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So you wanna be…a Massage Therapist?
So you wanna be…a Massage Therapist
Samantha Hitchcock studied massage therapy at Canterbury College of Natural Medicine and loved it. Here’s her story….
Name: Samantha Hitchcock
Age: 25
Q. What are you studying and where?
A. Diploma of Massage Therapy at Canterbury College of Natural Medicine
Q. How did you get interested in that field?
A. Since I was little I was interested in something like physiotherapy, but then when it came to the time in my life to study, I found that massage therapy was better suited to me and what I wanted to get out of a profession.
Q. Give us a run down of what you do in a typical day.
A. I’m in my last semester of study, therefore I have 2 days per week full of classes and 2 days where I’m in clinic treating the public. My classes include sports massage, special needs massage, neuromuscular therapy, pathophysiology & business management. On each of my clinic days I treat 3 clients - for a new client we take the health history, conduct certain tests to determine the dysfunction we are dealing with, provide a treatment plan and treat the client - under the supervision of our tutors
Q. What’s the best thing about studying there?
A. For me personally it is a amount of knowledge that you gain over the time here, it is not a course for the faint hearted, there is a lot of work involved and although the course is 18 months, it is a very intensive 18 months with a lot of theoretical study in the first year especially. So you learn a lot in a short space of time but are taught so thoroughly that you are very confident when you graduate.
Q. Any downsides?
A. I know of some people who do find the course a lot more overwhelming than they first anticipated. If you enrol in this course you need to know that you need to put the work in to pass. Some people think that doing a massage therapy diploma is going to be an easy career option, it is an incredible course for those who are passionate enough about it.
Q. What do you plan to do next year?
A. My plans for next year are to start to build my own business in Auckland and see where the road takes me from there.
I am very interested in working with the physically disabled, especially high performance and paralympic athletes, so will be looking to continuing my studies to help me with this. There are also avenues I would like to explore in working with animals too.
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Q. Any advice for girls who are hoping to work in a similar role (as to how they can get into it)? A. If anyone is interested in becoming a massage therapist, the best advice I can give is to study through a reputable college, like CCNM. |
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Currently massage therapy is unregistered, therefore anyone that does a weekend course or reads a book can call themselves a massage therapist and this can be very dangerous practice, so know what you are doing.
If you are serious about wanting to help people through massage, study thoroughly and learn everything you can about the body. |
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http://www.247girl.co.nz/index.php?/careers_money/canterbury_college_of_natural_medicine/
