When a therapist greets a client with care, and then listens to a client with curiosity, the client feels safe, and real communication begins.  Once the massage starts, the therapist “listens” to the person’s body (especially the breath), and “responds” with touch that is enjoyable and relaxing. This kind of listening and responding is how a therapist communicates with a client non-verbally.

An interesting way to think about the non-verbal communication that happens during a massage is to think of it as a verbal interaction.  Gently touching the client for the first time, the therapist’s hands say, “I care.”  Then, without moving or very much pressure, the therapists hands say, “I’m listening.”  When the client breathes, the client is saying, “I’m relaxing now.” And when the therapist’s hands respond by sinking into the exhale, that clearly says, “I’m listening to your breath, and working with your relaxation.”  A very meaningful conversation is happening.

To practice communication as a student, it is good to start by practicing listening.  Listening starts with present moment awareness.  If you are not aware of the present moment, then it is totally impossible to listen.

Next, practice open listening – assessment. When someone is talking to you, remind yourself to look into their eyes, with care and curiosity. Be sure to actually listen to what people are saying.  So often, while one person is talking, the other person is already formulating what they want to say, and not actively listening.  See what it is like to consider what the other person is saying as being much more important than what you want to say next.

Another common thing people do is to always talk about their own experience, instead of being curious about the other person’s experience.  When someone is talking to you, and they are talking about their experience or what they are thinking, make a conscious effort to become curious and ask them about the details of their experience that interest you.  For example, if your friend is talking about the time she spent riding horses on the beach yesterday, instead of saying, “Oh, yeah, I love riding horses.  I used to ride show horses when I was a teenager,” you ask, “Do you ever just let your horse run free on the beach without you?”  By continuing to talk with them about their experience, you are non-verbally saying, “I am interested, and I care.”  That is real communication.

To practice communication, listen to everyone, and try asking questions, instead of talking about yourself and your opinions.

The breath is a bridge between opposites, and a mediator in transitions. Without breath, we quickly transition from conscious to unconscious, and then from alive to dead. Breathing can be voluntary when we are awake, and involuntary when we are asleep or distracted.  Breath is the bridge between indecision and decision.  When we are hesitating, we hold our breath.  When we decide, we breathe.  When we are surprised, we gasp.  When we are relieved, we sigh. We breathe in deeply to gather courage, and we sigh when a job is done.  Laughing is breathing, and crying is breathing.  Speaking is using the breath to communicate, to connect the awareness inside one person to the awareness inside another.  In the non-verbal language of therapeutic massage, the breath is the means by which therapist and client communicate. And of course, when we are stressed out, we hold our breath, and when we relax, we breathe freely.

If the first essential aspect of therapeutic massage is mindfulness, then the second is breathing, and one follows the other endlessly.  When you become mindful, it is natural to notice breathing, and when you notice breathing, that is naturally a state of mindfulness.

Breathing plays an indispensable role in the relaxation and awareness processes that make massage therapeutic.  When a client becomes aware of their breath and the role it plays in the relaxation process, then relaxation becomes a conscious choice, and the changes that happen are clearly something the client does on their own.  In other words, when a client takes a nice deep breath, and then relaxes on the exhale, that kind of relaxation is something that comes from within, something the body appreciates and remembers.  The therapeutic exhale, the “Ahhh,” or “breath release,” as I call it, is the moment when unconscious signals from the brain that are causing the muscles to be tight become conscious signals, allowing the muscles to relax.  The breath is the connection between involuntary and voluntary muscle activity. The longest-lasting therapeutic benefits of massage come from the things the client does on their own, and those things are always connected with the breath.

Free and easy breathing is absolutely essential for the massage therapist while working.  If you are not breathing simply and easily while you work, then somehow you are working too hard, thinking too much, trying too hard, taking too much responsibility for the changes in the client’s body, hurrying, and not paying attention.  While it makes sense to think of the things you do with your hands as being the “techniques” of massage, remembering to breathe is the most important “technique” a therapist can use.

Breath is also a bridge between mind and body, between awareness and movement. In some Asian healing traditions, the vital energies of the body are called “winds.”  In our language, we speak of “the winds of change.”  In the ancient Chinese art of Healing Chi Kung, which is the basis of all Chinese Medicine and martial arts, everything a practitioner does is a combination of breath, attention, and movement.  That’s what “Chi Kung” means: intentional movement connected with breath. In the art of Therapeutic Massage, we use breath awareness practices for our own benefit, and in combination with massage strokes and movements to facilitate therapeutic change.

