Looking Toward 2027: Why I'm Going to Massage School

This is more of a personal note than a typical article. Every so often, I want to tell you where Motive is going and why. We are at one of those points now, so I want to walk you through what is changing, what is not, and what I am working toward over the next couple of years.

The short version is that I am enrolling in massage school, and Motive plans to expand into a much larger space in 2027. Those two decisions are connected, and their reasoning comes from the same place.

Why massage school, after all this time

I have wanted to do this for years. The reason is simple: It is genuinely hard to find a manual therapist who thinks about the body the way we do at Motive. Most of the bodywork available to clients is built around a different model of what tissue work is for. It tends to focus on relaxation, temporary relief, or on chasing the location of the pain rather than on how a person actually moves and loads their body. None of that is wrong on its own. It just rarely connects back to the training in a meaningful way.

And, more importantly, manual inputs like tissue release are rarely followed by movement, which is essential. It’s one thing to make someone’s joint workspace more accessible; it’s another to train it in the same session. I’ll be able to combine them at Motive in a way that makes more sense for you and your health.

So rather than keep hoping to find that alignment somewhere else, I decided to build the skill myself. Manual therapy is not replacing how I coach. It is going to sit on top of it. The assessments, the movement principles, the way we think about capacity and control, all of that stays the same. Hands-on work just gives me another tool to address things that movement alone is slower to resolve.

The real reason: Functional Release

The deeper reason I am going to school is that I have been taking Functional Release courses through Functional Anatomy Seminars, the same organization that produces Functional Range Conditioning and KINSTRETCH. Functional Release, or FR, is the manual therapy side of the same system. It uses the same scientific framework, the same way of thinking about joints and tissue, and the same understanding of how the nervous system controls range of motion. The techniques are designed to do exactly what passive stretching and generic bodywork cannot: create real, lasting change in tissue and immediately train it through active movement.

The catch is that to be certified to practice FR on clients, you need to be a licensed manual therapist. Massage therapy is the most direct route to that license in Texas. School is the credential that allows me to legally apply what I have already been studying.

This is what makes the whole picture click. The assessments we already use, the FRC tools we already coach, and the FR techniques I am learning all come from the same source and speak the same language. A client could come in, get assessed, receive specific manual treatment for a tissue restriction, and then immediately train that range in the same session. That is not something most people can offer, because most manual therapists do not coach mobility the way we do, and most coaches cannot do hands-on work. Putting both under one roof, applied by the same person using the same framework, is genuinely rare.

What this changes in the gym

In the short term, I will be in the gym fewer hours during school. I will be reaching out to people individually about schedules so we can plan around them. Still, nothing will change immediately, and your training will not suffer because I am studying.

A few things are worth saying directly. The team is more than ready to take on more work. Stepping back during school actually creates more room for them to grow into the roles they have been preparing for, which is healthy for the studio. We are also actively hiring and have strong candidates in the pipeline. The studio is in good hands while I am learning.

I also expect to practice on people along the way. Gently. If you are interested in being part of that, I will probably ask.

The bigger move

The other piece of this is that I have been planning a real expansion for a while. I am looking at growing Motive into a space that is at least 3,500 square feet, roughly double our current footprint, with a target of opening in 2027. We have outgrown what we are in. Class sizes, training volume, and the kind of work we want to offer all point to the need for more space.

Adding manual therapy is part of what makes this expansion possible. It gives me a way to keep contributing meaningfully to the studio while creating the financial breathing room a bigger space requires. It also makes the larger space worth building, because it lets us offer more under one roof. Assessments, training, KINSTRETCH, and hands-on work, all in the same place, all built on the same way of thinking about the body.

That is the version of Motive I have been working toward for a long time. A place where a client does not have to assemble their own care from four different providers and hope it all lines up. A place where the people working with you are speaking the same language, looking at the same things, and pulling in the same direction.

What I want you to know

A few things I want to leave you with.

The first is that this does not represent a pivot. Motive is still a coaching gym. Strength, mobility, and long-term joint health are still the core of what we do. Manual therapy is an addition, not a redirection.

The second is that the decision to go to school now is, in part, due to the team being ready for it. I would not have made this call two or three years ago. I am making it now because the people around me have earned my confidence, and I trust them to carry the day-to-day while I am in class.

The third is that I appreciate you. The people who train at Motive, take our classes, and trust us with their bodies are the reason any of this is possible. I don’t take that for granted, and I am building toward something that will serve you better on the other side.

I will share more as things develop. Until then, if you have questions about what any of this means for you specifically, ask me in the gym or send me a note.

Thank you for your support.

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