Learning massages the hard way

The story of how I learned to give massages is a long one. It all started back in 1989 when I had to do my military service. In those days it was still one year (a year later it was abolished) and you had to go to one day to the infamous CRM building near the Military Hospital of Neder-Over-Heembeek (Brussels). In my father's days you even had to go 3 full days to "Het Klein Kasteeltje" which has been given a new purpose in life: a refugee camp for people who are asking political asylum in Belgium.

Anyway, at the CRM you had to give 3 options and they would try their best to give you at least one of those 3: where you wanted to serve your military service, when and in which department. I asked to be stationed near Brussels, start immediately and preferably do something with journalism or languages.

Well, I was lucky, as they send me to the headquarters in Evere to work for BLS (Bureau de Liason de Sport), the Sports' Department of the Belgian Army.

During one of the missions they needed someone who spoke some Hungarian to accompany the fencing team to Budapest. Unfortunately they only had one free place on the Fokker plane and that was for a masseur. So in the end they sent me to the Military Hospital to take a crash course in sports' massages :)