Most importantly, the breath is a bridge of communication between client and therapist.  When a therapist works with a client’s breath, then therapist and client will always be working together, focused on the same moment of relaxation.  When a client notices that a therapist is working with them, with their breath, they become engaged in the work, and very appreciative of the therapist for paying attention.

Awareness of breath is inseparable from mindfulness practice.  When doing your mindfulness practice, start with awareness of breath, and then expand your awareness to include your other senses. Sitting, breathing, noticing, relaxing.

Assessment is the practice of paying attention to another person in the present moment, without being distracted by your own thoughts and emotions.  Assessment is allowing your senses to be open and present for another person, to notice whatever another person presents.  In the beginning of the assessment practice for a massage therapist, the therapist does not look for something in particular, like tight muscles or problems or pain.  Instead, a therapist just looks, and notices, without anything in mind.  This kind of open awareness allows the therapist to notice more, without excluding anything.  Assessment starts with gathering information, without interpretation.

Sometimes the mind is so loud that it is quite a challenge to actually pay attention to another person.  When giving a massage, for example, student therapists are often so concerned with what they are doing, and whether or not it is “good,” that they totally forget to pay attention to what their client is feeling. Does my client seem comfortable? Is my client relaxing when they exhale?  One thing that is great to do is to stop whatever you are doing, and just pay attention to your breathing and your client’s breathing. Breath always happens in the present moment, and the way we breathe says a lot about how we are feeling.

The first thing you can do to begin learning about assessment is to practice mindfulness of your own body.  Then, become curious about everyone around you.  When you are interacting with people, remind yourself to take a moment to ask yourself, “What do I notice, right now?” Try not to interpret what you notice, just notice it.

In ordinary social and family relationships, we feel different kinds of rapport, and react to those feelings without much deliberate consideration. You say, “I really don’t like hanging out with her.  She is so negative,” because the rapport between you is uncomfortable.  Or you say, “Oh, he is so nice,” and you look forward to spending time with him. A therapist-client relationship is different.  When you’re working as a therapist, not only is it important for you to be more caring and less reactive to personalities that normally make you uncomfortable, but it is also part of massage technique to use rapport intentionally to promote relaxation.  As a therapist, you do things to create good rapport with your clients, on purpose.

The first step in the process of learning about rapport is to develop the ability to be aware of the present moment.  If you are not aware of what is happening in the present moment – in your own body/mind and in the lives of those around you – then whomever you are interacting with will naturally notice that you are not paying attention.  If you are not paying attention, developing good rapport is impossible.  Imagine receiving massage from a therapist who is not paying attention to you.  That’s no fun.  That’s poor rapport.

The second step in the process of learning about rapport is to develop genuine care for every living being.  A simple way to start this process is to notice that the feelings of comfort and discomfort that you experience in your body are common to everyone with a body.  Once your body feels the delights of receiving a caring massage, your eyes sparkle when you see your client, saying to them, “Yay!  You are about to really enjoy yourself!”  Joy and care emanating from a therapist immediately begins the relaxation process for the client.

Two things you can do to practice awareness of rapport: (1) remind yourself to be aware of your own body in the present moment, and (2) whenever you see a person, remind yourself to cultivate a real feeling of care for them in your heart. Try this in every interaction.

Now, I can ask you, “What are you paying attention to?”  This is interesting.  When I ask that question, you make a small effort of self-noticing with your mind, and there is a moment when you are very aware of your attention. What am I paying attention to? That moment of introspective curiosity is called “mindfulness.” Mindfulness is the state of being conscious of your experience in the present moment.

Ordinarily, as human beings we are moderately mindful of our bodies.  For example, we notice when we feel cold, and then we do something to get warm.  That’s being mindful of the body in the present moment. In general, we are aware of our bodies in space – we don’t often bump into things, drop things, or trip.  When a person is less body-aware than usual, we consider him to be clumsy, or “not aware.”

On the other hand, we also do a lot of things with our bodies automatically.  Most of our daily movements are so automatic that we can perform rather complicated sequences of movement (like driving, for example) while putting most of our attention elsewhere – deep in thought, or immersed in a conversation – even while driving.  If the traffic gets particularly intense, we might say, “Hold on, I have to concentrate,” because we have to devote some extra attention to the moment at hand.  We have to become mindful of the road.

