Weaver's Bottom

"Nick Bottom is a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who provides comic relief throughout the play. A weaver by trade..."

It has been said that Nick Bottom got his name as a play on words because so  many weaver's had 'weaver's bottoms'.  It was a known work related injury.

  "Ischial bursitis (weaver's bottom or tailor's bottom) can result from sitting for long periods on a hard surface..."

Over the years I have sat on a number of different kinds of benches/stools etc.  Since I started weaving with the express purpose of making an income by doing the craft, I spent hours every day at the loom.  It didn't take me long to realize that loom benches are *hard*.  I have had a variety of cushions or pads at the various looms I work at and recommend that people consider such for themselves if they intend to do more than a session or two a day.

The bursa can become irritated and then inflamed.  Once inflammation sets in, it can take weeks rather than days for it to clear up again.  So I always took care to pay attention and use some kind of padding on my loom bench or stool.

I can say that I have never had weaver's bottom, nor have I had carpal tunnel - both things that I knew were an occupational hazard.  

During my years of production weaving I have had other injuries, usually outside of the studio (whiplash, twice, for example) but by and large I've managed the repetitive stresses of weaving reasonably well.

But do something long enough and a body can begin to wear out.  And of course just living takes a toll as well.

In the end, the current 'injury' I am dealing with was not caused by the weaving itself, but associated tasks required in running a studio.  Hefting 40-50 pound boxes of yarn, dragging 50-75 pound suitcases around, getting into and out of cars at the airport, thumping them up and down stairs at my hosts or at the guild rooms, up a set of stairs.  The years I spent dyeing yarn, moving *large* pots of water and large skeins of fully saturated water around.  Not much wonder my back would ache at the end of the day.

It is one reason I advocate for people to understand the processes and how their body functions and to work ergonomically - so that they reduce the chance of developing repetitive motion injuries.  So much better to avoid them than take the weeks/months to heal from them.  Because the older I get, the longer it takes to heal.  And sometimes now, I never do get back to where I was.  

So I cut back on doing the heavy lifting I used to do without a second thought.  I make sure I take rest breaks (which have gotten longer, meaning fewer sessions at the loom per day).  I have a massage therapist and a chiropractor (one for my lower back, one for my upper, because each end of my spine has something different 'wrong' with it.)

I keep weaving because the weaving itself doesn't seem to make anything particularly worse and I weave not just for the physical exercise, but for the mental health.  And because I have so damn much yarn!

Working ergonomically is one of the things I will discuss in the SOS class launching next week.

Let's keep in mind that weaver's bottom is no joke, even though Nick Bottom, the weaver, might have been a bit of a joker.