Between June 23rd and June 26th, Langley hosted the 2022 World Trials for Track and Field (Nationals). It was a huge event with Track and Field Athletes from all around the country participating. 

 

Being an educator with CDI College South Surrey (the RMT Branch), one of the classes I am teaching is Sports treatments. Imagine how perfect it would be to be able to get students to work on actual athletes, in an actual event, and not just listen to me lecture for hours about theoretically doing these things? Unfortunately, there was very little advertising for this event and like most of you, I had no idea this was taking place. I almost missed out on providing this amazing opportunity to my students, but I was so lucky that someone reached out. 

 

A former student, now RMT, contacted me about this event (learning about it for the first time). With this event happening in 6 weeks,  I needed to get the ball rolling. After juggling conversations with 3 different people about the event, coordinating 26 students over 3 days, seeing what I needed signed for paperwork, and stressing about all the possible problems that might occur, the day finally arrived. 

 

This was the first outreach that I planned/organized and was in charge of. To say that I was freaking out is a complete understatement. I didn’t know where to go, where to send my students to get volunteer bands, or who I needed to check in with. I got there 30 minutes early, and luckily was greeted by a familiar face who handed me a (very official) medical lanyard. I was finally in! Now the stressful part. I was there, but where were the students? I freaked out for about 2 minutes before I saw 3 of my students at the therapy area, and luckily I was able to get them to communicate with their classmates. Everyone was able to participate. Here’s a recap of the days:

 

Thursday- I had to organize 16 students to fit in on this day. We had to split it up into 2 different shifts, but everyone was able to see at least 1 athlete.

 

Saturday – I had 9 students show up for about 7 hours. It was much busier than Thursday, as we were getting into the finals, and more athletes were finishing events and were getting some remedial treatments. 

 

Sunday – I had 5 people come out all together. This was the last overall day, with the last finals being the 4x 400m relay. I’m calling this “hamstring” day. Unfortunately it was the last of 4 days, the weather/ temperature was rising and humid, and we saw many hamstring strains. 

 

Over all 3 of those days, my 26 students were able to see a total of 85 athletes! 

 

I have always been involved in athletics. I have been an athlete (still pretending to be a weightlifter), a coach, and currently a therapist. I have loved every bit of my journey. I’m very grateful that I was able to provide this opportunity to students, since I didn’t get any until I was already an RMT. I know athletics aren’t for everyone, but if I’m able to inspire at least 1 student to do sports/athletic massage, I would consider that a win. 

 

It all starts with one really cool event! If you have an event that you’re organizing, and would like some student massage therapists, please send me a message on Instagram, and we’ll see if we can schedule something! 

 

-IG

Gdotyee