How many MTs do we have here on the boards? Why did you choose this profession? Has it been good to you? I’m thinking… planning… wondering things right now and I need info. Any regrets getting into MT? Thanks in advance, folks.
I be needin’ info, people… come on. 
Well, I just finished school, my grades haven’t been processed yet (translated: program director isn’t finished dicking around), so I’m a good six weeks out from taking the National exam, then there’s the whole licensing rigamarole…
sorry, can’t help you.
Well, I’m not personally a MT, but one of my friends is.
Positives:
Set own hours
Have own business (if you choose)
Flexability
Work with public
Negatives:
Hard on the body (yours, that is)
Some clients are a pain in the ass - you’re essentially a service provider and the service industry can be a bitch
It can be hard to become established on your own - you may have to start out at a spa or a clinic that will take most of the $$ and pay you a minimal wage ($10/hour, for instance). If you leave they will probably get REALLY cranky if you try to take your clientelle with you.
I think Thea Logica has just finished massage school - perhaps she’ll be along soon…
I took massage classes in New York given by a pretty famous masseur. I don’t want to give his name since I’m not sure that he’d approve. Some of his assistants were professional MT’s. They love the hours, the pay (tax-free income, not that I condone it!) and giving massages. Gripes are people with poor hygiene and people who just are never satisified.
One thing they always said was: If you want to do it professionally, you better enjoy giving massages. Because if you’re doing it just for the money, you will hate it. The standard is a 1-hour massage, and that takes a toll on your body (especially when you have to give them back-to-back).
My brother-in-law used to be a massage therapist, but he eventually started feeling oogy about having people pay him to make them feel good. Also, he felt that the people who really needed massages were the ones who couldn’t afford them. So he became a truck driver.
Thea who?
BTW, from what I’ve heard, if you start in a spa, you should pick your employer very carefully. A lot of hotel/resort spas will work you to death- 8-12 massages a day, five days a week with ten minutes between massages.
Most day spas have easier schedules. They understand that a healty therapist is vital to the client getting the best possible treatment.
One of my instructors owns a spa and is planning to open a new one in January- the building he will be leasing space in is currently under construction. He’s promised me a room. He gives his therapists a really sweet deal. It’s a room rental situation- $225/wk for the room, but he provides the clientele, does all the advertising, etc. All you have to do is provide your own linens, oils, etc. Mandatory three assigned days a week, six hour shifts, twenty minutes between massages, plus one “on call” day. Since the room is yours, if you want to come in on a fifth (or sixth) day and try to pick up some walk in clients.
It’s almost a hybrid between working a job and owning your own business, with the maximum possible number of advantages and the fewest possible number of hassles of each.
OH, and another thing…
Be very, very, very careful about choosing your school. Since the NCTMB exam was instituted in the early '90’s, about a gajillion vo-tech type massage schools have sprung up around the country. They normally have a tuition of about $10,000, and a cozy arrangement with a private bank for a student loan. They also generally have a very slipshod approach to teaching massage. They are mostly geared toward stuffing your head with the info you’ll need to pass the Nat’l exam, but they are very weak on teaching actual technique, various modalities, etc.There were several students there from other states or countries who were experienced in other modalities- one Taiwanese guy was a Shiatsu practioner back home- but whose credentials were not valid in Nevada, so they needed to put in their educational hours and pass the Nat’l to get licensed in this state. If you learned anything more than a very basic rote-memorized Swedish routine, you learned it from them. So these students were being used as instructors, and paying ten grand for the privilege. Also, some of the teachers are very flaky types who are into all sorts of voodoo, and are often more interested in promoting an agenda that has little to do with teaching massage and much to do with trying to sway you toward their own particular “spiritual” beliefs. There are some good schools out there, but they are a slim minority.
I actually started out in one of these schools, dropped out less than a third of the way into the program. They’re after me now for $3700 in tuition, which is more than a third of $10,000. Fortunately, I never actually signed my student loan papers (oversight on their part- administration was a bunch of flaky types), so it will be dischargeable when I file bankruptcy in a couple of weeks…
I ended up going to Community College of Southern Nevada. The program there wasn’t exactly excellent, but it was a damn sight better than the vo-tech school. The total tuition was a bit less than $1700, plus something in the neighborhood of $350 for textbooks. Paid for with a Pell Grant. Which, btw, many of the vo-techs won’t deal with. The finance guy at the school I was at said, “We don’t like the kind of students it attracts”- they actually preferred ignorant high-school dropouts and welfare mothers who had been led to believe that becoming a massage therapist was their ticket to getting off welfare and earning a good living. Of course, they waited until we were well into the program and on the hook for a few grand before they told us how much licensing costs…
The pity of it was, there were students there with real talent who were being shortchanged. One guy was the object of near-worship among his fellow students because he had just awesome hands, but since he was only being taught one particular Swedish routine, he wasn’t going to learn what he needed to know to be the awesome therapist he had it in him to become. Plus the fact that the school has such a bad reputation in the massage/spa community that a certificate from them was almost a guarantee that you would not find a job as a massage threapist at any reputable spa in Las Vegas. Oh, and they lost their accreditation last fall, but didn’t bother to tell the students, so they all thought they were graduating from an accredited school.
So, anyhoo, if there’s a Junior College or Community College in your area with a massage program, I’d go with that. Otherwise, investigate your schools very carefully.