How to expedite matters: 2 (London)

My pub branch tends to get very busy on Saturdays (my shift day), so customers who can’t find a table sometimes stand in front of the two kitchen swing doors (one IN and one OUT).  This makes it difficult for us staff, carrying laden and hot plates of food and finding our way blocked by crowds of people immersed in chatting, totally unaware of everything else around them.  

I took to saying, as I went past them to enter the kitchen, “HOT food coming out of that door!  Watch out!”

One day, I found that one particular group of customers didn’t pay much attention to my exhortations, and kept re-grouping outside the kitchen doors once we’d gone on our way.

So, I changed my message, “HOT food AND KNIVES coming out of that door!  Watch out!”

It worked.

(London, 2018)

Contactless healing: 2 (London)

Update 010319:  

Further to my blog Contactless healing: 1, Kayden, another regular customer who'd been suffering from some knee cartilage problem and even started to use a crutch a month or so ago, has just told me that she started using my method and her knees are now good!  Wow, wow!  So happy!

(London 2019)

Update, 2022:  Ran into Kayden three years on.  Unfortunately, the good effect did not last.  She was back on crutches.  I don't expect a miracle cure -- just pain relief that's free (of charge and of chemicals), and that is within one's own control (to a certain extent).  Control in the sense that one can do the L-form exercise in the middle of the night or whenever the pain is bad, for any length of time, as often as one needs, etc.  Even if the relief is only for a few days, or a few hours.  A little pain relief is better than nothing.  And to not have to resort to painkillers (even if they were free, which they are not for the under-60s on prescription), or depend on someone else to come and do it (e.g., massage).  Has to be better than having to put up with the pain in helpless surrender.

Contactless healing: 1 (London)

I’m building up a bit of a reputation for healing with my massage.  

One day, one of the pub regulars told me he had done something to his wrist.  As I was still on duty, I couldn’t sit down and work on it, so I tried to help him establish where the epicentre was, so that I could teach him how to work on it himself.

A few minutes later, a chap from a group of regulars came up and said, “What were you doing there just now?”  He then told me he had a bad problem with his foot.  He’d somehow managed to get hit quite badly in the calf by a higher step on an escalator (how does one end up being hit in the calf at all by a step in an escalator?!?).  The injury spread to his foot, which then swelled up quite badly, to the point that he was having difficulty standing.  He worked long shifts (some ten hours or so), being on his feet all the time (as a store security man or something), so the pain was getting unbearable, and he might have to leave the job.

As I was still on duty, and looking at his foot would entail his removing his shoes and socks, I decided to give him some preliminary basic remedy: 

“Lie in bed with your feet up against the wall, forming an L shape, with the top of the L being your feet, and the bend in the L being your backside.  This will make the blood flow down your legs and take the pressure off your feet.  It’s non-chemical, and free, and should at least help ease the swelling for now.  We can look at your foot another day when I can.”

This is something I’ve been doing since age ten.  Putting the feet up against the wall sends a very pleasant tingling sensation down the raised legs to the thighs, and is particularly good for relieving aching feet and legs.  I do this regularly after my eight-hour pub shifts, for about ten minutes before going to sleep, and sleep better for it.  

I've taught this to lots of my pub colleagues, one of whom — a 19-year-old young man — told me recently it is very effective and he does it regularly now.  (I mention his age and gender only because young people, especially men, don't tend to go for such things.)

A few weeks later, one of the friends of the swollen-foot man (called Kamal, I was told) came in with his group for a drink.  He came up to me and said, “Oh, you remember my friend who’d asked you about his swollen toe and you taught him that exercise?  The problem’s gone now.”

Wow, that was better than I could ever imagine or hope!!  I hadn’t even got round to looking at his foot and assessing the problem.  Best bit of news I’ve had in a long time.

What's particularly brilliant about this method is:  it's free of chemicals, free of charge, and can be done for as long or as often as one can or wishes.

Update:  About three weeks later, after Christmas, I saw the friend again and asked after Kamal.  The friend said, “Kamal’s been doing the exercise you suggested.  Problem’s not come back.”

(London, 2018 & 2019)

Contactless healing: 3 (London)

Update 070319:  

Further to my blogs Contactless healing: 1 and Contactless healing: 2, another success!!

Spotted kitchen colleague Gikita’s swollen ankle Saturday last week while she was changing out of her uniform after finishing her shift.  As it was due to a hairline fracture, I couldn’t give her a massage (sprained ankles were my first speciality in massage, from the age of ten), so I asked her to try my L-shape remedy.

Went to do an emergency shift in the pub last night.  Gikita said she’d done the L-shape twice since being taught it last Saturday.  The swelling and pain reduced by 20% after just one session of the L-shape remedy.

(London, 2019) 

* L-shape remedy is my own invented label for it.  One doesn’t have to do anything, just lie down and get the body into the L shape, and stay in that position for at least ten minutes, or as long as one wishes.  It is the shape of the body bent into an L shape, with the vertical bit of the L being the legs, the turn in the L being the backside, and the horizontal bit being the torso.

Contactless healing: 1

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2019/03/contactless-healing-1-london_7.html 

Contactless healing: 2

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2019/03/contactless-healing-2-london_7.html 

Stereo-typing: 1 (London)

I once had an evening class student called Rob, who was in his twenties at the time, slim, with the sweetest little-boy smile and a gentle manner, and dark-skinned (being of Jamaican Indian parentage).

He is an international-class kungfu referee, and we used to have animated conversations about kungfu moves and training sessions in our post-lesson pub sessions.

One day, he nodded off on a very late train back home to Luton.  

At some point, he felt a tap on his shoulder.  Even in his dozy state, his kungfu training made him react instinctively.  When he opened his eyes next, he saw that he’d floored the man, who was lying in the aisle, saying, “Hey, man, I was only trying to inspect your ticket!”

The only other people in his carriage — a young white couple — then quickly moved away to another carriage.  

(London, early 1990s)

Stereo-typing: 2 (London)

Rob was refereeing a kungfu competition in Wapping, in the docklands of London, and invited me along to watch.

I got there late — as the docklands area was a bit of an alien territory in those days — so everyone was standing to attention, waiting for the signal for the competition to begin.  Rob and his two fellow male referees — both his disciples — were already seated on the stage set up for the judges.

When he spotted me, Rob waved me up to the stage, indicating the spare chair he’d reserved for me — next to him!

As I crossed the huge gym hall, and walked up to the stage to take the seat next to the three male referees (one black, two white), the whole hall went silent, with all eyes following my progress with awed reverence.  They must’ve thought I was the chief referee, being the only Oriental (and therefore the most likely person for kungfu!), and were probably also most impressed as I’m female!

(London, early 1990s)

Stereo-typing: 3 (London)

Another evening class ex-student of mine is a Gambian called Victor.  

Victor is very friendly and sociable, but he is very dark-skinned and has a tribal-ritual type of scar across each cheek, which makes him look a bit menacing.  Sure enough, he was cast as a baddie in a Jackie Chan movie (or two??)!

American ex-student Jason told me he was walking down Chinatown’s Gerrard Street one day when he caught sight of, ahead of him, a Chinese couple holding a young child, with a black man standing opposite them, apparently in a conversation with them.  As Jason got closer, he heard fluent Cantonese, but the Chinese man’s lips were not moving!  The fluent Cantonese was coming out of the black man’s mouth!  The black man was Victor.

Victor teaches kungfu and Cantonese.

(London, 1980s)