The Bunk Surrounding Massage Continuing Education

The Bunk Surrounding Massage Continuing Education

Let’s get clear about the fiction laying siege around massage continuing education. Why do the massive majority of massage therapists take continuing education courses? To make more money? To further their learnedness? To satisfy the State’s regulations where they practice? Or to improve their skills, or just add to the appearance of their business cards? Its unfortunate but, in this day and age, the majority of massage practitioners are quite unskilled.

Sorry if I have annoyed you, nothing personal here. As a matter of fact, legions of the graduates from massage schools never cultivate a sustainable practice. Statistically, only about 10 per cent of massage graduates are still persevering and bankrolling themselves and their families 5 years after graduation from massage school. Now that’s morbid. Many massage therapists are roped into the industry because of the proclaimed amount of money that they will gain when they “graduate” from their perspective schools. Just finish school and the money will begin showering in. I wish it were that painless. Hey, if you are generating 10 bucks and hour, 60 bucks and up looks real exciting once you graduate from massage school. Many graduates of massage schools are muddling about these days as a result of demanding economic times, and part of the reason is the ripoff surrounding massage continuing education accreditation.

For 22 years I have polished my skills in massage therapy. It has been my unique source of wealth. I am a graduate of the Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colorado and the Karuna Institute in Devon England. I have had a prosperous practice in both Structural Integration and Craniosacral Therapy. I have traveled and reviewed 17 other techniques to “add to the soup” including Neuromuscular Therapy, the Bowen Technique, Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Core Zero Balancing, and The Reconnection to name a just a few. But, the predominant amount of my studies has been the work of Dr. Ida Rolf (Rolfing) and Dr. William Garner Sutherland (cranial sacral therapy). I have also been honored to have taught at The Utah College of Massage Therapy as their Deep Tissue Instructor, the Virginia School of Technology as their advance technique instructor and The Cayce Reilly School of Massotherapy as an Anatomy and Palpation teacher. I have taught classes in massage continuing education in Structural Integration and Cranial Sacral Therapy since 1996. I have also developed two comprehensive, home study courses in Structural Integration and Craniosacral Therapy as a provider of massage continuing education for the NCBTMB.

Let me emphasize a point. I certainly wouldn’t hire a farrier to put shoes on my horses or find a contractor to build my home that had only 32 hours of training! And yet, the concept of massage continuing education advocates that level of superficiality. We ask our clients to pay us 60 dollars and more per hour with very little training. I have known massage therapists who have just graduated from their massage school programs only 9 months earlier, who are running the massage program of the same school they just attended. These schools had “just hit town” due to a flourishing market. And to outshine that, those department heads had never developed an outside practice before becoming the top instructor of a particular discipline! This is the reality. I have nothing to gain from being dishonest. I have seen over and over again recent graduates who print 7 or 8 different therapies on their business cards, even spelling them incorrectly. This in my opinion is fallacious advertisement and impoverishes our industry. Look, you can’t get to the top by sitting on the bottom. It has been said that, “Money grows on the tree of persistence”. So, why do so few persevere? Because no one told them the poop about massage continuing education. There is a lot of hogwash out there, and with a little integrity many failing therapists head to the finish line and realize their original dream. The dream that brought them to massage schools in the first place. Its called intensive training!

Let me make a proposition to reignite your fire for a prosperous massage practice. We are existing in an marvelous time where authentic teachers have designed stunning tools for truly increasing your understanding in a multitude of craniosacral therapy techniques. The DVD, and software is an incredible tool of technology to be studied in the comfort of your home until you comprehensively understand the techniques and can implement them with a high degree of capability, which translates to money honey! Find a direction that interests you, buy the dvd home study course and check out a few of them out completely. Or go receive as many sessions from the different methodologies in your town.. And then, when you resonate with a few of the disciplines and their practitioners, buy the best DVD home study courses out there from those chosen practice them thoroughly until they are wired. Make sure these techniques have been determined to have been effective in the massage field, and that they will deliver you to where you have always dreamed of going. In the present massage field, especially where disposable income is tightening for many of our potential clients, its vital to unearth techniques that not only manage your clients pain, but increase their performance both physically and spiritually. Folks will still contribute their acorns if they know your technique works and you can get them out of pain. Knowledge without wisdom is no different than a load of books on the back of a donkey! Wisdom comes from practice, practice, practice!

The expense of a valuable dvd home study course in massage continuing education is chump change compared to traveling across country to participate a class. In this economy it makes perfect sense. Do the huge! And don’t be led to believe that all you need is 48 hours of massage continuing education hours in 4 years to be proficient at a chosen discipline. It won’t work. Trust me, this isn’t a car salesman talking to is a practitioner who has been in the trenches for 22 years. Traveling from your home to study is pricey. When you compile the cost of the course, which is usually at least 500 dollars and up, plus transportation, hotels and food, it makes perfect sense to investigate the discipline by using the phenomenal technology that exists first, and then journey to a hands on class and really learn at a deep level what the instructor has to offer. If you like what you have learned from this article, I invite you to check out the resource box at the bottom of this article and investigate what is offered to hurl you to a higher standard of massage practice and on to the journey you have always desired to be possible. But never forget…practice makes perfect.