by Terrie Yardley-Nohr, LMT

    Massage therapists are faced with clients every day that have been injured in some way and are seeking help from pain and dysfunction.  A therapist is faced with figuring out what is wrong and what to do about it.  One of the biggest challenges for new therapists in the field is how to address the client’s needs and provide relief.   This boils down to two specific skills: assessment and appropriate therapeutic response.  Obviously, skills are developed over time and through experience.  Additional training, however, can radically accelerate the development of a skill set.

     The Healing Arts Center is launching a new series of workshops designed to provide advanced level training in a format that supports the working therapist.  The idea behind Pro Tracks is to broaden the therapeutic reach of massage therapists to expand client wellness services so as to reach a larger client base or improve employability at a higher wage rate. 
    The Healing Arts Center takes the view that massage therapists are underused in the arena of wellness and promoting health in our culture.  HAC does not teach pamper massage, but rather focuses its knowledge, experience and skill toward developing the massage therapist as a "first responder" in the quest for health and wellness.  For this reason our primary massage therapy training program is directed on pure healing modalities that alleviate stress and anxiety, treats acute and chronic pain at its source and provides the myriad of other benefits that therapeutic massage is known to provide.  In fact, "therapy" is the whole point of this healing art.

 of Myofascial Release, one of the most useful massage modalities for injury recovery, scar rehabilitation and sports recovery.  Our students start clinical practice after their first term in school.  HAC is nothing if not a “learning by doing” school.  Our students will spend the better part of a year working on the public so that when they graduate they are as comfortable with clients as they are with their friends.  Like most massage therapists nation-wide, roughly 60% of our graduates will wind up running their own independent wellness practices.
And this is the new gold standard at HAC: comprehensive wellness practice.

In ancient times lomi would go on for hours or even days.  Then the Kahuna, a healer, and the recipient would go to the ocean to be restored by the gods.  They would drink herbal remedies, be pounded, pinched, rolled, and sleep on the beach wrapped in kapa cloth(a traditional cloth made from pounded bark).  The recipient would then be covered in sand and warm stones and watched over all night by their family. In the morning, there would be more ocean therapy and lomi.  The process would continue for three to five days.  Upon completion of the ritual, the kahuna would consult with the Spirit of the body.  If all was in balance, Spirit would speak to one of the Kahunas and the lomi was "pau” (finished).  Huge celebrations would ensue, and all the village would come to witness the re-united body and soul.  A luau would mark the recipients complete body and spirit reunification.  The reunion of body and Spirit would affect the entire village.  One person’s healing was a healing for the entire tribe!

    The excitement was palpable at The Healing Arts Center on Thursday, March 16 as one-by-one all twenty-five students took their places in an very large meditation circle.  The River Room was packed. Some students had just graduated from HAC's massage therapy training program the week before.  One had graduated from The Healing Arts Center in 1997.  Some had trained in massage therapy in other schools, while several were not massage therapists at all.   As one HAC graduate put it, "you might come to The Healing Arts Center's massage therapy program for vocational training so that you can get a job, but you come to this class because want to go as deep as you can.   This class is for the committed."   And so it is.  Twenty weeks.  100 hours of instruction in a breath process that changes lives and blows consciousness wide open.  
     For HAC headmaster, Tom Tessereau, this is the culmination of decades of training with some of the pioneers of breathwork like Judith Kravitz.  Tom is an avid practitioner of breathwork and considers it to be his most important health practice.  In his career, he has taught thousands how to release emotional trauma and gain deep personal insight into parts of consciousness not easily accessible even for accomplished meditators. The health effects are outstanding.  As Tom likes to say, "no one ever died from breathing to much."  Basic Transformational Breathwork is a required subject in the Advanced Techniques course, part of HAC's legendary massage therapy program.