Continuing to learn as you grow older can be one of the best ways to stay excited about life, including your career. When it comes to professional massage therapists and bodyworkers, the opportunity to gain and expand one’s knowledge about hands-on therapy is readily available through continuing education classes.
The value of consistently taking continuing education classes cannot be underestimated. In fact, participating in continuing education is such a valuable experience that many states and regions actually require professional massage therapists and bodyworkers to take such classes on a regular basis, in order to maintain their credentials for legal practice.
When one is working in a field as broad and ever changing as the field of massage therapy and bodywork, taking continuing education classes is the key to staying abreast of new information and advances in the industry. By signing up for continuing education courses on a regular basis, you are making a commitment to stay on top of your game as a professional massage therapist or bodyworker.
Whether the continuing education class covers a brand-new technique or modality, or is a more advanced take on an existing method of hands-on therapy, the student stands to gain leading-edge skills and knowledge to improve his or her practice by better serving each client.
For example, as a professional massage therapist, you may have in your tool box an array of techniques you like to use on those clients who present with neck pain, and these techniques have proven useful throughout the years. However, there may be a few techniques for addressing neck pain that you do not yet know about or there may have been some recent improvements or changes made to the techniques you currently use.
By perusing continuing education offerings on a regular basis, you might come across a continuing education class on the topic of one of these new or improved methods of addressing neck pain. If you choose to enroll in this continuing education class, you would be making the choice to further hone your ability to help clients with neck pain.
Of course, there are many other reasons why continuing education is such a boon to one’s life and career as a massage therapist or bodyworker. These reasons can vary for each individual depending on the type of continuing education course he or she chooses to take.
One of the general benefits of participating in continuing education consistently is the fact that such participation allows you to stay up to date on the latest information concerning the field of touch therapy. This might mean learning about the latest research on how a specific modality benefits clients with certain medical conditions by taking a continuing education class on a more clinical modality.
Staying up to date can also benefit you and your health, which indirectly benefits your clients. For instance, you might decide to take a continuing education class on proper body mechanics, where you might gain new insights that were not available during your time in massage school.