Reflections of Health Massage School Podcast

Healing Hands and New Horizons: Exploring Massage Therapy Education

• Tammy Cox • Episode 1

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Meet the Host: Tammy J. Cox, Director of Reflections of Health School of Massage, Inc.

Ready to transform your future with your own two hands? Tammy Cox, Director of Reflections of Health School of Massage, reveals how a seven-month education program can launch you into a career earning $65-70 per hour with unmatched flexibility and independence.

After escaping her own career frustrations as a single mother of six, Tammy now guides others toward professional transformation through massage therapy education. The school's innovative scheduling—offering weekend, weekday, and weeknight programs—makes certification accessible regardless of your current life commitments. Each program delivers the 22 weekly hours of instruction needed to prepare for licensing exams while accommodating students' diverse needs.

What sets massage therapy apart is its remarkable versatility. Once licensed, therapists can specialize in sports massage, medical applications, lymphatic drainage, oncology support, geriatric care, or even infant massage. "We believe that massage therapy should begin at birth and go all the way to end of life," Tammy explains, highlighting the profession's lifelong relevance. With continuing education requirements of just 24 hours every two years in Tennessee, maintaining your credentials is manageable while continually expanding your expertise.

Visit ReflectionsOfHealth.com or call 423-804-3067 to schedule your consultation today!

To learn more about Reflections of Health School of Massage, Inc. visit:
https://www.ReflectionsofHealth.com
Reflections of Health School of Massage, Inc.
1604 Lamons Ln, Ste 207a
Johnson City, TN 37604
423-804-3067

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Reflections of Health Massage School Podcast, where healing hands become powerful careers. Whether you're looking to escape the 9-to-5 grind, earn extra income during college or finally get paid for all those family shoulder rubs, massage therapy could be your next big move. Join us as we explore the power of touch, the path to purpose, and why starting your journey in massage therapy might be the smartest decision you'll ever make.

Speaker 2:

Welcome everyone. I'm Skip Monty, co-host and producer here in the studio with Ms Tammy Cox, Director of Reflections of Health School of Massage. Tammy, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

It's going great, skip, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're thrilled to have you here and I'm very curious to learn all about what you do. So over the years, Tammy, you've grown quite a business. Quite a few of our listeners may not be familiar with your full journey, so let's take it from the top. Could you share a little background about your company and about what you do?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. Reflections of Health School and Massage has been in Johnson City since 2004. I actually attended in 2010. We are here to educate people, to let them know what they need to know to pass the MBLEX and that is the National State Board test, and then from there you go to apply for your licensure and start working. But we're here to educate people in the massage therapy field and get the background that they need to know.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Great. How long does it take to complete certification?

Speaker 3:

We have three separate programs. Actually. We have a weekend, a weekday and a weeknight, and that gives everybody a variety of what they can choose from, depending upon what's going on in their life and their schedule. The programs are approximately 30 weeks or seven months.

Speaker 2:

Seven months, and so I assume that if you do the weekend program that it's more intense. I guess it's condensed.

Speaker 3:

It's a little more condensed. You've got three days versus four days. The weekday and the weeknight programs are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then the weekend is Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So there's still 22 hours in the weekday or weeknight. So it's 22 hours a week or weekend. Oh, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it does, and that's super convenient for because you know, people I'm sure have day jobs that they're trying to get out of to be able to you know, and a lot of people are coming to school for that very reason.

Speaker 3:

They're tired of the nine to five working for someone else. You can become an independent contractor as a massage therapist. It's helped a lot of people out of places that they just didn't want to be anymore.

Speaker 2:

Well, are there different types?

Speaker 3:

of massage that you train for? Well, there is. There's different avenues that you can go down in this field. After you graduate, of course, you take CEs and get your license. That continuing education will be whatever you choose. It could be sports massage, medical massage. You could study lymphatic massage, oncology massage, geriatric massage. We even have infant massage because we believe that the massage therapy should begin at birth and go all the way to end of life. At birth and go all the way to end of life. So it has so many benefits from birth to end of life with the body that we'll go into in another podcast, maybe talking about the benefits. Okay, Awesome.

