Without another certification or another 9 pm research rabbit hole.
Join TEAM$49 a month. One client covers it. NBCAAM CE included.
Every new client call carries the same quiet question: will I be able to help this one, or will I have to pass? You take the booking anyway, then spend the evening down a research rabbit hole, hoping you're not missing something important.
When you look for help, the options aren't good.
A dozen confident opinions, and no way to tell who's actually tried any of it.
Going back can feel like confessing you never really learned it the first time.
Expensive, takes months, and only solves part of the problem. You can know ten techniques and still not know what you're looking at, or which one this particular animal needs.
Meanwhile the schedule has gaps, and nobody ever taught you a reliable way to fill them.
You're missing a resource every other clinical profession takes for granted - colleagues you can call.
The cases don't get easier. You get harder to rattle. Here's what that looks like:
I started because of my dog, Fergus. He was hit by a car as a puppy and broke his femur, and I learned massage to keep him comfortable as he aged. I loved the work so much I quit my job to do it full-time.
For years I worked in isolation. I dreaded unfamiliar cases because I might fail them. I relied on word-of-mouth and hoped it would be enough. And because all my energy went to getting clients and second-guessing myself, there was nothing left for going deeper into the work itself.
When I stopped trying to figure it out alone, that reversed. The cases I used to dread became the ones I was most curious about - not because I suddenly knew everything, but because I had somewhere to take them.
Megan Ayrault had already created Power of Touch. She invited me in, first as an instructor, then to lead TEAM.
A few years ago I had a dog with a bizarre gait - a kind of permanent play-bow I couldn't explain and couldn't shift. I brought her to TEAM. My co-mentor Kim and the acupressure practitioners offered a TCM lens I wouldn't have found on my own: the Gallbladder meridian running directly under the stuck scapula. That reframe merged with what I was already trying fascially, and an intractable case became tractable.
I've since developed techniques that would let me address that pattern differently. But I wouldn't have gotten there without this group. We built TEAM because we needed it - and still do.
- Lisa
The mentorship where you bring the case on your table, and we reason it through with you, then point you to the exact training for what comes next.
A case that isn't responding, a client you can't quite read, a pricing decision you've been avoiding. Post it in the forum, or bring it to the monthly call.
Lisa Ruthig, Kim Bauer, and Megan Ayrault - three practitioners with decades of combined clinical experience in small animal and equine bodywork. What we'd look at, what we'd rule out, what we'd try first and why.
We point you to the lesson that teaches whatever we just recommended - a technique, an assessment approach, a marketing strategy. Short and practical, because they exist for exactly this purpose.
You learn what you need when you have a reason to need it, instead of working through a curriculum and hoping it applies someday.
Some months you won't need any of it. The months you do, it changes how the whole week goes.
First month $7 with code TEAMTRIAL, then $49/month. Cancel any time.
First year $448 with code TEAMTRIAL - the same $7 first month, applied to annual.
Skills, case help, and business training with one aim: outcomes owners can see - and the rebooks and referrals that follow.
Advanced skills one month, business or practitioner development another. Concise and practical - fascial work, neurovascular release, trigger point therapy, energy work, assessment - plus getting clients, keeping them, tracking finances, staying legally compliant, and showing up in AI search.
Once a month the three of us get on Zoom with members for live case review and open Q&A. Bring whatever's on your mind. Calls are recorded if you can't make it live.
Ask a question before a tricky session, or share a case you're still thinking about. Lisa, Kim, and Megan check in regularly, and members bring their own years of experience.
Over 40 hours of trainings, case-study deep dives, and recorded coaching - more than two full NBCAAM renewals' worth of CE, ready when a case sends you looking.
Everything here - the calls, the forum, the trainings - has the same three people behind it.
LMT, Zero Balancing Practitioner, LAMT/SAMT. Founder of Power of Touch, licensed massage therapist for people and animals, with extensive training across massage, bodywork, and energy work.
NCAAP, LAMT, SAMT, Past Chair of NBCAAM. A well-known expert and educator in animal acupressure and massage since 1999, former Lead Instructor for Tallgrass Animal Acupressure Institute. Bring her any case and she'll have acupoints for it - she's been part of TEAM from the beginning.
SAMP/EMP, BS Biotechnology, Past Chair of NBCAAM. Instructor at Animal Bodywork Academy of New England and former Director of Animal Programs for Bancroft School of Massage. 17 years of practice with a focus on neurological and chronic cases - teaching nerve-focused techniques and the reasoning behind them.
You won't be handed 40 hours of content and left to find your own way in. When you join, a short path - about 20 minutes a week - starts with one question: where is your practice right now? From there it walks you to your first answered question in the forum, a first training picked for your stage and species, and your first coaching call.
Session notes are the part of this work nobody loves. The app cuts them to a fraction of the time - tap through your techniques, draw in color on a dog, horse, or cat, then email the summary out or save it to your files.
We built it for members who use TEAM, so that's how you get it: finishing your first-30-days path earns it. Use the library, and the library pays you back.
The Plan & Assess module (five trainings on interview, palpation, posture, and pain assessment - 2.5 hours), the Client Attraction Workshops (the core method from The Consistent Clients Method, a $500 course), Get Found on Google (Google Business Profile setup and optimization), and the First Client Checklist - if you're certified but haven't started your practice yet, this is the path from certification to first paying client.
Because you're coming to TEAM through Beyond The Muscle, joining now brings two things nobody else gets:
Tap through your techniques, draw in color on a dog, horse, or cat, and turn your session into a clean PDF for your records or the guardian. (Total transparency: members earn this by completing their first-30-days path - this deal simply hands it to you on day one.)
