Picture this: You have almost finished your practitioner training, it’s taken you nearly 7 years and was fitted around the births of your two children. You only have one class to do and then you can finally call yourself an Ortho-Bionomy Practitioner and launch your new career. But wait – you still have 3 study groups and 4 consultations to complete! And this is in the days before online study groups and Skype consultations (and very few Australian instructors), so you just have to wait for an instructor to visit your local area before you can finish all these bits and pieces. Then you attend the study groups and consultations and notice how much value the newer students are getting from them, not only from information provided by the instructor but from observing how other practitioners approach client issues, from connecting with other students and practitioners in our community and from observing how instructors work with their clients in real sessions. You wish you had given more priority to these sessions earlier in your training journey!
I have to admit, much of this is of course based on my own experience 😆 and I know many other students are similar. We focus on getting the big chunks of training done with classes and residentials, figuring there will always be time for the little things later, but I suggest it’s time to rethink this approach.
The study groups, consultations and feedback sessions are actually the ‘low-hanging fruit’ in the training program, the easy things to do that actually give more value than it appears on the surface. They are now easy to attend more frequently throughout the year – in the past it was only once or twice a year when a visiting instructor taught a study group or offered sessions when they came to teach a class in Melbourne (for me). Now a number of instructors offer online study groups so you don’t even need to leave home, and they are very low cost per hour of training credit. Consultations give you precious one-to-one time with an instructor to focus on your own questions, and if you do them as feedback sessions working on the instructor, you learn so much about your touch, your embodiment of the principles, your use of techniques and the way you conduct a session that it’s like having a whole class in one hour. If you join with 1 or 2 other students for a group consultation you each get to receive a session from the instructor and observe the other 1 or 2 sessions, while each one only pays for one session and receives 2 or 3 units of training credit. You can imagine how valuable this is if you take this opportunity throughout your training rather than leaving it until the end. It also enriches your learning experience in the classes to have this small group time for focused practice, especially in face-to-face study groups. Instructors are always open to requests for these training sessions both in person and online, so you are no longer restricted by distance and timing as in years past.
One way to be sure to have all your smaller training units done by the time you complete your classes is to set yourself a (flexible!) schedule.
So if you wanted to complete your practitioner training over a 3 year period, you would attend 2x3hr or 4×1.5hr study groups, have 1 feedback session (work on an instructor) and 3 consultation units (could be done singly or in blocks) each year. Or you could complete your 3 feedback sessions in the first 2 years and then do your 3 evaluation sessions (working on 2 or 3 instructors for final assessment as a practitioner) in your 3rd/final year of training.
So visit OBA’s website and check the online and in-person study group offerings this year, and contact a local or visiting instructor to plan a Skye consultation or a group session. The bonus is you can use these towards your OBA continuing education units for this year while you get closer to completing your practitioner training with every session.
See my earlier post “How to complete Ortho-Bionomy practitioner training in 3 years”.
