Become A Student

Are you ready to apply to East-West Healing Arts Institute? Just follow these steps:

Download and print this application form.

Complete it and mail it to us with the following.

1. A brief biographical sketch that includes:
   • Why you want to be a massage therapist
   • History of any education or experience in massage or the health field
   • How you currently care for yourself in body, mind, and spirit
   • How you will finance your training
   • Potential impact of attending this school on your personal obligations
2. A letter from a guidance counselor (or teacher) or work supervisor stating you have self-discipline and a positive attitude*
3. A letter from a health professional stating that you are mentally and physically capable of giving and receiving professional massage*
4. A copy of your high school diploma, GED, or college transcript(s)*
5. $100 nonrefundable application fee made out to East-West Healing Arts Institute, Inc.

Mail it to the following address:
East-West Healing Arts Institute, Inc.
6425 Normandy Lane
Madison, WI 53719

*These can be sent directly to us from the individuals or institutions that will provide them for you. They may arrive after you send us your application.

Questions? Send e-mail or call 608-240-1600.

Praise From Our Students

 
Talia Rubiano class of  ‘04

“I learned Western-style massage at another school 4 years ago. I’ve been practicing professionally since then. When I saw how awesome East-West students were, for only being in school a couple of months, I thought, I’d better learn this stuff, ’cause it’s really effective! I get to use my new skills right away on my clientele. They’ve noticed the difference, big time, and they love the combination of East & West. My clients are scheduling more than they used to. Which is very cool.”

Anne Stephenson, Class of ‘02

“I work out of my home and also with a new multimillion dollar spa that’s in the top 5 in the nation. I was a nurse for 20+ years. I’m such a fan of the Eastern arts. I received the best from both worlds, getting the Eastern and Western training. It’s a wide range of understanding. When one thing won’t work, another will. You don’t just decide what clients need. You work together. And the client is giving me something, too. It’s the energy perspective of the Eastern way that makes that possible.”

Brian Blindt, Class of ‘04

“I’ve been involved with athletics my whole life. I want to become a Certified Massage Therapist to use massage for therapeutic purposes, whether it’s for athletes or for rehabilitation. It’s been good for me. I’ve enjoyed the variety of approaches. The things I’ve learned from both the Eastern and Western perspectives. The Eastern has helped me personally in my own health. It will help in my profession when I’m done.”

Kimberly Suoja, Class of ‘04 

“The program is broad-based and flexible. The instructors are very approachable. I’m a nursing assistant. Now I have different ways of helping my clients. To rid them of their anxiety. Just rubbing their hands and feet – I’ve even done a little head massage. I’d like to work with cancer patients. I’d like to learn more about hydrotherapy, the oils, essences, stone therapy, reflexology, and Jin Shin Do.”

Wei, Class of ‘04

“The school is wonderful. Dr. Zhou is the best. That’s why I came here. I wanted to learn the real technique. The students, the teachers, the courses – they are all so good. I don’t know what I like best. I like them all!”

  

Lindy Waites, Class of ‘03              

“I don’t have to hold down a full-time job anymore. I can work part-time and do this part-time. I really enjoyed learning about the Eastern styles. That’s what drew me in. The program is very diverse. It  made me want to keep learning more.”

 

Karen Chisholm, Class of ‘02

“I’m a CranioSacral therapist in private practice. I was doing that before I went to the school, and I needed to get my massage license. I like the school because Eastern philosophy is where my interests lie. I very much enjoyed the Eastern end of it, learning the acupressure. east-West gave me a huge foundation, a diverse foundation for starting a career in massage therapy. From there you can branch out. This school is the best to get started with.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Xiping Zhou, M.D.O.M., L.Ac. – Biography

Dr. Xiping Zhou, M.D.O.M., L.Ac., is the founder and president of the East-West Healing Arts Institute, located in Madison, Wisconsin. East-West Healing Arts Institute is a school for therapeutic massage integrating Western and Eastern massage modalities.

Dr. Zhou is a Medical Doctor of Oriental Medicine and Licensed Acupuncturist with a Bachelor of Science in Medicine. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Medicine from HeiLongJiang University in the Peoples’ Republic of China, where he graduated at the top of his class. The degree he earned there licensed him as a doctor of both mainstream Western medicine (in China) and TCM. For several years, Dr. Zhou was on staff at the affiliated hospital of the HeiLongJiang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He specialized in both individualized treatment and in diagnosis in herbs, acupuncture, and TuiNa (Chinese medical massage).

