Why Bamboo?

Massage and bodywork is a fascinating and highly engaging profession. Where else do you have the opportunity to engage with such a wide segment of the population, all while simultaneously helping your clients feel better in their daily lives? While massage is sometimes demanding, there’s no question: it’s a highly rewarding profession.

When you first start out on the path to become a professional practitioner, you enroll in a massage therapy program. As part of this program, you learn all that you can about massage in a relatively short period of time. Of course, it’s not just therapeutic techniques and applications that you encounter in your courses. In addition to massage and bodywork-specific topics, you also spend a considerable amount of time on pathophysiology, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, kinesiology, and a number of other scientific subjects. At the same time, you delve into what’s involved in running a small business and managing a massage practice. All in all, it’s a considerable amount of information to assimilate, digest, and eventually master: and you have to do it all in the span of months, not years.

Eventually, the day comes when you finally graduate. After devoting all of your time to absorbing the information presented to you from week to week, you’re ready to go out into the world and practice massage.

There’s only one thing standing between you and your career as a massage therapist: the Massage and Bodywork Licensing Examination (MBLEx). Before you can start your practice, you need to become licensed in your state. And in the vast majority of states, the MBLEx is your ticket to licensure.

Unfortunately, passing the MBLEx is different from what you’ve encountered in previous months as part of your massage therapy program. Sure, the material is similar: after all, the MBLEx test is meant to verify what you’ve learned as part of your massage therapy program. But there’s a big difference between what you’ve been doing in school, and what you’ll need to do in order to pass the MBLEx.

As part of your course of MBLEx study, you’ve been interacting with your teachers day in and day out, working with fellow students, engaging in hands-on learning, and eventually taking various types of tests to gauge your understanding.

Meanwhile, the MBLEx exam is a standardized test. By definition, standardized tests are designed to serve a single purpose: determining whether a wide and varied sample of the population is able to perform a shared, central set of tasks. They’re not tailored to your particular learning style, or to your individual background. They’re standardized, by definition.

While standardized tests aren’t perfect, they’re still our best bet for measuring performance and mastery when it comes to something like licensing for massage professionals. And while passing the MBLEx isn’t easy for certain types of learners, it’s certainly achievable for everyone. The key is to know how and what to study.

We’ve put together this guide to help you prepare for the MBLEx. Apart from their time in massage school, many adult learners who are preparing for a standardized test like this one have been out of school for years. It’s easy to feel intimidated by this exam: but remember, there’s no need to be. After reviewing our guide to studying for the MBLEx, you’ll be ready to start studying. And, next thing you know, you’ll be a licensed massage practitioner.

Ready to get started? Read on to learn more.

Have you ever tried studying with a friend for an upcoming exam? Think back to when you were in high school or college. You sat down, ready to go over your notes with them. But as you start to compare notes, something seems off. Pretty soon, you realize that the two of you have processed the information presented in class in an entirely different way. Maybe you took note of everything that was written on the board, and committed a good portion of it to memory. Meanwhile, your study partner has all sorts of things in their notes that the instructor said, but never wrote on the board. Ultimately, the two of you can’t come to an agreement about what information is the most important to study.

This is a classic example of two people with very different learning styles. Depending on your individual style of learning, you’ll absorb different material in different ways. More importantly, though, your learning style has a significant impact on your ability to review and gain mastery of information: some techniques work better for certain learning styles and are a poor match for others.

There are three primary learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

Many people are some combination of the above three learning types: don’t assume that you have to identify as just one of the three. That said, understanding which one applies best to you can help you with your approach to studying for the MBLEx.

If you’re primarily a visual learner, take the time to write out what you’re studying. You might even consider creating outlines, or drawing maps of the information. Create lists, and make use of videos if they’re available.

For auditory learners, try repeating information with your eyes closed and focusing on the sound. Videos can be helpful if there’s an audio component: you’re better off listening to them than simply watching them. Consider finding a study partner, and devote some time to studying out loud with them. If you’re able to explain the material orally to someone else, it’ll help reinforce your understanding of it. Kinesthetic learners should study for small chunks of time. Don’t try to force yourself to sit for too long at once. Consider something tactile as a study aid: flashcards are a great option.