How Well Do We Remember Our CEU’s?

Most massage therapists take continuing education classes, our beloved CEU’s. They usually start with a bit of lecture, some demonstration, a bit of practice. Then break for lunch. Back for a bit of talk, a bit more practice, and it is a wrap.

I am thinking I learned a lot in those classes, I usually take about 20 hours or so a year, and heck, I must have learned some good stuff. Or did I?

At school, we got the same deal but with a lot more practice during, after and then at the start of the next class. We practiced more, got yelled at a bit, then take a practical test. I’m wondering if the extra practice review and testing made us learn more and with better retention.

I have to admit, after a Chinese food lunch, no one in my muscle skeletal ceu class looked like they would remember what they practiced. There’s a lot of shuffling on and off the tables and there are always a few participants who are showing their own stuff during the practice stuff instead of trying to imitate the teacher. Or something happens in the class that makes it memorable, but not its subject matter. For instance, one fellow in my forearm class had scouring-pad body hair. Tough on my forearms but nothing like what his forearms felt like during my turn. Talk about a body scrub!

Oh, well.

When I was in school, I would try to practice again as soon as I got home from class. It was a good 30-minute drive home, and I would run in to the house and practice on the cat, convinced one more run-through would improve the “memory in my hands.”  One happy little Tommy cat, I must say. Then I graduated. For months Tommy would flop on his side on the couch the moment the key turned in the door. He would look at me long time.

I flipped through my CEUs recently while renewing national boards, and I realized I have the brain of a feeble hamster. I learned in Thai massage class that I hated massage on the floor and might one day need a hip implant. Snorting up blinded samples in an aromatherapy class gave me a floor-dropping migraine. I worked in a plasticized cadaver class with a psychic lady who told me to eat mangoes. At the start of a lymph class, the teacher admitted to having never taken a lymph class. I got to work with one fellow in a shoulder sideline class who I swear wore Richard Simmons gym wear.

Wait a minute, where is the fine anatomy, the finesse of positioning, the goody inside stuff that we paid for?
Frankly, I have no idea. I think I am doing things I learned in class, but I have no idea if the teacher would recognize it if demonstrated. Trouble with a lot of classes, there is no time for review and re-practice under the watchful eye of a teacher. I could be doing MFR of the intracostals, or I could be playing chopsticks on a toy piano.

Well, perhaps. I try to get a practice in with another therapist as soon as I finish a class. I would rather find out from a test-body therapist how something feels than experiment on a client. And I have to assume I have some clue to basic massage techniques as they apply to different areas of the body. And if it is intricate and I don’t think I have it, I don’t do it on clients.

I think procedural doctors must have this quandary, too, when they take a CEU class. Is a weekend in Vegas class watching surgery and doing it on cadaver or animal parts enough training? Would I get a nose job from that doctor? Perhaps the doctors should give each other nose jobs first. But I digress....

P.S. Find Touch now has a CEU board - check it out if you haven't already.