I just received an email from Massage Magazine announcing their release of a new special supplement to their magazine called “Trends in Massage Education” that you can read online in full. I was actually excited to take a look at this thinking that they were finally going to talk about something real in the massage profession. I was very disappointed because it was just really a big advertisement for various products and classes.
Maybe it is me being in the profession for so long and having read so many articles and magazines and online articles but I think there is a real need for real information to be communicated between schools, massage products, continuing education providers and massage therapists.
My biggest thing is Does it Work? and how do you make it work or will it help a massage therapist to be more successful.
Out of all of these products and continuing education providers and products – how do you (the massage therapist) know what will help you the most in building a successful career in massage?
So there was page after page of products/services/ce classes and a separate page written by someone from the company promoting the product or whatever. The main questions they asked were:
- How can learning to use your product or service increase a massage therapists income?
- What should massage therapists teach their clients about?
- What should massage therapists focus their continuing education on?
- Describe why learning about self care is important for massage therapists.
I think all of the answers really missed the boats. They were all thinking about how they could promote their classes. They were thinking more about what is in it for them rather than thinking from a massage therapists perspective. To a hammer – everything looks like a nail!
Back in the mid 90′s I spent 5 years in a CE intensive training and thousands of dollars. After investing all of that time and money, I left with a skill that I eventually had to give up because it was too painful for people to go through. It became too painful for me to even receive and I found other ways to deal with my own physical challenges that were less painful. There was so much politics in the organization that taught me I was also left with a bad taste as far as CE in massage was concerned. There was no support for marketing or presenting the work to potential clients. That is what is lacking in most massage ce classes!
With all the various products and techniques there wasn’t any mention of business classes or website building classes. There was only one I think that talked about creating presence in your practice. There wasn’t any classes on ethics or supervision which is of course my hammer.
I see the future trend in the massage profession to go beyond techniques and turn to focus on the development of the massage therapist and working on their underlying issues around money and success and helping. How could this help massage therapists make more money? By becoming clearer about who you are and what you want, it provides the motivation and clear desire for getting what you want – success in the form of a rewarding career working with people and enough money to take nice vacations and retire when you want to!
All of the techniques will only get you so far. If you don’t have the support in the way of a supervisor to take your work beyond techniques themselves and to get the support you need to build the confidence in asking for $85 an hour and more so that you can get a regular massage every week for self care and whatever else you need – what good is knowing the best way to release fascia or whatever is the latest technique.
Continuing education is the way to taking the massage profession a step further since the initial 500 hours of training for most is only just the beginning. Knowing what products work and what ones don’t is also the goal of my website at www.massage-career-guides.com which is expanding to include many sections where you can rate and review products.
What do you want to know about a ce class or product? What is most important when it comes down to choosing a class or product?
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