NW Washington’s Premier Continuing Education Resource for LMTs
Connect, Learn, Grow
North Cascade Massage Connection (NCMC) is a non-profit, all-volunteer group dedicated to providing continuing education, support, and inspiration to licensed massage therapists in northwestern Washington.
NCMC is the source for networking, support, and continuing education classes for LMTs throughout northwest Washington. We bring high-quality educators, offering a variety of topics, to our monthly CE presentations in Bellingham, WA.
Upcoming NCMC Presentations
Date: September 15, 2026, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Ariel Hubbard LMT MA60531582
Class Info: This introductory course explores how light-touch lymphatic techniques can expand a therapist’s clinical toolkit while reducing physical strain. Participants will review lymphatic anatomy and physiology, along with key indications, contraindications, and the foundational principles of the Lymphatic Clearing method. Through demonstration and guided practice, students will learn signature techniques to enhance circulation, improve tissue mobility, soften hypertonic tissue, and prepare the body for deeper therapeutic work when appropriate. Emphasis is placed on practitioner ergonomics, clinical decision-making, and seamless integration into existing massage sessions. Designed as an entry point to the Lymphatic Clearing approach, the course delivers immediately applicable skills and a strong foundation for therapists pursuing advanced lymphatic massage training.
Class Format: In-person, Hands-on
Date: October 20, 2026, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Kerry Gustafson LMT, ATL, ATC MA60301642
Class Info: TBA
Class Format: In-person, Hands-on
Date: November 17, 2026, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Eren Bartsch LMT MA60175828
Class Info: The abdomen, chest, and sternum are often missing from massage school curricula, so many LMTs avoid these regions altogether, preventing clients from getting work done in these important areas.
We'll cover the anatomy of the anterior trunk, indications and contraindications for working here, and take an honest look at breast tissue itself: what it is, who has it, and why so many practitioners avoid working with it. We'll also spend real time on boundaries and how informed consent works when you're moving into unfamiliar territory with a client.
This is not a breast massage class and we won't be demonstrating or practicing any breast-specific techniques, but we will talk plainly about why breast-specific work matters and what it involves. This class is a great starting point if you're considering taking a breast massage class in the future.
In addition to lecture and discussion, I'll demonstrate abdomen and upper chest massage techniques, and then you'll have time to practice them with a partner, with hands-on feedback from me as you go. Come prepared to spend real time at the table and leave with techniques you can incorporate into your practice right away.
Class Format: In-person, Hands-on
Date: January 19, 2027, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Kelley Garrison ND NT60996791
Class Info: A deep dive into hormonal changes in perimenopause, menopause, and gender affirming care and how these changes can affect patient health.
Class Format: In-person, Lecture
Date: February 16, 2027, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Kieran Schumaker LMT MA61221200
Class Info: This hands-on workshop will be an evening of experiential learning about an uncommon approach to muscle tension and hypertonicity. You will come away from this workshop with new skills for addressing low back pain and asymmetrical back tension. In explaining this approach, Kier will introduce and bring together a few concepts borrowed from structural integration and manual osteopathy. Over the course of the evening, expect to feel a reduction in tension in your own back muscles and greater ease of movement throughout your body when walking and standing. You will also begin to understand how the skills and concepts taught this evening could be used to bring ease to whole body patterns involving pelvic torsion, mild scoliosis, and other left-right imbalances.
Class Format: In-person, Hands-on
Date: March 16, 2027, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Caroline Snijder van Wissenkerke BCSI, LMT, RES-CPT, RYT200 MA60578350
Class Info: We live in an increasingly sedentary time. All of us notice the ubiquitous forward head posture, rounded shoulders, and tight hip flexors from texting, typing, and sitting. We know that movement is important, but what kinds of movement and how much do we need? How can we, as bodyworkers, support our clients to find easeful body alignment in a way that sticks? Let’s explore these questions and more through the lens of human evolution and biomechanics. We’ll look at how our human physiology developed over millennia and how that’s relevant in our massage work. We’ll cover what research of modern hunter-gatherers tells us about common assumptions regarding disease, pain, and aging. For many of the problems our clients show up with—from osteoporosis, to plantar fasciitis, to pelvic floor dysfunction—moving well can be the difference that’s needed. And we’ll move our own bodies as we explore alignment cues and functional movements to practice in your own self-care and share with your clients.
Class Format: In-person, Experiential
Date: April 20, 2027 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Lise Flora Waugh MS, C-1AYT LMT MA61028887
Class Info: The hands on portion of class is a guided partner experience. Occasionally we will pause to review a technique or obviously to answer questions. Think of it like a dance. This workshop will not be teaching you how to give a Thai Massage- but it could enhance that aspect of your tool box as well as provide simple joint freeing movements and "stretching" that can be implemented into any table based massage.
Class Format: In-person, Hands-on
Date: May 18, 2027, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Presenter: Deanna Clasby CR, CRMP, CSEP, LMT MA00020213
Class Info: A colleague once shared with me that he felt the most brilliant bodywork sessions he received were normally from practitioners who worked within multiple body systems at once.
I devoted myself to the fascial system, the visceral system, the skeletal system, the fluid systems, the nervous system and different subtle-body systems. My presentation will be on ways to integrate working within multiple systems together in your practice with a primary emphasis on working through the nervous system first.
Via working through the nervous system first, and by boosting what I am calling the Coherency Matrix, you can facilitate deeper, fuller and more permanent releases of tension. The client literally drops deeper into the table. Then finding and working a through-line within their other systems helps promote the larger structural unwindings and reorganizations.
Some of our clients need extra care & holding to bring their systems into states of entrainment, coherency, co-regulation, and ultimately greater relaxation, to meet their massage therapy goals. And this can all be done with non-verbal, hands-on techniques.
This approach of working within the Coherency Matrix through the different systems can benefit a relaxation massage, sports/treatment massage techniques, Cranio-sacral treatments, and Structural Integration sessions.
I hope to inspire and to inform those of my colleagues ready to venture out into newer territories with their healing arts practice, so they can utilize a wider variety of tools to help them meet the varied needs of their different clients.
Class Format: In-person, Lecture & Experience