We are also naturally aware of the difference between mindfulness and distraction.  Have you ever been driving along in your car, thinking about something particularly interesting or emotional, and then suddenly popped back into awareness of the present moment, wondering, “Where am I?”  Oops, I missed the turn.  I was spacing out!  I wasn’t being mindful of where I was going.

Being mindful has something to do with paying attention to the present moment, whereas being distracted has something to do with paying attention to hypothetical thoughts and emotions – things that are only happening in your mind, and not in physical reality. Distraction can also take on the form of things happening in physical reality. “Multi-thinking,” or when the therapist isn’t fully mindful of their focus and let other distractions get in the way. A lack of mindfulness could manifest as a therapist jumping around from spot to spot instead of being mindful of the larger picture. So being mindful is the act of combining or joining your mind with the present moment, rather than occupying your mind with thoughts and fantasies about things that are not actually happening.

Mindfulness is the basis, the core, the essential starting place for a massage therapist.  Without mindfulness, massage is impossible.  Think about it:  If a massage therapist is lost in thought, “driving along” mindlessly over the client’s body, without awareness of what is happening for the client, does that sound like a relaxing, therapeutic treatment?  No!  It sounds yucky.  It is obvious that mindfulness is an essential skill for a massage therapist.

While it might be obvious that mindfulness is essential, and while the present moment is always right here, waiting for you to pay attention to it, actually being mindful takes practice.  As new students, for example, it is quite normal for your minds to be occupied with all kinds of thoughts and feelings that have nothing to do with your client, or the present moment.  Am I doing it right?  What am I supposed to do next?  Does she like me?  I’m afraid of embarrassing myself by giving a bad massage.  What are other people doing?  Oh no, the teacher is looking at me! Meanwhile, what is really happening is touch and breath, touch and breath.

Most of us in our culture spend every waking moment either paying attention to the thoughts in our head, talking, paying attention to one kind of electronic screen or another, or doing various tasks at work that require focused attention.  It is not very often that anyone just stops what they’re doing, and pays attention to what is happening in the present moment without thinking something about it, saying something about it or doing something about it.  Oftentimes, when I introduce mindfulness practice to people, they find it strange to just sit there and pay attention without doing anything else.  And then, when they try even just one minute of mindfulness practice, they notice that their thinking mind is like a TV that is always on, loud, switching channels at random, while their attentive mind is so easily distracted by those thoughts that it takes only moments for the person to completely lose track of what they were doing, which was sitting still and paying attention to the present moment.  We get distracted even when absolutely nothing is happening!

To set realistic expectations for yourself when starting a mindfulness practice, I think it is good to recognize that the best part of the practice is the short moment when you remember to become mindful, not the duration of the time that you remain mindful.  So if you set out to be mindful, to pay attention only to your body, your breath and the world around you in the present moment, expect the amount of time you remain mindful to be very brief, and the amount of time you spend being distracted to be very long by comparison.  In an ordinary day of 16 hours of being awake, if you set aside 15 minutes for mindfulness practice, and within those 15 minutes, you remember to be mindful 3 or 4 times, for a few seconds at a time, that constitutes a successful mindfulness practice. If, in addition to that, you manage to remember to become mindful one or twice during the day, then you’re really making progress.

Five times a day, remember to be mindful for one moment. Though those moments may be brief and few, moments of mindfulness are like precious medicine for your soul – there’s a lot of medicine in a small package!  That’s why it’s called the present.

Most of the time, our actions are motivated by our needs, our desires and our aversions.  For example, if a person wants to have enough money to purchase a desirable object, then, motivated by desire, he or she does something to get money.  If the work is easy, and the money is good, then with a little effort, we get what we want.  Problems arise when the work’s not so easy, the money’s not so good, and that desirable thing is really expensive.  Is that the story of your life?

The simple fact of the matter is that a stressful situation is one where there is a strong desire for something, but our means to get it are inefficient or ineffective.  The same is true for something undesirable. Let’s say the work is easy and the money’s good, but you broke your leg and have to stay home for a couple of weeks.  You don’t want to have a broken leg, but you have a broken leg, and there arises stress.  In addition to the broken leg, you get a stiff neck from all that stress.

