Professional Massage Academy Begins Fall Classes [VIDEO]

WAITE PARK -- A new massage therapy school is finally settled into their space in Waite Park.

The Professional Message Academy (PMA) is inside the Marketplace Shopping Center.  Jason Kelly is the lead instructor at the school. He says 100 of the 550 hours students are required to complete is hands-on work.

"Book stuff is great to take a test. But at the end of the day, a book doesn't do a massage, you have to be good at it with your hands-on."

Kelly says what sets PMA apart from other schools is it's focused on small class sizes. Classes never exceed 16 students.

"You're not wasting your money on buying 50 books, you're not going to not have access to your instructors. You're not going to have 15 instructors trying to teach you 12 different things. It's a very small, hands-on, personal type setting."

Kelly has been in the massage therapy field for 13 years. He says PMA teaches three main styles of massage, Swedish, deep tissue and sports massage.

Swedish is the more relaxing, soft massage, deep tissue is used to help with aches and pains and sports massage is to help with blood flow and loosen muscles.

As students continue to learn, Kelly says they'll be practicing on the public. Coming in January PMA will offer $25 student massages.

"They are going to get a chance to work on the public and that's a big deal because it's under instructor supervision and it just breaks that mold they're like okay yes we get this chance before they go out there and try to do this on their own. We're here kind of like a safety net."

Fall full-time classes started last month. Part-time classes kick off November 13. Meanwhile, the next wave of full-time classes begins March 13.

To get more information on public massages and to enroll in the school, follow the link below.