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Creating Your Dream PracticeAt Body Wisdom you have a unique opportunity to build the career of your dreams with a customized curriculum specifically tailored to meet your requirements. When you enroll in a Body Wisdom Massage Program you are taking part in a total educational process unlike any other.  

Since our program is truly one that can be customized to meet your individual needs it requires a little explaining. If you read this page through to the very end we will lead you through all the steps required to put together your custom program.

Make sure you make it to the fun part: Step #3 "Customizing Your Program"

Step #1: The Basic Massage Therapist Program: 750 Hours Our Basic Massage Therapist Certification Program requires a minimum of 750 Hours which consists of a 500 Core Curriculum and 250 Hours of Career Track Electives chosen from over 1100 Hours of elective choices in five different Career Tracks. Advanced Certification Programs build on the Basic requirement of 750 Hours and range anywhere from 800-1600 depending on your Career Track choices.

Step #2: The Core Curriculum: 500 Hours Our Core Curriculum is designed to give you all the basic hands-on training for Therapeutic and Swedish massage that you would need in any massage setting plus meet the additional requirements of the State of Iowa and the National Certification Exam. See Core Curriculum Course Descriptions Below

Therapeutic Massage Levels 1 – 3: 150 Hours In this comprehensive Therapeutic Series we cover the basic Swedish massage techniques of pettrisage, effleurage, vibration, jostling, tapotement, plus long flowing Esalen strokes, facilitated stretching, trigger point therapy, myofascial technique, joint articulation, body mechanics, introduction to deep tissue, basic assessment skills, client treatment plans, draping, side-lying massage, SOAP notes and charting, professional ethics and boundaries, and the fundamental theories and techniques of massage and bodywork.

Business/Marketing/Essentials/Chair Massage: 58 Hours The secret to creating a thriving practice in the massage business is to use a marketing SYSTEM that goes beyond the traditional approach. That's why we have developed "The Body Wisdom Massage Marketing System". This state-of-the art marketing system is designed to bring a steady stream of qualified new clients into your practice on a consistent basis AND to create outstanding value for each client leading to increased profits per client and maximum referrals. It’s another Body Wisdom exclusive. You won't find it anywhere else.

In this course you will learn how to market and promote yourself and your clinic, tax strategies and money saving ideas, insurance billing, personal Insurance, interviewing skills to land the perfect position, about employment Issues, licensure issues, ethical considerations in the practice of massage therapy will be explored as well as possible solutions to typical problems that occur in a massage practice.

As an added bonus, you will learn a comprehensive Chair Massage sequence and how to promote, and put on special Chair Massage Events to market and promote your practice.

Anatomy: Bones and Muscles: 50 Hours The State of Iowa and the National Certification Board both require 50 in-class hours of Anatomy Bones and Muscles.

At Body Wisdom you won't be 'bored out of our skull' studying and learning anatomy with a traditional "2-D approach" (only learning out of books and watching videos) like many schools.

This course is designed specifically for Massage Therapists and is taught in a highly experiential format which is 80% hands-on palpation skills training that will transfer directly into your massage practice.

This method of learning allows your assessments to be more comprehensive and your hands-on work to become more precise and effective which enables you to work more closely with other medical health professionals in clinical settings.

Functional Anatomy is used as the text for this course in addition to a variety of multi-media learning resources including a comprehensive video series covering all the bones, muscles, and nerves and additional multi-media presentations.

Physiology: Body Systems plus Pathology: 90 Hours The State of Iowa and the National Certification Board both require 50 Hours in-class hours of Physiology and 40 in-class hours of Pathology. In this comprehensive introduction to physiology you will learn about the systems of the body, how they function and how each relates specifically to your practice of massage. We have organized our training so that after you have received an understanding of a particular body system such as the circulation system, you then go on to learn the pathological conditions and disorders related to that system. You will learn about the various conditions, including the etiology and progression of the disease, signs and symptoms, the standard medical approach to diagnosis and treatment and the indications and contraindications for massage.

Books and CD ROM’s: Included in your course materials are two comprehensive books (over 1000 pages) with CD ROM’s and a complete home study work book.

Kinesiology 25 Hours Simply put, Kinesiology is the study of human movement. The National Certification Board recently raised the requirements to qualify for the National Certification Exam by an extra 25 hours in the area of Kinesiology. In response, Body Wisdom has elected to create an additional stand-alone course dedicated to addressing this vital area of massage education. A depth understanding of how muscles function as movers, antagonists, and stabilizers in the human body is critical to the clinical reasoning and assessment process as well as the application of advanced massage and bodywork rehabilitation techniques.

This advanced-level Kinesiology course provides an overview of clinical applications related to the concepts presented as well as an explanation of the anatomical and physiological terminology needed for work in the musculoskeletal field. Advanced concepts presented include an introduction to microanatomy and micro-physiology, such as sliding filament theory and the structure and function of fascia.

A comprehensive text book with accompanying CD ROM is used as the basis of this in-depth look into the Mechanics and Pathomechanics of Human Movement.

Student Clinic: 127 Hours Students are required to participate in a minimum of 127 hours in our student clinic which is open 6 days a week, Monday though Friday 8:30AM to 9PM and Saturday 10-5PM for your scheduling convenience . The clinic is run like a professional spa which allows students to acquire a greater sense of confidence and proficiency, while fully acclimating them to business procedures used in real-world work settings.

Step #3: Customizing Your Program In addition to the 500 Hour, Core Curriculum which everyone takes, designing your customized massage education at Body Wisdom involves three basic program choices. Choice #1: Your Career Track and Electives Choice #2: The Length of your Custom Program (750-1600 Hours) Choice #3: Your Start Time and Training Schedule (Evening or Day Time)

Program Choice #1: Choosing Your Career Track and ElectivesCareer Track Electives: 250 Hours minimum Career Track electives are NOT merely "lectures about" or "introductions of" a few hours to a new modality, but rather complete stand-alone-courses in themselves that offer a very advanced level of specialized education, taught by experienced instructors, many of whom fly in from all over the US to teach our Evening and Weekend classes or our 6-Day Massage Intensives.