So what causes muscle tension in a stressful situation? Wanting what you don’t have, and not being able to get it easily, or not wanting what you do have, and not being able to get rid of it.  It is as simple as that.  As shallow as it may seem, most adult stress – and the tension that is its by-product – is brought on by the same set of natural reactions that make children cry in toy stores.  Your brain creates the stress state. Sure, it is stressful to break your leg, at first, but at some point, the ongoing stress has more to do with attitude than anything else.  The mind creates the secondary stress by not wanting what you have (the broken leg) and wanting what you don’t have (the toy) – though either totally unavoidable (you didn’t put that banana peel there) or ungettable in the moment (toy prices these days).

In response to this oversimplification of life’s trials and tribulations, many people say: “But my problems are real!  I’m not trying to buy some toy, I’m just trying to make ends meet! Don’t tell me about my attitude!”  Of course, there are real reasons to get stressed out.  And there are real ways to relieve some of that stress.  It’s not that the problems aren’t real, it’s just that the secondary stress – the extra tension, the holding onto what doesn’t need to be held – that can, and does change! Because if a person has muscle tension, nine times out of ten, a good massage therapist can melt that tension away!  There’s a case of not wanting what you’ve got, and being able to get rid of it!  Hallelujah!

So, how does it work?  How does massage help relieve stress and melt tension?  A massage therapist can’t make your work any easier, or convince your boss to give you a raise.  A massage therapist won’t buy you that expensive toy you want, or instantly heal your broken leg.  If the stressful circumstances remain the same, where does the stress go during and after a massage?  And more importantly, why is it that after a massage, those stressful circumstances seem less stressful, those desires less important, and those bothersome unwanted things less bothersome?

To answer those questions, let’s take a brief detour into anatomy and physiology.  It’ll be quick, I promise.

There are three stages to the body’s stress response: alarm, resistance and exhaustion.  The immediate alarm: Oh my God, I broke my leg! Followed by the secondary mental alarm: Oh no!  Now I can’t work! Stress! Stress! Stress! In the alarm state, adrenaline floods the system.  Adrenaline is the transmitter your brain uses to cause muscles to contract in stressful situations (among many other things).  Then comes resistance: Well, I just have to deal with it!  I just have to use my credit card to buy that toy, and pay for the doctor… and then there’s rent… I have to be responsible, I have to hold it together. In the resistance state, cortisol floods the system.  Cortisol is the transmitter your brain uses to prolong the stress reaction in order to continue to deal with the secondary stressors following a traumatic event, after the adrenaline rush wears off.  The secondary stressors are often mental: worry, worry, and worry. But even if the secondary stressors originate in the mind, soon, they become real, they become chemical. Both adrenaline and cortisol cause the body to work overtime.  It takes energy to keep all of those neck muscles tight.  Sooner or later, exhaustion sets in.  Avoid it with coffee, distract yourself with TV, deny it with sheer will, but no matter what you do, at some point, you’ve got to collapse.  Doesn’t a massage sound good?

Many people wonder why they can’t just let go of the stress tension in their muscles, especially after the stressful situation is over.  After all, your brain controls your muscles, right?  So why not just relax your neck?  What’s stopping you?  Well, your brain has many responsibilities, obviously.  One thing your brain is really good at is learning.  Your brain loves to learn.  It is built to learn.  It learns constantly.  Neck tension is a movement, really, because it is the contraction of muscles that move the head and neck. The way your brain learns movement is through repetition.  Ever try learning a new sport or a new musical instrument?  At first, your muscles won’t do what you want them to, but then, you learn, and soon the movements become automatic.  The thing is, your brain doesn’t distinguish between the repetitive movements it learns – it learns whatever repetitive moments you do.  Movements are muscle contractions. Neck tension is muscle contractions, and in a time of stress, neck tension becomes a repetitive movement.  Once the situation has passed, your brain has naturalized the “movement” of neck tension.

Put food in your mouth, naturally you chew.  Sit in the driver’s seat of a car, you automatically perform the movements of driving.  See the world, and you automatically tighten your neck, if that’s what you’ve been practicing. If you were to ask your brain, “Why are you still holding that neck tension?”  Your brain would answer, “I’ve been practicing that for years!”

