The Thai Healing Massage Academy, based in Thailand’s city of Chiang Mai, has introduced a new and improved system for long distance online massage therapy training.

The academy – which markets itself as the only school in the world that specialises exclusively in online distance video training courses for Thai massage home study – offers one-to-one personal support for students via email and an interactive forum for students to discuss techniques.

“Without getting their questions answered, students won’t be able to continue their training successfully,” said Shama Kern, the Academy’s director.

Kern believes it is important that students should not be overwhelmed with course content at the start of the programme. “Instead the course material is delivered gradually as is standard practice in any real school environment,” Kern added. “This gradual method improves the learning process and helps students to retain the information much better than in the case of DVD-learning, which delivers all of the training at once.”

The school offers two certification programmes in Thai Massage – one for international students and one for US therapists who can get NCBTMB-approved (National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork) continuing education units. The courses have been developed by practitioners and researched over a 15-year period.

Since this is a home study course, the Academy accepts that it cannot physically assess whether students are actually practising the material, therefore the student participation in the online forums for each course are accepted as evidence for involvement in the course. Students enrolled in the US continuing education units programme must answer five test questions per course unit, as required by the NCBTMB in addition to forum participation.

The academy offers 19 courses, all of which are designed for online home study video training. They include: Complete Thai Massage, Thai Back Massage, Thai Rocking Massage, Thai Foot Massage, Thai Hip Therapy Massage, Thai Massage For Sciatica, Heavenly Head Massage, Abdominal Massage Therapy and many more.