Yes, I have Kimono Shoulders

Over many years of having to live in the predominantly Caucasian east coast, I have suffered greatly. One of the things that I must vent is my dismay with the physical therapy department at the college in New York which I attended for my Undergraduate music degree for piano. I was on a 4.5 year track, and one day my teacher told me that my shoulders looked tightened up to him.

Here I must get into my physical construct of being half Northern Japanese particularly. My shoulders slope naturally. I do not have the typically square shoulder construct of my European ancestors. My shoulders to not break into solid horizontal lines at any point in my shoulder line; and my shoulders are shaped much more like a typical wire hanger that one receives from the dry cleaner. My shoulders are what my mother said are "Kimono Shoulders". So, under my professor's instruction I went to the Musicians clinic at the PT department where they tried to break down my natural sloping shoulders to match their own. They claimed, inreference to me ,that "[I] you have overdeveloped traps". It was quite painful. They used to ice my shoulders and then sink their hands into them and then used an ultrasound device on my shoulders. I felt bad all the way around.

My mother taught me that I have kimono shoulders after the humiliating ordeals I went through in Middle school and High school in Pennsylvania; to be fitted for choir dresses that had shoulder pads. There were at least 2 instances where the fitters made a public example of me and called all the women in the choir over to marvel and laugh at my "no shoulders".

I still don't understand why people expect me to look at them in over 31 years of intolerance and ignorance with a smile. I have tried my best. Next blog; Why I started an "animal rights group" and changed some of the food choices at my undergrad college....hint 'I was getting ill on the food they served' and was eating shojin ryori style for nearly a decade prior to college dining hall food.

Much Peace,
Oko_ne