Speaker 2:

So the continuing education. What are the requirements? You have to do so many of those a year, or every five years.

Speaker 3:

Well, it's different in the different states. Here in Tennessee, we have to have 24 hours of continuing education every two years. Four of them consist of two hours of law and two hours of ethics for massage therapy. The rest of it you can choose whatever you want. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:

So that's, not bad.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's not bad.

Speaker 2:

Wow, very cool. Well, tammy, when you're not busy running a school, what do you like to do for fun? Do you have any hobbies?

Speaker 3:

Well, I do have hobbies, but I'm usually here at school With the programs going on. It seems like it's seven days a week. But that's okay because I love what I do and I have a passion of helping people and I had the opportunity to get out of a spot. You know, I had six children and a single mom. I needed a job. I didn't know what I wanted to do other than you know, I was interested in massage. I have been all my life. So I found the school here in Johnson City and at that time John and Karen Kessner owned it. They're the founders.

Speaker 3:

It was an investment in myself because when I came in to talk to John I thought, wow, that's a lot of money. But you've got to look at it this way it may be a lot of money, but if you put that money toward yourself and you say, hey, I'm worth this and I can do this and it's not going to take that long. You know, seven months is a short span when you're going for an education, to get a license. But I made that choice and I'm so glad that I did because I did my own schedule. You know, I could work around the kids and when I needed to have that job there made the income that I needed to make to support the family.

Speaker 3:

So it's something that if you've got a job, you can do on the side, or you can let this be your main job. Or you can let this be your main job. Let's say you're in high school and you're getting ready to graduate and you don't know what you wanna do. You just don't know if you wanna go to college, what field that you want to work in. If you've ever considered massage therapy, within seven months you could graduate here, get you a job, start having the income and then if you decide that you want to go to college, then you've got that income and on average you're making $65 to $70 an hour as an independent contractor. So you could take those funds and pay for your college.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know I'm sure another option too is eventually, if you enjoy massage as much as you do, that maybe opening your own studio or you know that's correct.

Speaker 3:

You have those options. Someone else, because there's so many people as a school. People call in and say, tammy, do you have any graduates? Because we're in desperate need of a massage therapist. We have so many people calling here looking for therapists and the demand is there. We just need more therapists out there working. So I was saying is that a lot of people call here asking if we have a therapist and as a school we can't actually place people. We can put it on our website, which we do. We have job listings on our website and right now there's about 20 different people, whether it's a chiropractor, a spa, you know, just someone with their own business needing help because they're overworked and they can't fulfill the demand that's coming in. They need somebody to help them out with their own business. The jobs are there. We just want to help people get the education to become licensed.

Speaker 2:

There you go. Well, you kind of answered this already, but you're extremely busy. It's like you said, seems like it's seven days a week. I'm sure it is, but very rewarding as based on what you're saying. So you're incredibly busy, but, in your own words, why are you doing this?

Speaker 3:

because I want to help people, because it helped me out of a spot and I enjoyed being a massage therapist. So many people would come to me and after the massage it's like wow, I feel so much better and that really helped me to enjoy that portion of the job. But then, once I became an owner and director of the school, I see that I can help people that were in spots financially or just wanted something different with their life. So I'm here to help others become what they want to be.

Speaker 2:

Very cool and even better. I mean, you're not only helping people, but you're helping people to help people.

Speaker 3:

Yes. That's very cool and that's the joy of it.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Well, tammy, can't tell you how much I've enjoyed talking with you today, and we'll catch you in the next episode where we'll dive into some frequently asked questions about massage. That sounds great, all right? Well, tammy, thanks so much and hope you have a great rest of the day.

Speaker 1:

Thank you Think you've got the touch, let's make it official. Call or text 423-804-3067 to schedule your tour and consultation or visit. Reflections of healthcom. Your future could be just one massage away and, let's be honest, being everyone's favorite stress reliever isn't a bad gig.