Ancient deep tissue wisdom

My parents are here! And the hotel offers very cheap massages on the day of arrival. So at 3pm we all filed downstairs into the high-end spa for our massages. We were given the option of Relaxing or Deep Tissue. I should have known by the fact that Deep Tissue was in a whole separate classification -- set in opposition to Relaxing -- that this was not going to be fun. I have a vague idea that it would be painful, but clearly not enough to stop me from trying it.

The problem with deep tissue massages, for me, is that without a lot of meat or fat on me, the only thing deep to my tissue is bone. Wincing the whole first thirty minutes, I kept thinking, I cant survive this. Certainly not without crying out. It was a bone-crushing rub. The masseuse actually got up on the table so that she could throw her whole weight behind her elbow which was being pressed again and again over my scapular ridge. I wasnt a believer then; mumbling mentally about this being a pseudoscience. I thought my back and body might go easier than my neck and shoulders, the muscles being bigger there, but turned out that my muscles were just pinged against my ribs like a xylophone. And there was no love in it either. This wasnt a Bethany massage. It was borderline angry, just shy of sadism (not so shy actually, but I want you to keep thinking that Im a pretty normal person).

Then around minute 40, a transition happened. I started to enjoy it. I cant tell if my body had just warmed up, or if the masseuse was getting tired and so pressing less hard, but whatever it was, I started to really relax into it. By the last 10 minutes I was actually smiling instead of gritting my teeth, and when I got up, I was a new woman. A lot like the stretchy mother in The Incredibles, and very happy. Crazy but true, in one hour, I went from skeptical to sold on the ancient wisdom of deep tissue massage.