In July 1993, while serving as chief physician and full professor at HeiLongJiang Medical College, Dr. Zhou was asked to visit the United States to speak at the National Conference of Acupuncture about his success treating stroke patients with paralysis. From 1994 to 2000, he taught acupuncture and Chinese medicine at the Midwest College for the Study of Oriental Medicine in Racine, Wis.

Dr. Zhou established his private practice in Madison and Milwaukee in 1996. In 1999, he joined the staff of Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee, becoming one of the very first acupuncturists on staff at any Wisconsin hospital.

In nearly a quarter-century of practicing the Chinese healing arts, Dr. Zhou has helped thousands of people with a wide variety of physical and psychological illnesses and problems through his comprehensive healing program incorporating acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and therapeutic Chinese massage. His accomplishments have been recognized in several newspaper and magazine articles over the years, including feature articles in Isthmus, Madison’s weekly newspaper, Wisconsin State Journal, Capital Times, and the national trade publication Massage & Bodywork.

Dr. Zhou is also a guest lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and teaches classes through University of Wisconsin-Madison Mini Courses.

Group 24 Classes Start – Oct. 30, 2010!

Start your new exciting career in Massage Therapy! Group 24 classes starting October 30, 2010! You will be taught hands on at our campus & theory online. Apply today & begin your new holistic massage therapist career!

Massage Techniques

Swedish

A slightly vigorous and very relaxing therapeutic massage using various strokes, usually with lubrication.

Acupressure

The use of finger pressure on acupuncture or acupressure points to release energy blockages and promote balance.

TuiNa

Also known as Traditional Chinese Medical Massage, TuiNa applies different massage techniques to work on specific ailments and promote balance and circulation of Qi (vital energy).

Shiatsu

Japanese form of massage where pressure is applied to certain areas of the body or acupressure points to improve circulation.

Trigger Point Therapy

Sustained pressure, ice massage and muscle stretching on trigger point areas.

Deep Tissue

Deep compression and lengthening strokes with knuckles, elbows, fist and palms for relief of myofascial adhesions.

Reflexology

Specific hand and finger techniques to work reflexes in the feet which correspond to other parts of the body.

Craniosacral

Craniosacral therapy uses a light touch to help eliminate the negative effects of stress, strengthen the body’s resistance to disease, improve the functioning of the central nervous system and enhance health overall. It has been used successfully on many health problems such as headaches, neck and back pain and chronic fatigue.

Polarity

The art and science of affecting the electromagnetic system in specific patterns of flow.

What is TuiNa?

Eastern massage techniques have been successfully used to counter disharmony and restore balance to the body for thousands of years. Chinese medical massage, or TuiNa, is one of several such therapies you will learn at the East-West Healing Arts Institute and serves as the cornerstone of our Eastern Massage program.

Originally a Chinese folk medicine, TuiNa is one of the first documented massage techniques in the world, referenced in the seminal work of Chinese healing philosophy, The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, more than 2500 years ago.

Throughout several millennia, TuiNa has co-evolved with other Asian techniques and Chinese medical philosophy itself. Many of its current techniques involve specific energy points and meridians, and the manipulations necessary to their efficacious treatment. In the sixth century B.C., a Japanese technique called AnMo came to China by way of the Korean peninsula and was incorporated into TuiNa. Many texts in China and the United States still refer to TuiNa as AnMo.

Today, specialized degrees in TuiNa are awarded to doctorate students of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Such a degree can take ten years to complete. These TuiNa doctors work in TCM hospitals with others who specialize in acupuncture and herbs to provide a unique form of holistic health care.

Although gaining popularity and esteem, TuiNa still remains largely undiscovered and unutilized in the West. Those who are familiar with its techniques and benefits will find themselves better able to provide massage therapy to a variety of clients for a variety of therapeutic reasons. Students of TuiNa and other Asian therapies are able to combine what they know about Western science and massage to synthesize a new understanding of massage therapy. The demand for TuiNa and other Asian therapies is continuing to increase rapidly in America.

Massage For Long Term Pain

Massage significantly improved self-rated health, mental energy and muscle pain in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain, according to a recent study.

“A Randomized Clinical Trial of the Treatment Effects of Massage Compared to Relaxation Tape Recordings on Diffuse Long-Term Pain” was conducted by staff at the Uppsala University Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, in Uppsala, Sweden.

One-hundred-seventeen subjects with long-term, diffuse (spread out) musculoskeletal pain participated in the study. Each subject had pain that had lasted for at least three months and was not caused by a specific disease or condition.

Participants were randomized to either a massage or relaxation group. Subjects in the massage group received anywhere from six to 10 massages, each lasting 30 minutes. Subjects received the massages one to three times per week. Participants received an average of seven massages. One person administered all massages, and each session was adjusted to meet subjects’ individual pain thresholds.

