How to start?

[DaySleeper]

Hi Katia,

Have you looked in the course directory called "Floodlight"? It is normally on sale in bookshops like WH Smith from September. It lists all the part time courses taking place in local colleges and will include massage. The website is www.floodlight.co.uk

A colleague did her inital massage training with Essentials for Health, the school was in London but I don't know where. It was an intensive course and she has since gone on to do further advanced training at some other places.

Good luck with your search.

 

[Cyrus]

I dont think that's particularly indicative of the course though - I trained with Essentials for Health, and although I and many other of my fellow massage students have come out with good massage skills, there were a few students on the course I would habitually avoid because they were rubbish - it's more about how much work, effort and commitment you put into your own training I think, and not everyone does.

Essentials for Health are based at the etc. training/conference centre between Borough and Elephant and Castle. I did the part/time weekend mode, and have gone on to do Sports Massage with them, but I do know someone who did the intensive Holistic course and now works very successfully at a treatment centre in SW London. Essentials run open days for people to come along to, to find out more about training with them, which might be a good idea.

 

[Camilla Rhodes]

Hi Mike,
I wasnt talking about essentials for health, I was talking about the school that Paul Crick linked on his posting. I agree that you are probably going to get at least one person on a course that isnt as good as the others, I have actually had a couple of massages from therapists that have trained at the school im talking about, probably because they used to be based near where I live, and I havent had a good one yet, they have ranged from poor to mediocre, so maybe Mel Cash was right.

 

[Granidiarne]

My post was in response to an earlier post which intimated that there was no stand alone 'remedial massage' qualification. The usage is a 'non-sequitur'.

Remedial massage actually has a long standing tradition and has been used successfully throughout the world to sort out people's muscular/skeletal dysfunctions for many years.

The full training at the institute takes many years to complete and I am sure that if you encountered someone who had undertaken the full training that is available, then they should be quite proficient at sorting things out.

Mike quite correctly said it is down to the individual student to embrace and perfect what is being taught, not everyone is cut out to be a massage therapist and even fewer are cut out to embrace the more specialised massage skills (some people could undertake a 20 year course and still not be any good at massage).

This is the same with anything that people choose to learn, anyone can learn to play an instrument but few are good enough to become a top performer.

 

[Six Six Six]

Hi uclanguy, I was (and still am) talking generally about massage schools and the people who graduate from them, not thinking you were talking about Essentials for Health - I mentioned EfH in reply to Essence99 who posted after you, and because it is my own training experience. And as Paul goes on to say, there's a lot more to massage (and massage training!) than many people who sign up for it realise, hence it doesn't really surprise me that some people approach it half-heartedly, and their massage skills reflect this (although they've done enough to scrape through the assessment requirements of the course). So even though I cannot argue with your own experience of therapists from this particular school (which I don't know at all, by the way), I still would struggle to say that it's inferior as a training institution. Despite what Mel Cash said! Although I am finding his text book on Sports and Remedial Massage invaluable.

 

[Balllaa,WeezyF.]

Reviewing this thread, I find it somewhat surprising that what started as a request for information about beginners’ training in London was sidetracked into a discussion of the validity of remedial massage. For the benefit of relative newcomers to massage, it might be worth mentioning that, as far as the UK is concerned, sports massage has been developed from remedial massage, rather than vice versa. Much of the growth in sports massage over the last 20 years was sparked by the formation of the LSSM in 1989, preceded by the publication of Mel Cash’s first book on Sports Massage in 1988. Mel’s background and qualification was in remedial massage and the back cover of that book describes him as a ‘remedial masseur’. If anyone wants more information about remedial massage in a non-sporting context, I would strongly recommend the American textbook ‘Basic Clinical Massage Therapy’ by Clay & Pounds (Americans seem to use the term ‘clinical massage’ for what we describe as ‘remedial massage’.)

I appreciate that Ectomorph has been banned from HP since she posted on this thread, but I have reservations about some of her comments. Her first post on the thread could be construed as an attack on the London College of Massage. If so, I think that it is misjudged: the London College of Massage is a long-established institution which still seems to have a good reputation. The founder of the LCM, Fiona Harrold, wrote a book called ‘The Massage Manual’ which is very well-illustrated and which is probably the best basic guide to massage for beginners that I have read. It is many years since I trained at LCM, but in my experience the training I received there was far superior to the training which I received on my first ITEC course. Long-standing readers of this forum may remember Fozzyo, who used to be a regular contributor to this forum but seems to have disappeared from HP. He trained at LCM shortly after me and was very impressed by the tuition: anyone interested can probably find some of his comments by using the ‘search’ feature to browse through the archives. I appreciate that I was at LCM over eleven years ago and it appears that neither of my tutors still teaches there. However I think it is worth mentioning that I began my massage career with an ITEC course. I was very disappointed with the quality of the tuition: we had much less practical massage than the 50 hours which ITEC recommend, and we weren’t taught the importance of basic body mechanics and of having the couch low enough to ensure that the massage is effective. And although I passed the course, I was so frustrated with the poor training that I felt the need to go on a short course at the LCM as a ‘top-up’ before proceeding to a sports massage course. It may also be worth noting that even the introductory LCM course included both abdominal and gluteal massage, whereas it is clear from this forum that some ITEC tutors don't include either of these on their courses. So, from my personal experience, I definitely agree with BGFL’s comment


Of the other London training providers mentioned on this thread, I have done two short CPD courses with Essentials for Health and was favourably impressed: however the tutor on those courses, Jane Johnson, now seems to have changed her allegiance to the London Massage Company.

Alan

 

[SqueesePexSot]

A well considered and approriate post Alan, long time no hear as they say?

Regards
BGFL

 

[hermafrodite]

Thanks Gary

yes I am still around but there are times when I am too busy with clients to keep up to date with HP !

Regards

Alan