Print Article for : National Massage Therapy Exam

Your Online Guide » Body Wellness » Complete Guide to Massage

[N28]National Massage Therapy Exam

by ,

A career in massage therapy can be pretty lucrative. Clients, who are mostly well to do or those who have money to burn, are known to give big tips especially if you have given them great service. It is actually through tips that you can earn a lot in this kind if industry. But it can also be harrowing and stressful. In order to survive on the job, you need to have the following set of characteristics.

1. Gift of the hands
Hands down, (no pun intended) having the gift of a comforting set of hands is the number one requirement for a career in massage therapy. To win customers over, you need to be skilled not only in massaging but also in relaxing. This may seem the same for most people who are not in the industry but once you are already part of it or is an avid client of massage therapy, you will know the difference.

A massage therapist can do all the right strokes to the letter but will not give comfort to the client. Some, on the other hand, may not do the conventional strokes but do relaxes the client. Some people's hands naturally have a strong firm grip but others have a stronger grip that can be hurtful to the muscles.

2. Gift of Gab
Another way to charm your clients into giving you really big tips is the gift of talk. Actually, when you think about it the best way to talk to your clients while massaging them is to listen. Let them talk to you. Let them tell you about their problems at work and at home. Most people will have something to complain about in their career. After all, they are there in the massage therapy clinic to de-stress aren't they?

This is the main reason why there are a lot of massage therapists who are privy to the deepest and darkest secrets of their clients. You see, when people are in a relaxed setting, they are more prone to speaking about their problems.

This is especially true when they are in the company of strangers who would not really know who they are talking about. They feel that massage therapists are not really part of their world.

3. Gift of patience
Working in a massage therapy clinic will allow you to meet all kinds of people. This may be good if all of them are interesting and affable. But what if they are not? And I assure you, you will come across people who you would just like to forget because of their attitude and their personalities.

In this kind of job, you need to have the patience of a saint especially when you have a client who is obviously so wrong but is still insisting that they are right. And the worst thing is, you can't argue because as they say, the customer is always right. You fight with them, you lose your job. That's the way the game is played.

Just like the fan stroke movement with discussed in an earlier article, this particular massage therapy movement is designed to not apply to much pressure to the person's body. Instead it is there to help them feel more relaxed and prepare them for when you carry out the movements which are used to manipulate the much deeper muscles in the body. With the circular hand movement you will need to make semi circular or circular motions on the person's body. Although this move is simple to carry out it is important that you alternate the direction in which the circular motion is done. This feels good to the person who is having the massage as the points where pressure is being applied on their body is very subtly changing when the movement is carried out. But below are the steps to ensure that you carry out the circular hand movements correctly during a massage therapy session.

Step 1
You first need to place the flat part of your right hand on the lower part of the person's back and it should be at right angles to their spine. This will then place your fingers along the left side of their body.

Step 2
You now need to move this hand in a counter clockwise direction (so that it is moving towards the person's spine), very slowly whilst pressing down using a semi circular movement. It is important however that you do not turn your hands and this will ensure that your fingers are pointing the same direction as the movement is made.

Step 3
Once you have found that you right hand has moved over a few inches, you need to very quickly and as effortlessly as possible replace it with the left one. The best way to achieve this is by placing the left hand on to the edge of the right and this will cause it to rest very lightly on the right hand and also on the body. Once the left hand is in the right position you can then remove the right one and the left hand is then over to take over from where the right one was. You then need to carry out the same movement with the left hand as you did with the right and after it has moved about 2 inches you then need to replace it with your right hand once more.

Step 4
When carrying out the above movements you should do them slowly and as firmly as well as smoothly as you possibly can. Also by the time you have completed the movement using both hands, your left one should now be on the left side of the person's body still at right angles to their spine. Plus the hand should have now reached a position which is about half way up their back.

You should then carry on doing this movement until you have covered all areas of the person's back. Unfortunately unlike the other kinds of hand movements used during massage therapy this is not one of the most versatile and so can only be used on a few areas of the body, mainly the back, stomach, upper part of the chest and a person's shoulders. But after getting use to using the circular hand movement during a massage therapy session you should be able to vary the speed at which you carry it out.

Article Source : Sports Massage

Allison Thompson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Free Credit Report Score, Tarot Card and Guide Guitar. Allison Thompson a work from home mum, now living in Spain who has been looking at ways of living a much healthier kind of lifestyle. After years of suffering from problems relating to her back and neck through work as a secretary in the UK she has. Allison Thompson's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.