very OT: massage school graduation speech

the following speech was written by Cary Cortese, one of my
instructors in massage school.
"Just to let you know before I begin, that almost all of these
words were stolen from John Conway's[1] lectures and they come to
you tonight as part of my continued attempt to distill the
Anatomy and Physiology section of our educational process down to
one long run on sentence. Oh, and the parts that are not A&P
related were stolen from section three of the Chuang Tsu
entitled, The Secret of Caring for Life[2].
I'm not standing before you today, friends, in order to reiterate
to you that the medical clavicle and the sternum's manubrium are
the origins and the temporal bone's mastoid process the insertion
of sternocleidomastoid. Nor do I stand here today to flush out
for the friends and family of my friends, all of which if friends
and family of my friends are friends of mine – but today, I need
not flush out for them the 80 axial and 126 appendicular bones of
the body alongside their various projections and processes –
condyles, tubercles, epicondyles and trochanters. For indeed, I
do believe, all present graduates will agree, we have already
been familiarized with the relevant palpable bone markings. Can I
get an Amen? Can I get an Amen, please?
For it is massage which helps break the cycle of chronic pain,
friends. It is massage that quells the muscle spasm. Body work
reduces muscle tension and, promoting circulation to the head,
removes the tension headache.
Friends, I would not stand here before you to tell you, once
again, that massage increases circulation – this we already know,
we have been told massage increases circulation. And I will not
be the person to reiterate this here to you today. Even though it
is this very circulation which provides the pathways our immune
system defenders use to protect us from illness, it is this very
circulation which regulates our body's temperature, it is this
circulatory highway which feeds us air and food without which our
very noses and mouths (and all the chewing and gasping we could
muster) would be in vain.
Furthermore, friends, I will not burden you with an excessive
lecture on lymph and interstitial spaces – collecting ducts,
nodes, trunks, vessels and capillaries. SO EVERYONE ALTOGETHER –
LET'S EXHALE – LET'S EXHALE FULLY – And as a group, making room
for that quintessential deep breath in through the nose past the
respiratory mucosa, ciliated epithelium, paranasal sinuses,
pharynx, larynx and trachea, primary bronchi, pleura, secondary
bronchi, bronchioles, alveolar ducts, sacs and down to your
alveoli. (That's right, friends, a deep breath.) Wiggle your
shoulders, mobilize your sternoclavicular joints, feel the long
last movements in your thoracolumbar aponeurosis. AND GIVE
THANKS.
Give thanks for your complexities and subtle intricacies, for
your endocardium, myocardium and pericardium, indeed for all the
layers of your heart. Give thanks that your body's processes are
running smoothly and you have the opportunity to engage this day
with your very own sense of olfaction, that the afferent and
efferent fibers of your peripheral nervous system are in order,
the mechanoreceptors, chemoreceptors, thermo–receptors and even
nociceptors and proprioceptors are living together in harmony.
Nay, not merely harmony, but with a sense of bliss.
And this is merely the tip of the iceberg, friends, for how
should I even try to describe the mysteries of the endocrine
system. How could I communicate the importance of fascia – OH
FASCIA, FASCIA. HOW YOU CONNECT ME TO MYSELF. LOOSEN UP. Or how
to convey the profound filtration, re–absorption and secretion,
indeed, how to convey the importace of the smooth elimiation of
metabolic waste?
I know not how. I should not even try.
So go forth in flexion; dorsi–, plantar– and otherwise.
Go forth in extension, adduction, and AB–duction.
Enjoy both elevation and depression,
Pronation and supination
Inversion, eversion, protraction, retraction, rotation and
circumduction.
So go forth and touch the brain through the skin using the
hypothalamus to unveil well–beingness.
Teach consciousness its parasympatheic state.
Offer more than pressure, which creates a mechanical response;
offer the opportunity for a reflexive response...
As you head out from this place with your new skills, your more
refined skills in hand, and as you work you will continue to grow
and refine this skill set that you have taken great time and
effort to develop here in these past months... I wish for you
that you set up your various practices and that all proceed for
you with a ZING, all in perfect rhythm. I wish you all to work
for a long time, and that your work becomes easy and golden and
nearly impossible to speak about. When you come to a large knot
in the tissues, pause, size up the difficulties, tell yourself to
be careful, keep your attention on what you are doing, work very
slowly and move with the greatatst subtlety until FLOP, the whole
thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground.
Completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, this is one of the
ways in which you can learn to care for life.
Thank you and happy graduation to everyone in the March group
Tuesday, Evening, and Saturday sections!"
[1] http://www.tlcschool.com/faculty.html
[2] http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html#3