Over the past 10 years I have been hearing the same thing coming from a high profile school in London and that is, intensive courses dont work.

Over the past 15 years I have run or taught/assessed on courses in the following format, intensive (worked), evening (didnt work), one weekend a month (worked), every weekend (didnt work), one 5 week block per month (worked), so I think I am qualified enough to say that I have tried most formats, and know which have been successful and those which havent.

I seem to remember when I was at school/college/uni that I attended Monday to Friday.

Of course people are entitled to their opinions, but when those opinions are baseless, then how can they be valid? Just because one school has never run intensive courses how can they say they dont work? I suppose it does help to run weekday intensive courses when you have your own premises and dont have to rely on renting space in colleges which obviously becomes a problem in term time, but if that is the case, dont knock what you dont know

People learn in different ways, some need short bursts, some need to take longer, a good teacher can adapt their teaching to accommodate different needs, and a good school can adapt their schedules to accommodate those differing needs too.

Lots of people say you need to go away and practice your skills, true, and my motto is practice practice practice, unfortunately though, if you dont have a tutor there, you dont know if you are doing it right or not, and if you arent, then on a month by month course, you do have to wait weeks to find that out.

So if you are looking at learning any therapies, dont always believe the hype about intensive courses not working, because with the right teachers and the right school, they do.

Couldn't agree more.

As well as being a student in many types of scheduling,
I have taught for many years now both intensive and 1 weekend per month courses in Sports Massage/Sports Therapy.
And in my opinion the intensive courses are better for this type of training.

Students treating hands on day in/day out with support and not going away for long periods feeling like "I don't know what i'm feeling for" (how often do we here this early on?)

Intensive courses give you the opportunnity to get away from daily distractions life brings and focus on what you need to.

Of course there is the argument that longer spaced courses give you more time to practice. But for me it's more time to practice poor technique if you are not getting regular support and also the longer things drag on the more they become a chore and less important.

I see sports massage students (not mine) on a regular basis, who after a 12 month course are saying to me "I don't know what i'm doing".. Is it the teacher? More likely its the long spacing of the course.

Anyway there's my two penny worth

As a Graduate of one of your intensive courses, I can categorically say that it worked for me.

I came in to Sports Therapy for a career change and the one month intensive course allowed me to completely submerge myself in my new role. You promised that I would come away with sufficient skills and confidence to be able to start practicing and you delivered 100%.

It was tough and at times, I felt I needed a little more time to let knowledge sink in a little. However, there was also no opportunity to 'unlearn'. Each day built on previous learning and by the end, it all fell into place.

I know that people have to fit training around other commitments and so aren't always able to take the intensive option. If you can though, I would strongly recommend it.

Dave