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Published: January 25th 2008
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I feel this one is deserved -- and it is also a good update on my last injury (the yoga one). Well, after more than two months, the injury is finally fixed (or, at least 98% of it), thanks to (and this is where the marketing comes in, should anyone find him or herself injured in India) Mr. Dhondup, of Tibetan Universal Massage, in DharamLhasa, the Buddha capital of India. Brush and direct, no-frills householder turned 'entrepreneur of health', working essentially alone while the wife sits in the nearby room, with a busy busy busy schedule and lots and lots of people queing to see him, Dhondup is no guru -- yes, he teaches tibetan massage (apparently his intensive ten days courses are good though he's of very few words) but clearly he's not necessarily looking for apprentices carrying on his legacy. A one-man-band in a land replete with people pretending to be what they're not, Dhondup deserves a lot of praise: he does his job, simply, with neither pretenses of sainthood (though I am sure he would be happy of my comments) nor the looks of someone who believes he's going to turn around other people's lives. Down-to-earth, clearly focused
Indra Pass, 3800mt
overlooking the Snow Line on making a living, but with enough of an "ethical" view to do it in exchange for an actual service with actual benefits. When I got to his studio, I had already been, within a month and a half through 3 massage "therapists" (more correctly "trapezists"), for a total of more or les 4000 rupies and 10 massages:
a. A so-called reflexologist who basically massacred my left foot with instruments of torture;
b. A so-called "good masseur" who turned out to be a barber (great head massage, but not really appropriate for a shoulder problem);
c. A so-called expert of "Rajastani massage since childhood (learnt from grandfather who was massaging the Raja of Rajastan, the Hindu of Hindustan, Moghul princes returning from their battles, etc") who actually hurt me really bad after "guaranteeing 100% to solve the problem in 2 days -- it took 2 months and a half!!!
As strange as it may seem, Dhondup started out saying that what he could do was quite limited, given the state of inflammation of my tendons, and that the most part was onto me, making sure to avoid moving my arm, not sleeping with my arm twisted (I went around
In search of a title
some buddists please tell me what these are? They look cool.... as Napoleon with my hand in my pocket for quite some time), going to warmer climates, too cold in Dharamsala for the arm to heal quickly, and having patience patience patience for this stuff takes time. Very little he did directly on the affected tendon -- focusing instead on nearby areas, doing what was more careful chiropractic moves rather than massage and using singing bowls, but clearly knowing what he was doing. And, he was the first one to actually do something quite simple but that no one of the quacks I saw before thought: simply taking my neck and geeeeeeeeeeently stretching it, so as to release the pressure on the disks I had hurt. For the first time, I actually had a few minutes without pain thanks to this move -- and this is why am happy to have met Dhondup, who in the end helped turn my injury into an impermanent event. Chezu ba, Dhondup!
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Tot: 0.116s; Tpl: 0.049s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0466s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb