There are some excellent massage therapy videos to help you with your techniques. There are incredible massage therapists out there who make videos showing how you should stand and move and how to do the different massage strokes that a therapist performs on different parts of the body. These can be ordered online quickly and securely.

Unlike classroom instruction, DVDs can be watched over and over again.

In my opinion, some of the best ones are made by Ralph Stephens. He is an excellent teacher and shows great techniques while talking to the audience like he is speaking with a close friend. His videos are lively and do not put you to sleep at all. I have learned so much from Ralph Stephens. There are other great teachers who make massage therapy videos, but I truly think his style of teaching makes him number one.

Ralph Stephens teaches table massage as well as therapeutic massage. He emphasizes the importance of knowing the muscles. One of the things I like about his videos is the muscle show and tell. The client in his chair has the muscles drawn in different colors on his body exactly where they are located under the skin so we can actually see where they are in relation to each other and to bony landmarks. It is a very helpful idea.

Not only does he show us how to massage each area of the body but how we as massage therapists should stand and move while we are performing chair massage.
I strongly encourage you to try one of his DVD's today. I believe that you will be doing yourself a big favor by enhancing your massage techniques through his teaching.

I just visited his site today and now you can immediately download videos to your computer instead of waiting for them to come in the mail. How cool is that?!! Of course, you can still get the videos on VHS or DVD as well.

There are a lot of useful massage video clips on YouTube that can help you with your massage techniques. Sometimes, seeing a massage stroke or a series of strokes demonstrated one time during massage class is just not enough for you to get the hang of it.

This is the beauty of YouTube If you have a home computer and the internet, you can go to YouTube and type in "massage therapy strokes" and no fewer than 99 helpful instructional videos come up for you to review as of today, March 14, 2009. Of course, this number can change at any time as more and more people upload their videos on this very popular site.

I first heard of YouTube on Good Morning America several years ago. Once a week, they would show clips of some of the funniest videos they found and share them with America. At first, I could not understand what they were saying since I had never heard of it, so I went to the Good Morning America web site and found the story about it one week and clicked on the link. I was amazed at what I found.

If you have never before visited YouTube, I urge you to check out this web site. You can watch clippings of your favorite TV shows, movie scenes, and concerts. There are spoofs, bloopers, craft instructions, pet antics, children's antics, and so much more. Somebody had a great idea and now they are rich. Google bought it from the owner for millions of dollars a few years ago.
YouTube is a tool that anyone can contribute to. Film something funny or make an instructional video and upload it so others can enjoy it.

Some videos are up to 10 minutes long and others are massage video clips lasting under 60 seconds.

You can type in "Swedish massage techniques" and over 1,300 massage video clips and instructional tutorials come up to help you.

Type in "chair massage techniques" and over 1,100 videos come up. YouTube is an amazing tool that is not only entertaining, but instructional and helpful to massage therapy students and beginning practitioners.

Practice typing in different massage phrases and see what videos you can come up with. Best of all, study the massage techniques that you see. They will help you with massage school and with the practical portion of your state exam.