November 15, 2010: The Massage School Makeover, valued at more than $70,000, is an extraordinary first-time event combining the generosity of business professionals and educators to emphasize the necessity of using only professional-grade products and equipment in our schools and practices. Sponsored by Massage Warehouse, the winning school will be announced during the World Massage Conference Live Broadcast online on November 16, 2010.
It has been an incredible response of monetary contributions from the professional product partners like OAKWORKS®, MASSAGE Magazine, Bon Vital, Elsevier Publishing, Doug Alexander, Performance Health, Fingerprintz, David Kent Mother Earth Pillows and more, but also an immeasurable amount of time has been donated to make this event so valuable to the massage therapy industry. More than a year of thought and careful planning was undertaken by Angie Patrick, director of business development for Massage Warehouse, to see her vision become a reality.
The winning school will receive the ultimate prize of more than $70,000 worth of professional-grade products that will furnish the school with an awe-inspiring clinic and library. Even the nominees receive rewards for participating, including product samples, other surprises and free access to the World Massage Conference online for their school.
They say the most valuable thing you can give is your time. It is within this spirit of generosity led by Angie Patrick’s vision and other organizers’ time commitments that Paul Lewis, R.M.T., felt compelled to not only donate products of monetary worth but also give the value of his time to the winning school. As one of the many professional product partners, Paul Lewis has added a two-day workshop to the list of amazing prizes for the winning school.
Lewis’s two-day workshop will include demonstrating combined modalities on the table and chair, so regardless of what stage the students are at they will be able to see first hand the application of their learned techniques and more advanced techniques they may in the future need. Body mechanics for safe application of effortless massage techniques along with self care exercises to reduce stress on the therapist will be a focus throughout the workshop. Demonstrations and discussion of joint mobilizations, use of hydrotherapy, orthopedic assessment, dynamic petrissage, PIR, isolated muscle stretching with differing client positions and accounting for conditional modifications such as TMJ (including internal massage techniques), pregnancy, post-surgical treatment of breast cancer patients, wheelchair clients and others will also be covered.
Participants will also receive first-hand knowledge of the OAKWORKS side-lying Position System (SLP). The new state-of-the-art Nova table with the ABC system will be used to demonstrate on. Jeff Riach co-founder and CEO of OAKWORKS® says, “This new table has many valuable features the therapist can use to aid in their treatments for therapist and client comfort.” Also a Professional Product Partner in the School Make-Over Contest, OAKWORKS® has contributed product and equipment to the award package. After hearing of Paul’s act of kindness they have also decided to further promote higher education in the health industry by fully sponsoring Paul’s travels to the winning school to teach his workshop.
As a result of Paul’s successful Post-surgical Treatments of Mastectomy and Breast Implants workshop at the Canadian Massage Conference in Burlington, Ontario, last weekend, MASSAGE magazine has decided to buy both Paul Lewis Volume 1 Multi-lingual In-Chair Massage Instructional DVD and Volume 2 Dynamic Integrative Techniques for the Upper Body DVDs to give to every student at the workshops Paul teaches at the winning school.
Angie Patrick is so proud to bring together the entire community in such a way that supports schools, students and practicing therapists by creating a venue to showcase and shed light on many of the products on the market and the people available to us. We are all winners because of this event; the winning school, the nominated schools, the students, educators, professional product partners, therapists, and ultimately our clients.