Is reading this article making you notice your neck tension?  It must be time for a massage! Imagine, you enter the warm, quiet massage office.  There are candles lit, and big, soft pillows waiting for you on the massage table.  You know your therapist.  Her gentle, kind eyes, her soft, strong hands.  Ahhh… her hands know just where to go, and your tension dissolves, layer by layer, until you’re adrift in that wonderful state of peace just before sleep…

The adrenaline is gone.  The cortisol is gone.  Your brain stops sending the stress signals, and your muscles finally relax.  Though the tension was a learned behavior, your body also knows a good thing when it feels it.  You body seeks health and balance, homeostasis.  The massage therapist’s hands say, “It’s okay.  The stress isn’t happening any more.  Feel this?  It is pleasure.  See?  You’re okay.  Nothing but peace is happening now,” and your brain says, “Really?  Oh, you’re right, that’s true,” and “ahhhh.” Your stress chemistry has been replaced with oxytocin, dopamine and seratonin – the chemistry of peace, clarity, and love, literally.

Why does the peace lasts beyond the massage, why do you greet the world with a new perspective after you leave the therapist’s office and enter back into “real life”?  Because the chemistry of stress is gone.  Because there is literally new, clean fluid in the space between all of your cells.  Because the useless habit of muscle tension has been replaced by the natural memory of peace and efficient function.

People naturally touch each other to alleviate pain, tension, and stress, to express love and care, and to give pleasure, relaxation and peace to those we care for. Caring touch is not a technique that human beings invented – it is a natural human tendency, expressed by mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and strangers since time began… or at least since we lived in trees! When a child is crying, our natural human tendency is to touch her, gently, lovingly, with care. It all starts there.

Now, in our society, we have created a profession called massage therapy, wherein one person pays another person to provide skilled, caring touch. A person usually seeks the services of a massage therapist when he or she is suffering from physical pain, tension and stress. Sometimes, a person will get a massage just for the sheer pleasure of it. No matter what, people enjoy being cared for.

In the thirteen years of my career as a massage therapist and teacher, I have seen that the most successful, rewarding therapist-client interactions are those that include both skill and care. Likewise, I have seen a great many skilled therapists who are either unaware of the importance or care, or they are unwilling, for one reason or another, to express it. Those therapists are only likely to succeed professionally in a setting where there is a captive audience, as on a cruise ship or luxury resort, where there’s neither the need nor the expectation for the client to see any one particular therapist more than once. In most cases, care is an essential aspect to the therapist-client interaction – a primary, though often unconscious priority.

In short, all people of the earth share these four things in common: we do not want to feel pain; we do want to feel pleasure; we have the natural impulse to offer caring touch when there is a need; and that caring touch provides both pleasure and relief from pain.  Caring touch is natural, it is effective, and it is an expression of the fundamentally good quality of the human heart.

When embarking on your studies to become a massage therapist, it is important to remember your caring heart in everything that you do. In the fields of education and occupation, our culture generally places more emphasis and value on measurable standards of performance (test scores, repetitions of learned behaviors, etc.) and less on immeasurable qualities like care and sensitivity. As massage therapists, however, you simply cannot afford to forget these things. If you forget your caring heart, not only will your first-time clients not tend to re-book, but also your career will become dry, lifeless, and unfulfilling. As you learn more about the subtle skills of a massage therapist, you will also discover that qualities like care and sensitivity have an immediate, almost magical relaxing effect for your clients. Become absorbed in curiosity about that, and your work will surely be one of the most precious aspects of your life!

Therapists who choose to become certified through the CAMTC can choose to become either Certified Massage Practitioners with 250-hours of education in an Approved school, or Certified Massage Therapists with 500-hours of education. In 2013, the CAMTC will no longer offer the lower-level Massage Practitioner Certification.

It is recommended that new massage school students who are seeking employment in the field obtain a minimum of 500-hours of training in a school is not only California Approved, but also offers a curriculum that meets the more stringent requirements of the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB).

While less expensive and easier to obtain, the 250-hour Massage Practitioner certification in California does not provide therapists with the opportunity to become certified in other states. Additionally, consumers are aware that high quality Therapeutic Bodywork is readily available from Therapists with more extensive education. Obtaining a minimum of 500-hours of education and earning National Certification is the best investment of your time and money.

Click here to learn more about Massage Certification in California, or visit Arcata School of Massage.

