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What are you NOT learning in massage school?
Hey Friends,
One of our fellow members, Jane Johnson, posted a compelling question and I would like to ask for your opinions.
Do you feel that your massage program is thorough, and prepares you entirely for a) licensing requirements and b) a professional career?
Are there any topics, modalities, or resources that you wish you got more of from your school? What about business information - could you use more help with basic business, marketing and tax concepts?
Jane is a massage author looking for hot topics, and as your Massage Students page administrator and Student Resource Coordinator at ABMP, I want to know too. What would help to augment the training that your massage school provides?
Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Erin
Views: 498
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on
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Erin, as I just posted in response to Jane's question, we need a comprehensive encyclopedia of modalities. There are so many. Some are genuine breakthroughs, some differ from a dozen others only by acronym. CEU money is a great motivator of talent. Which is fine--all therapists benefit from the work of the few. But a detailed guide to them will also be very helpful.
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Some of the hours seem to be wasted. For instance, last quarter we had a class called self-care for massage therapists. Body mechanics, stretching, tai chi. By then we had already developed excellent body mechanics, but the intro to tai chi was inept. Instead, I would have loved a class in lomi lomi, AIS or any of a dozen other modalities. I used a tax refund to purchase Primal Pictures' Interactive Functional Anatomy; I wish the school would provide it and/or Myers Anatomy Trains DVD for all of us.
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Permalink Reply by Darcy Neibaur on
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The School I attended in Pensacola, FL gave us little to no self care instruction. This is so important to maintaining quality self care so as not to injure one's self. Also. we received no education on the Caraks and was told we would need it for the exam and to learn it on our own. One of my instructors sat behind the desk during hands on practice and did not walk around and offer one on one help when it was needed. Very distrubing to me anyway. I feel the educators in this field need to be educated on how to teach better is my opinion. I have been out in the field now for 4 1/2 years and have learned more from continuing education than I ever did in school. I feel that is so sad when we have paid many thousands of dollars for our education. Nothing on Marketing either which is so imporant and so lacking throughout the whole industry.
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Can't disagree with what you're saying. But IMO it isn't that they don't know how to teach, but that some (like the instructor you mentioned) just don't care. Others who care a great deal waste lots of classroom time aggrandizing themselves--telling rather than showing.
Best way to learn body mechanics is with a diligent instructor nearby, giving correction when needed and praise when deserved. I had one instructor-- 6'5"-- who made getting down to the working table height of a 5' student seem easy.
Ummm...what is a Caraks?
Pensacola is within a long drive of Biloxi. What school did you attend?
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Pensacola School of Massage Therapy and Health Careers. Cakras look it up; It's in the book. I have received wonderful instruction on self care and body machanics in CE classes. It is the very first point those insructors teach as it should always be the priority.
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darcy, is that a typo? Couldn't find cakras or caraks but found chakras, which seems to fit with your comment. Hopefully I will glean enough knowledge this quarter about the Eastern energy modalities to pass the exam.
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Permalink Reply by Joyce on
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I have an excellent school and am getting very quality training. What would be very helpful for me is to be able to watch the instructors on video and/or see a Power Point presentation with graphics as a follow-up to reinforce their techniques and provide more insight as to why we perform certain strokes, which muscles are affected, etc.
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Joyce, youtube videos of a few minutes of this or that modality are available. But for beginning students, schools should have available videos of a complete massage session from greeting to finish--many students had never had a massage prior to enrolling, and are burning with eagerness to learn. Orientation week would be a good time to show such a video. Note that I am not talking about educational video--no instructor commentary, no stopping the therapy for explanations. Just a video that says, This is how it's done, this is how smoothly you will learn to work.
Joyce Bryan said:
I have an excellent school and am getting very quality training. What would be very helpful for me is to be able to watch the instructors on video and/or see a Power Point presentation with graphics as a follow-up to reinforce their techniques and provide more insight as to why we perform certain strokes, which muscles are affected, etc. -
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Thanks, Gary. Excellent suggestion. :)
Gary W Addis said:
Joyce, youtube videos of a few minutes of this or that modality are available. But for beginning students, schools should have available videos of a complete massage session from greeting to finish--many students had never had a massage prior to enrolling, and are burning with eagerness to learn. Orientation week would be a good time to show such a video. Note that I am not talking about educational video--no instructor commentary, no stopping the therapy for explanations. Just a video that says, This is how it's done, this is how smoothly you will learn to work.
Joyce Bryan said:
I have an excellent school and am getting very quality training. What would be very helpful for me is to be able to watch the instructors on video and/or see a Power Point presentation with graphics as a follow-up to reinforce their techniques and provide more insight as to why we perform certain strokes, which muscles are affected, etc. -
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Joyce, Massagenerd, Boris Prilusky and others provides youtube videos (availabe for free viewing) of MT sessions; some are silent, but most are accompanied with commentary. Deep tissue, NMT, shiatsu, AET are just a few of the modalities available. Either do a google search or a search within youtube of whatever modality you're interested in.
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Excellent! Thank you! My school places a lot of emphasis on proper body mechanics as well as the extreme importance of proper touch--all part of the "dance" and flow of the massage. We are given the basic Swedish strokes and a specific "routine" to use, and then the instructors expand on that foundation so that by the end of the 250 hour training we have all the tools in our toolbox to complete a beautiful 90-minute massage. Since I don't have any of their specific videos, I have been practicing the strokes and routine outside of class in my mind and on people I know to help solidify them and to get feedback about how they feel. I really love the way I am learning at my school and while it's good to view videos of how others perform their routines, I just thought it would be helpful to have videos of my own instructors at this point. Thank you for the suggestions re the other modalities. I will definitely check out the YouTube videos you suggested. :)
Gary W Addis said:
Joyce, Massagenerd, Boris Prilusky and others provides youtube videos (availabe for free viewing) of MT sessions; some are silent, but most are accompanied with commentary. Deep tissue, NMT, shiatsu, AET are just a few of the modalities available. Either do a google search or a search within youtube of whatever modality you're interested in. -
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250 hour training? What state do you plan to practice in? Mine is a 2-year class, 750 credit hours. I could be mistaken, but I think NCBTMB (I know that my state does) requires a minimum of 500 hours.
Oh, I misspelled my friend Boris's name. It's Boris Prilutsky.
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