Continuing Education for the Spa Industry
The spa industry is one of the main sources of employment for many massage therapists, whether just out of massage school and trying to build a client base or decades into the business and enjoying the spa environment.
For those bodyworkers who practice their hands-on modalities within the walls of a spa, picking courses for continuing education may be closely tied to the spa environment, and rightly so. Certain techniques seem to be integral to spa work, and your employer might even require, or at least strongly suggest, that the spa’s massage therapists enroll in such classes.
In other cases, it may be the massage therapist who wishes to expand his or her knowledge and further tap the potential of working in a fully equipped spa. A bodyworker may also use continuing education to gain new skills that will stand out on a spa’s service menu.
Whether encouraged by spa management, the massage therapist’s desire to learn and earn more, or both, continuing education can be highly valuable in the spa environment, as in most other areas of bodywork. In addition, the majority of state massage boards, as well as professional organizations, require massage therapists to earn a certain number of continuing-education units (CEUs) each year, in order to maintain a valid license.
While you’re keeping your certification current with continuing education, consider classes that will enhance your career as a massage therapist within the spa industry. With such credits to your name, it should be far easier to gain positions in top spas throughout the country.
There are many continuing education classes that cover spa basics and are geared specifically toward massage therapists. Such courses aim to impart the type of knowledge one needs in the spa environment, but they also teach skills that could be used in private practice, if a bodyworker wanted to give his or her practice a spa twist.
Such skills include full-body exfoliation, wraps and wet room protocol. In addition, a course that covers the basics of spa work will most likely teach students the history of spas, spa terminology and spa concepts, such as the theories behind pelotherapy, thalassotherapy, exfoliation, body wraps and more.
After completing such a course and earning the required CEUs, a massage therapist working in the spa environment should feel much more comfortable with the equipment, jargon and techniques he or she is surrounded by each day. The spa manager may even allow the bodyworker with spa-specific CEUs to begin incorporating more spa-based modalities into his or her hands-on work.
Aside from enrolling in continuing-education courses tailored to typical spa techniques, a bodyworker also may choose to take classes on a modality that would both stand out on and enhance a spa menu. For instance, if you work at a spa and earn CEUs in pregnancy massage, this opens up a whole new clientele for your employer. And continuing education in reflexology offers the spa a unique service that may help them stand out among the competition. Moreover, such specialized skills not only increase your value to your employer, but also add entirely new modes of hands-on healing to your personal repertoire.
If you work, or want to work, in the spa industry, continuing education is a perfect way to enhance both your own massage skills and make yourself more enticing to employers.