1. Swedish Massage: This basic massage form is used in nearly every context where massage is offered.  It is an essential skill for work in the spa industry, and is the most commonly requested style of massage.

2. Deep Tissue Massage: This is a specialized form of Therapeutic Massage that requires specific training in human Anatomy, as well as advanced techniques.  However, many clients who ask for Deep Tissue Massage are really just requesting that the therapist use strong pressure within the context of a Swedish Massage.  Be sure the school you choose places a strong emphasis on the proper use of your hands, to prevent you from injuring yourself while trying to meet your clients’ needs for deep pressure.

3. Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork: There are many styles within this category.  Some of the most popular are Neuromuscular Therapy (NMT), myofascial massage, Rolfing and Structural Integration, and Somatic Bodywork.  In general, it takes longer to learn these advanced techniques, and it is well worth the time and the investment.  

As the cost of healthcare rises and more and more Americans are uninsured or underinsured, people are seeking the services of well-trained massage therapists as an alternative to traditional medical care.  More hospitals, doctors, physical therapists, and chiropractors include massage therapy as part of their treatment plans than ever before.

4. Asian Bodywork:  This includes Shiatsu, Thai Massage, Acupressure, Ayurvedic treatments, Jin Shin Do, Healing Chi Kung and many more.  While each of these modalities can be studied for many years in specialized schools, many schools include some training in Asian Bodywork as part of a comprehensive curriculum.  Asian styles of bodywork utilize an understanding of the energy channels in the body as they are described in Traditional Chinese and Indian Medicine. A basic understanding of Shiatsu and the fundamentals of Traditional Chinese Medicine is required for National Certification.

5. Energy Work: This broad field includes Polarity Therapy, Reiki, Craniosacral Therapy and many other styles. Light-touch energy work modalities are good to know when massage and bodywork are not appropriate forms of treatment. For example, while it is not recommended for a person to receive massage immediately after a car accident, gentle energy work techniques can have a very calming and relaxing effect.

More advanced Therapeutic and Somatic Bodywork techniques incorporate the principles of energy work into manual therapies to increase the effect of treatment. There are schools that specialize in this approach multi-level integrative therapy. Students who are seeking the highest level of training should consider a school that combines the principles of energy work with manual therapies.

6. Spa Treatments: These include Hot Stone Massage, Mud Wraps, Salt and Sugar Scrubs, Hydrotherapy, and Aromatherapy. While still very popular, the recession hit the luxury massage industry hard, and opportunities for employment in the spa industry have decreased dramatically. That said, the therapeutic benefits of Aromatherapy and Hydrotherapy are well known. Hydrotherapy is an important component of Therapeutic Massage, particularly for treatment of repetitive stress injuries like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Bursitis.

Click here to learn more about Massage Certification in California, or visit Arcata School of Massage.

In order to find a school that meets your needs, first you have to decide what type of massage you want to study.  Like the word “music” is a general term, and there are many different kinds of music, the word “massage” is a general term, and there are a wide range of styles of hands-on healing.  Because your education forms the foundation of your career, it is important to take the time to learn about your options, and explore your own interests.

Massage styles include:

• Swedish Massage
• Deep Tissue Massage
• Therapeutic Massage
• Somatic Bodywork
• Shiatsu
• Thai Massage
• Myofascial Bodywork
• Reflexology
• Polarity Therapy

If you’re curious about a massage style, it is recommended that you book an appointment with a reputable therapist.  Better yet, find a massage school that teaches the style that interests you, and book an appointment with an instructor or a student therapist in the clinic.  If you enjoy the style, find out more about schools that offer that as part of their training program.  If you don’t enjoy a particular style, consider whether or not the therapist seemed skilled and knowledgeable. In any case, follow what you love!

Once you’ve tried a variety of massage and bodywork modalities and found those that interest you, it is time to find a school that offers what you want.  When considering a school, make sure that it is State Approved, that the curriculum is 500-700 hours long, and that graduates meet the requirements for eligibility to take the National Certification Exam.

Though there is a 250-hour level of certification in California, that is not recommended if you plan to make a career out of massage therapy.  You need to specialize in several styles beyond basic Swedish Massage.  It is also strongly recommended that you find a school that includes an internship in a public clinic, where students work with paying customers.  A massage training program without a clinic is like a hairstylist training program with no real hair to cut!

Click here to learn more about Massage Certification in California, or visit Arcata School of Massage.