Practice Sessions, Marketing and Profit

 Practice is a necessity when it comes to polishing up your Thai massage and/or ashiatsu skills to better serve your clients. We believe that serious students need to consider practice sessions as a self-study component to training. Our recommendation is to complete the same number of hours practicing after class as the number of hours spent IN class. For example, if you complete 21 hours of training then the ideal number of practice hours for that course is 21.

We realize that completing and documenting practice sessions is a big commitment of time and resources. One common question students ask is if it’s ok to charge for these practice sessions. The short answer is yes providing your massage license is current and you have met all requirements in your state to practice and charge for massage services. Ethically, however, we disagree with charging for practice sessions UNTIL you’ve gone through the material a few times at a leisurely pace AND are confident that you aren’t going to unintentionally injure anyone or cause any unnecessary harm. How long that takes is ultimately up to you.

Practice Session Strategies

We HIGHLY recommend setting up practice sessions for the days immediately following a class and schedule them at the same time you register for a course.

Remember that the first 3 - 5 practice sessions you document will likely require you to fumble around with the manual and study videos, ask the receiver a lot of questions and maybe not even make it through the entire sequence in a reasonable amount of time. Still do your best to make these first few sessions as close to an actual session as you can yet take a more casual approach in your mind. Perhaps you could offer them to friends, family or work associates as a way to share what you are learning with them without the pressure of payment. As a trade off for a great session you can ask them to leave you an online review or testimonial and make referrals to you for this new service. Also ask them if you could record or take a few pictures of the session that showcase you in action.

Charging for Practice Sessions

The pressure of payment may place internal pressure on the therapist to be perfect during practice or set an unrealistic expectation with clients. This is why we suggest not charging for the first few then charging a lower rate for the rest to clarify the fact that you are still learning. In exchange for the lower rate clients are required to give you more feedback and complete all your documentation forms. You can also ask these clients to send referrals, leave reviews and testimonials and give you a shout out on social media. Let them know that you are on your way to adding this service to your menu as a full price session and that you hope they will book one with you soon!