When a student makes a decision to embark on a massage career, the motivation may be provided by a variety of factors. But if business and an entrepreneurial spirit are primary drivers then those business-minded massage school attendees would do well to look at Relax Station in Ann Arbor, MI for inspiration.
Owner Eileen Bristol had a feeling that a certain property in Ann Arbor was a good location and when it became available she let her gut tell her what to do with the space. She had seen a massage operation in New York City that inspired her to open Relax Station. The business employs 30 massage therapists and grosses $750,000 annually.
If there is one massage school in California from which massage schools around the country should take lessons about PR it is the National Holistic Institute in Emeryville, CA. Once again, the school has garnered some pretty good press lately with a lengthy article in the Oakland Tribune. The piece discusses the increased demand for massage therapists, even in a down economy, and the impressive expansion project currently underway at NHI to accommodate the surge in enrollment.
The article contained encouraging news for all massage schools and aspiring massage therapists. Even as unemployment rates move higher, employment of massage therapists is on a healthy upward trend making a massage career an attractive career option. National Holistic Institute announced that its 2008 placement rate was 87% and expects similar strong results this year. Apparently, more and more people are becoming converts to massage therapy as the benefits become more well known and appreciated. These are stressful times and a professional massage offers relief from the physical and mental strains of daily living. In addition, there is a growing acceptance of massage by the mainstream medical community and medical massage is a growing sector among the various massage disciplines.
This is the second blog post about NHI that we’ve presented. The first was about the free massages offered by the school to police officers and firefighters after the murder of four police officers in Oakland earlier this year. National Holistic Institute does a lot of things right and the growth the massage school is experiencing is one of the rewards.
When a prospective massage therapy student is investigating massage schools, invariably they will be advised to determine whether a school under consideration is accredited or not. One question I rarely hear in response to this advice is , “What difference does accreditation make?” It is not that the student doesn’t care to know but, more often than not, the assumption is that accreditation is mandatory if a massage school is to be considered.
Not necessarily.
We explore the accreditation process, the benefits of accreditation, the reasons why a massage school might not pursue accreditation (yes, there are valid reasons) and the considerations a student should make when making a determination about an accredited or non-accredited massage school in a new article about massage school accreditation on our website.
It may not change your mind about the necessity of accreditation but you will definitely be better informed.
Originally, I thought that the whole concept on an online massage school was counter-intuitive if not an outright oxymoron. How in the world can you be expected to practice the art of healing touch in cyberspace where no one touches anyone (except perhaps in a figurative way)? Well, there are enough people that search for information about online massage schools that we thought that we would clarify the concept of distance learning as it relates to massage training.
Actually, there really is such a thing as an online massage school and there are methods of becoming trained and certified via an online program. But can you really become a licensed or certified massage therapist by studying through the Internet? You’ll have to check out the new article about online massage schools on our main website to find out.
If you are going to present information about a particular topic, you may as well go right to the source. A couple weeks ago we posted an article on our website about massage chairs. The article did a very good job of presenting the benefits of chair massage and a good deal if information about the practice and methodology. However, if you are going to drill down to the source and origins of modern day chair massage, you simply have to involve the perspective of David Palmer, the “Father of Contemporary Chair Massage.”
David now works with a company called Zubio, which is dedicated to training massage therapists to practice chair massage and to bring the benefits of massage therapy to the masses. This is a logical extension of the training available to a student attending a massage school.
In order to fully appreciate the evolution and current applications of chair massage, I thought that I would post this video, hosted by David Palmer, in which he discusses the history of seated massage and the trends for today’s chair massage.
When a student makes a decision to embark on a massage career, the motivation may be provided by a variety of factors. But if business and an entrepreneurial spirit are primary drivers then those business-minded massage school attendees would do well to look at Relax Station in Ann Arbor, MI for inspiration.
If there is one 