Although I just wrote a post a couple days ago, I couldn't resist telling you the funny experience I had today. It is a bit of a long story, but should make you laugh. The short version is that I went to a chiropractor and am hoping it will help my head. The long version is ...
Today, my director told me about a place that one of her friends had been to before. Basically, I knew that my alignment was off and I needed my back and neck cracked. This morning we went to check it out. I met a somewhat older Russian man in charge of the Massage Room. He understood a little Kazakh, but mostly spoke Russian. I was told that he doesn't make appointments so you just have to come and wait. Marina arranged for me to come at 1:30 in the afternoon and pay about $10. Later I found out that it would take 1 1/2 hours and that the room had "machines" in it. That made me a little nervous, but I clearly had no idea what I was getting into, or I might have decided the pain was worth it.
I knocked on the door and entered when told to. There were 3 other people in the room and a bunch of different apparatuses. He took my bag with my sheet and towel from me and put it off to the side telling me we didn't need it yet. Thankfully, I understand enough Russian to follow directions. He turned me away from him and then started twisting my neck in different directions, informing me that it wasn't moving like it should (which I definitely knew). Then he told me to sit in a chair that would be too small for a 5th grader. I sat down and he hooked me up to one of these. As I sat there he used another woman that was there for exercises to talk with me. They were extremely interested and asked me all sorts of questions. Meanwhile everyone around me kept doing their exercises. After about 5 minutes he told me to put my hands behind my head. I innocently followed his instructions as he stepped behind me. The next thing I knew I felt the bones crack all the way up my neck starting about mid-way down my back. It actually felt really good because I knew that was what I needed ... but it was a pretty impressive sound. The cracking wasn't done yet. He hadn't gotten my lower back, so he made me bend over a table while he VERY forcefully caused my lower back to crack (this was not fun and is the part I probably would want to skip if I ever go back - thankfully it was short).
He then proceeded to take me over to this contraption. I was chilling upside down (and enjoying it) for about 5 minutes. During this time I was being asked questions about where I live in town, where I learned Kazakh, how much I paid for lessons, and what kind of salary I receive. All the while, Anatoly (my Russian chiropractor) was giving someone else a massage. While he did this, she screamed out in pain. Then, in the midst of the crying out, one of the braces holding my feet opened and I was hanging there by one foot. He proceeded to put me into a horizontal position, to rest, and then after a couple minutes of rest and an adjustment to my foot braces, hung me back upside down again. It was hard to keep my hands behind my head instead of holding onto the frame. It was also hard to relax with the reality that if both of my feet came out of the braces at once, I would land on my head, which would cause it to hurt more than it already did. Thankfully, after 10 minutes total, this was over and I could move on to my next "exercise."
This one at least did not include any dangling by my feet or neck. I laid down on a table and large rollers went up and down my back (below me) from my knees to my head. Although it was painful, it was a really good hurt as it loosened some of the muscles that had tightened up over the last week.
The entire time I was following one word instructions from Anatoly ), such as sit, stand, etc followed by hand motions to help me understand if I looked confused. Now it was time to lay out my sheet on the massage table and disrobe from the waist up. I was in a room filled with equipment and three people other than Anatoly. However, there was a nice privacy curtain between the massage table and the rest of the room, with about three feet of space between it and the wall. It was in this space that my "translator" sat and visited with me while I prepared my self. I laid down on the massage table while Anatoly worked on my back. Just when I thought it was hurting enough to say something, he would switch to something else. It was actually a really good (yet extremely hard) massage that loosened up my back really well. In the midst of it he grabbed my foot and cracked all my toes, ankle, and knee. That was a bit of a shock. After about 10 minutes of all sorts of different massage tactics from my head to my feet he told me I could get up.
He then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to try out any of the other equipment ... my answer was a quick no. Walking out, my back actually felt really good. My neck still hurts some (but it always does for about a day after going to the chiropractor). We'll see how my body recovers in the next couple days and if I am able to sleep well tonight. If it works, I might go back to my friend Anatoly again one day ... but I still think it was a good thing I didn't look into his massage room when we went to set up the appointment. At the very least my chiropractor visit over here was a lot less expensive than it is in the States and I got to try out all sorts of new "old" contraptions.
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