Aquatic Therapy Bootcamp

I thought I knew how hard a therapist’s job was from working as a summer camp counselor at Float Aquatic Therapy, but that wasn’t even half the work. This weekend, I had the chance to participate in a three day workshop hosted by Float, in which we learned techniques and the basic principles of the aquatic therapy method, KinAqua Flow, a method designed by owner and founder of Float, Debbie Torrellas.

We spent the weekend learning how to perform craniosacral therapy on patients and how to care for patients in the water. The first this you need to learn is how to feel comfortable in and trust the water. Once you do this, you just need to learn the steps of the therapy.

For some of us, trusting the water didn’t feel like an issue, but it is harder than you think. I thought it would be easy and I would learn it really fast because I have been around water my whole life, but it wasn’t just me, I had to take care of someone else. If I wasn’t paying attention that other person’s face could be under water or they could be swallowing water.

We also had to make sure our patient was comfortable and we weren’t hurting them. In order to be ready to do this, we spent the whole weekend practicing on each other during class. Mistakes were made, some people swallowed some water, some people hit the edge of the pool with their head, but these mistakes helped us make it to today,  when we all successfully gave our invited guests/patients a short therapy session and not one of the eleven  patients complained.

At the end of this workshop I learned to be more open to new experiences and I learned how to trust my classmates who were all amazing, always looking out for one another and willing to help. There was not a moment when they weren’t supportive and they always motivated me to keep trying. Seeing how they believed in me and never stopped encouraging me was a true encouragement to do this and work hard until the end.

I want to thank all of them, especially Debbie who has not only been my therapist and teacher, but a friend who had been there for me from day one. Deborah and Jose, I did not forget you, thank you so much for encouraging me and having so much faith in me.

Now I just want to go to sleep because I am too tired from the whole weekend. Good night!