calves in for a massage. Glancing around the room, I think short of the massage chair, he had practically all the Osim products.

He left me on the iSnug and went to attend to another patient. When the massage time went off, he came back and proceeded to do the usual twist and pull. Then the torture came. I think what I went to was not a clinic but a torture chamber. He started using all sort of gadgets to roll, hit and whack the leg. It was worse than deep tissue massage. When I told him that, he laughed and said it would be worse if he do it for the side of the leg! So I was kinda lucky be was only doing it to the back of my leg!

After an hour of painful roll, whack and pull and pressing of various parts of the lower body, he finally put the foot back into the iSnug for a massage. And he - he went to the next cubicle to do his own massage on an uSqueeze!

Finally he explained that my injury was not the result of any sprain, which I myself was quite sure, but an accumulation of all the stress and pounding on the legs from all the running which was why he was treating the whole foot and not just the painful part of the foot.

Indeed felt much better and light footed after the session. Actually it was more a massage session than a treatment. He also managed to persuade me to buy the whacker which he claimed if I used it to hit the legs after each run, there will be no need to see him any more.

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