A delicious pain

Turn please, put face here," said the petite Chinese therapist, smiling and pointing to a round aperture on the massage table where a pillow should be.

I tensed up a bit as I fitted my face in the opening. It feels like I am putting my neck on a guillotine, I thought to myself, smiling at my jarring imagery. The only direction I could now look was down at the ground.

Since I was immobile and could not see anything much, I shut my eyes, and my aural senses became sharper and the sounds in the room became more pronounced. I could hear birds chirping, the tinkling sound of babbling brooks and the music coming from hidden speakers - which I had previously found irritating - slowly started to calm my nerves.

The whole ambience of the place was geared to transport you into a different world and make you forget that you just came from your workplace after meeting another deadline and after manoeuvring your car around the various diversions on the crowded streets.

I opened my eyes and realised that the objects placed on the ground were supposed to signify tranquillity: there was a woven straw mat and on it was placed an aromatherapy bowl of flowers, a potpourri. My eyes followed the pattern of the weave on the cream-coloured mat and then slowly closed.

I often wonder why Hollywood usually turns a massage scene into a comedy sketch. The last one I remember was Robert De Niro, as an uptight former CIA agent, getting pummelled by a slightly unhinged Barbra Streisand, who promises relief for his aching back.

De Niro's face in the massage table hole turns beet-red and his eyes pop out as he is trapped by this crazy part-time therapist. You can imagine the excruciating pain he is undergoing.

My colleague and I were at this spa after a PR person suggested we experience this stress reliever.

"First time massage?" asked the therapist, and when I said yes, she poked the back of my neck and lower back and said, "Too much pain here". At first, I couldn't understand what she meant, then realised that she must be feeling the tight knot of muscles.

Later I looked it up on the 'net. About.com said that the trapezius muscle often becomes tense and painful. It also showed a technique for massaging your own 'trap' muscle to melt away the tension in your neck and shoulder.

The 'trap' is a big muscle - it starts from your neck, goes across the shoulders and some way down your back. But you need to locate only its upper portion at the top of the shoulder for this technique.

Place one palm on the top of the other shoulder. Starting from the base of the neck, knead the muscles in a rhythmic action and move out slowly towards the arm. Use pressure that is deep enough but still feels good. The writer says that in the field of massage therapy, it is called 'a good hurt'.

For the next one hour, I was like malleable dough under the firm but gentle fingers of the therapist. As I groaned politely from my hole, she asked, "Too much pain?" It was a seesaw of feelings as the evening progressed.

Her palm made my spinal cord feel like it was under a blowtorch as she went back and forth, lightening fast. I mumbled desperately as her fingers poked the place where my kidneys are, nearly screamed when she pulled my ear lobes and giggled when she found the sensitive pressure points in the soles of my feet.

The next day I felt like jelly and had this idiotic smile on my face. I literally had a pain in the neck, but it was delicious pain. Now I know why some women rave about their therapists.