Get set up on the notes app together, bring a case privately, or map your fastest first wins inside TEAM. Book it within your first 30 days.
TEAM is open all year round - the bonuses are the part with a shelf life. The email that brought you here has your deadline.
TEAM is $49 a month - less than most practitioners charge for a single session. One client a month covers it.
$49/mo
Check it against your own rate card. A single client each month pays for your membership - everything after that is margin.
2+ renewals
Standalone CE courses often run $200-900 or more each. The library alone holds more than two NBCAAM renewals' worth of approved credit, with a new training added every month.
$500
The Client Attraction Workshops that come with joining are pulled straight from The Consistent Clients Method - a course we offer at $500.
What TEAM mostly replaces isn't for sale anywhere - there's no booking page for an hour of case reasoning with three practitioners who've spent decades on dogs and horses. We could put a dollar value on every piece, but you'd have no way to check our numbers. So run the math on the things you can check. If you bring TEAM even a few cases and decisions a year, it pays for itself. The rest of the year, it's the way you keep a good mechanic's number.
Everything above - the calls, the forum, the library, the CE - for your first full month, for $7. Use the code TEAMTRIAL at checkout. Cancel any time, and the 30-day guarantee still applies.
Try TEAM for $7"If I have a difficult or unusual case, I know I have experts 'on call' to help me. I've also learned lots of techniques from the monthly lessons that I've been able to use in my sessions."
Wendy van Vliet, La Lune Animal Massage
"When I joined, I was able to ask all my questions, hear other practitioners' experiences, add to my knowledge, and just have a few laughs. I come away from our meetings with more confidence, new ideas, and a feeling of being supported. I look forward to it every month."
Lori Alexander
"Being able to ask questions (no matter how 'silly') in a safe space, learn different techniques, ask for advice prior to seeing a client, learning business skills... I have felt very supported."
Denise Rettie
"The combined wealth of knowledge and experience of Megan, Lisa, and Kim is immeasurably helpful to me in many ways; from crossing the bridge from a robust training program to building a successful practice, offering solutions for difficult or unique cases, offering practical business solutions, instilling confidence."
Jaan Koninendyke-Sharpe
Most memberships for animal bodyworkers are one of two things. Some are built around clinical reasoning - good case discussion, but no technique training and no business help, so you leave knowing what to think and still have to find the how-to somewhere else. Others are content libraries - long trainings and expert interviews by the hour, where finding the piece that applies to Tuesday's appointment is a job, and the grounding runs more toward tradition than mechanism.
TEAM is built around the connection between those two. You bring the case, we reason it through together, and you leave with the short training that teaches what we just recommended. Skills, business, and clinical reasoning in one membership, because your practice doesn't have those problems separately.
On the science: we're a mix, and we're upfront about it. The anatomy and physiology of fascial work and trigger point therapy sit next to acupressure and energy work, taught by practitioners who use them on real cases. What holds it together is mechanism and outcomes - why something works, when to reach for it, and how to tell whether it's helping.
Dive in when you have time, reach for the forum when something comes up, show up to the coaching call when you have something worth talking through.
First month $7 with code TEAMTRIAL, then $49/month. Cancel any time.
First year $448 with code TEAMTRIAL - the same $7 first month, applied to annual.
Join, start your first-30-days path, bring us a case. If TEAM isn't right for you in your first 30 days, write to us and we'll refund your payment - monthly or annual, no hoops. After that, cancel any time and keep access through the period you've paid for.
Questions? Write to us any time. Terms and conditions
Your first month has a short guided path - about 20 minutes a week. After that, TEAM is on-demand: reach for the forum when a case comes up, join the monthly call when you have something worth talking through, watch a training when you need the technique. Calls are recorded, and the trainings are deliberately short.
No - this is one of the best times to join. The First Client Checklist walks you from certification to your first paying client, and your first-30-days path is matched to where your practice actually is. You'll also be building relationships with practitioners a few steps ahead of you.
Yes. Power of Touch is an approved NBCAAM CE provider, and the library already holds more than two full renewals' worth of credit, with a new training added every month. TEAM trainings carry the Skills/General split renewals require, and certificates show both. To earn credit for a lesson, complete both action steps attached to it - then request your certificate and we'll prepare it from your progress.
Every call is recorded, and the recordings live in the library. Plenty of members rarely attend live - they email their questions for the call or bring them to the forum instead, where Lisa, Kim, and Megan check in regularly. Attending live is the richer version, but it isn't required to get value.
TEAM is modality-mixed on purpose. Massage, acupressure, fascial work, and energy work sit side by side, taught by practitioners who use them - Kim brings the acupressure and TCM lens, Lisa the nerve-focused and fascial work, Megan the energy work and Zero Balancing. Case discussions regularly draw on more than one lens, which is often where the answer comes from.
Dogs and horses are the focus of the trainings and case work. Much of the reasoning and business material applies to any species you see, and the TEAM Notes App covers dogs, horses, and cats.
You can cancel any time and keep access through your paid period. If you'd like your CE certificates, it's easiest to request them before you go - after that we can still pull your progress, but it takes us longer.
Courses - ours included - teach a skill up front and hope it applies later. TEAM starts from the case in front of you: you bring the case or the business question, we reason it through with you, and you leave with the short training that covers it.
You've probably got a case on your schedule right now that you're not sure about. That's the moment this is for.
Join TEAM