buttonwood massage

Lately I'm prone to back aches, especially around my neck and shoulder. Why. Is this age? I'm always gettting that 'selahau bantal' pain, sometimes at the frequency of once a week. I need to go for body massage. One good place I know for this is the bone theraphy place at Jalan Lintas. I know it says bone but they do broader stuff than that, including fixing knotted veins and such. But the thing that hold me back there is that the theraphy is uncomfortable. Well, no pain no gain they say. If you want your body fixed, prepare to endure pain. The treatment combines hot compress, machine treatment and a little hand massage on the problem area. The hot compress I don't look forward to. Feels stuffy when my neck sweat and the vapour suffocate me, and that's the process that takes the longest. The actual massage is very, very short, like 5 minutes, just around the problem area.

So I wish for alternative. I would like a longer whole body massage that relaxes as well as fix the problem, like not all pain.
Right on cue, my beautician called to remind me I haven't claimed my voucher for a free body massage.

Which I got at a lucky draw sometime last year. So I immediately made appointment.

And I was ready for some detoxification action on Tuesday. It sounded exciting.

But I was in for a surprise. Because the whole treatment was using a machine. I wasn't in for a good old fashion massage after all. I had no idea that this was what you call buttonwood. I thought buttonwood somehow involves a wood device for kneading the back in a pleasurely way. I recall her saying using some machine but not.. I didn't ...oh..let me explain the whole process. If you could click the photo bigger, you would see the many buttons marked suction, vacuum, release, suck circular, etc..Well I was exactly done that way. My back was sucked,  then vacuumed, then sucked in circular motion, released, repeat 20 times, all over my back. I was a carpet being cleaned! Torture. Oh what was I thinking. Absolute torture. The suction cup squeezed me so hard that I yelped out for the therapist to stop. I thought my bone was going to crush. Seriously, but she was calm , 'no,no,no...memang begitu ..itu mula2 saja..'
True, the cup released just before it broke the bone. After a while, I kind of got the rythm and expected the coming pain. Everytime it squeezed, I took a deep breath and counted the seconds when it released . The lady pointed out how my shoulder was full of 'winds' because it turned red in no time compared to the other parts.

The shoulder felt better but now my back look horrible. They are so red, like I'm scalded. Ghastly. My daughter took pictures but I'm never showing you. I'll spare you the gruesome image. I think the mark stays for weeks. Next time, I'm going to Jalan Lintas.