Subjects in the relaxation group listened to a relaxation tape twice a week for five weeks. The tape instructed them to tense and relax the muscle groups and breathe slowly and regularly. Questionnaires regarding the subjects’ age, gender, smoking habits, country of birth, marital status and profession were filled out before, immediately after and three months following the study. A self-rated health questionnaire and rating scales for mental energy and muscle pain were also administered at these times.

Results of the study showed that, during treatment, there was a significant improvement in self-rated health, mental energy and muscle pain for subjects in the massage group as compared to those in the relaxation group.

“For all three outcome measures, massage was significantly more effective during treatment, even after controlling for other possible factors,” state the study’s authors.

However, at the three-month follow-up evaluation these improved scores had reverted back to their initial levels.

“This lack of long-term benefits could be due to the short treatment period or treatments such as these do not address the underlying causes of pain,” state the study’s authors. “Future studies of long-term pain should include longer treatment periods and post-treatment follow-up.”

- Source: Uppsala University Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, in Uppsala, Sweden. Authors: Dan Hasson, Bengt Arentz, Lena Jelveus and Bo Edelstam. Originally published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 2004, Vol. 73, pp. 17-24.

History of Massage

The history of therapeutic massage in Western civilization goes back to the roots of Western medicine in ancient Greece. Today we usually think of Western medicine as not being holistic in its philosophy and approach, but it was not always that way.

In the 5th century B.C.E. in Greece, Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, said, “A physician must be experienced in many things but assuredly also in rubbing.” He said that massage — along with fresh air, good food, baths, music, rest, and visits to friends — is key to treating disease.

Aesculapius also promoted massage, in conjunction with herbs, diet, relaxation, and hydrotherapy. Aesculapius was another 5th century B.C.E. healer in Greece who was pivotal in the development of Western medicine.

You might not recognize his name, but you’re bound to be familiar with the symbol of Aesculapius: two serpents coiled around a staff, the symbol of modern Western medicine. This image is related to the ancient yogic conception of kundalini, the energy coiled at the base of the spine that rises upward through the body with meditation and yogic practic, visualized as a serpent. If you’ve seen a picture of the body’s seven chakras connected by a spiral or a double spiral, you’ve seen the diagram that prefigured the staff of modern Western medicine.

Sweden’s Henrik Ling (1776-1839) is considered the father of modern Western massage. Ling said, “We ought not to consider the organs of the body as the lifeless forms of a mechanical mass, but as the living, active instruments of the soul.” He was speaking during the heyday of the Industrial Revolution, however, so he was going directly against the mainstream by saying so. At this time, humans were discovering the incredible power and versatility of engine-driven machines, like the locomotive train and manudacturing equipment.

Seeing the human body as a marvelously complex machine, fueled by food instead of coal, seemed like a great advance at the time. But such thinking only widened the gap perceived between mind and body, not to mention spirit, that had begun to develop in Western thinking shortly after the days of Hippocrates and Aesculapius.

Still, many were attracted to Ling’s regimen of massage and gymnastics, which was rooted in his understanding of Western physiology, His system, known as Swedish Massage, spread from Sweden over the course of the 19th century into the European continent and America.

Ling based his regimen on what he learned about the ancient healing modalities of China, Rome, Greece, and Egypt.

In China, the history of massage is as old as the written history of China itself. The earliest writing found in China, which dates from 1400 B.C.E., discusses massage, acupuncture, and moxa (the burning of herbs for therapeutic purposes).

Traditional Chinese Medicine, a holistic system of healing modalities including dietary therapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and exercise, has always included massage, which since 800 C.E. has been known as “TuiNa” (literally, “push and grasp”).

Today TuiNa is increasingly popular in the West, as people turn to massage for serious therapeutic work, as well as for pleasure. Through much of the 20th century, massage in the West was mainly seen as a luxury — for feeling pampered and relaxed (Of course, relaxation is itself deeply therapeutic, but this was the mainstream view.), a diversion for the wealthy. As natural healing and holistic approaches caught on over the latter half of the twentieth century, more and more people realized how much could be accomplished with the healing touch.

Today, it is widely recognized that therapeutic massage has something to offer just about everyone, from infants to the elderly, from athletes maximizing their performance or nursing hurt muscles back to health to those in hospice care who benefit from pain relief and increased range of movement that bodywork can bring. Children, pregnant women, manual laborers, office workers — indeed everyone regardless of age or physical condition — can benefit from massage. As this realization has reached critical mass, the career potential for massage therapists has exploded, and opportunities to practice massage continue to grow.