For many years, home study massage courses seemed to get a bit of a bad rap in the professional manual therapy and bodywork community. There are a number of reasons that may explain why there was a bias against this method of learning, but two main ones appear to stand out.
The first is that there seemed to have been a belief that learning a tactile skill such as a deep tissue modality or any other form of manual therapy or bodywork was something that had to happen in person. The second was that the limitations of technology, up until recent years, made it more difficult to create home study massage courses of high quality and rich substance.
Fortunately, the professional touch therapists of today no longer have to contend with a bias against home study massage courses. Huge advances in technology have allowed providers of massage therapy CEUs to develop classes that offer nearly all the same benefits of taking a workshop in person, thanks to high quality massage therapy videos, detailed textbooks, thorough workbooks and other such tools.
One of the biggest benefits of the widespread acceptance and increased quality of home study massage courses is that these programs give touch therapists access to the very best educators. For many practitioners, the chance to learn from an elite teacher would be quite limited if classes could only be taken in person.
For example, Erik Dalton workshops tend to happen two times per year, usually in Oklahoma and Costa Rica. The opportunity to attend one of these seminars on Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques is extremely valuable. However, given how quickly these classes fill up, it is all too easy to miss out on the chance to learn about myoskeletal alignment, in person, from the man who created this modality. Senior Myoskeletal Instructor Paul Kelly also teaches in workshops throughout the country.
Instead of completely missing out on the opportunity to become a Certified Myoskeletal Therapist, manual therapists and bodyworkers can choose to learn directly from Dalton through one of the three home study massage courses he has so carefully developed. In fact, many of the students who attend Erik Dalton workshops in person may also choose to take these massage therapy home study classes as well, simply to gain even more advanced knowledge.
Each of the massage therapy home-study CE courses created by Dalton are centered around a different topic, but all of them lead to certification as a myoskeletal therapist and open the door to the lucrative world of pain management. These programs also provide manual therapists with a large number of massage therapy CEUs.
For example, Dalton’s home-based massage therapy workshop called Lower Body Specialist is a nine-piece low back, hip and leg package that adds up to 32 approved CE hours. This course includes the Dynamic Body textbook and six broadcast-quality instructional DVDs, which feature dissection and animation.
Dalton’s other two home-based CE programs, Upper Body Specialist and Posture & Pain Specialist, also come packed with DVDs, textbooks, assessment manuals and more. This means that today’s manual therapists have the chance to learn from this pioneer of pain management at any time, with no need for travel.
