Seeing-eye robot, augmented reality help students, clients at new That Massage School - Palladium-Item

[Evan Weaver]

RICHMOND, Ind. — A massage school that recently opened in the city is not like your traditional massage school.

Sure, That Massage School, located at 224 S. 5th St., teaches the same skills required by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards, but not in the way most would expect.

Instead, That Massage School offers a self-paced learning system and is using modern-day advances in technology to help its students and clients alike.

One such example is that the book provided to students at the school, Director Joshua Ridenour said, was created entirely by the use of artificial intelligence.

"Thanks to artificial intelligence, we were able to write out a book that just went section by section of what's on the test and we wrote our book just to that," he said.

The test is the Massage & Bodywork Licensing Examination, with That Massage School's book still following the study areas required by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards in order to receive a license.

Also present is a four-legged robot named Penny and augmented-reality glasses to show students the muscles in the body in real time.

Penny the Seeing Eye Robot was brought on so that it can assist blind people in getting around the building.

"Once she knows the location, she can get to it pretty well," Ridenour said. "But we've also got a robot arm so you can ask it to go grab keys, and it will navigate through the location."

Ridenour added that by the beginning of next year, he also hopes to have a humanoid robot to help with clients.

"We use artificial intelligence to help us reduce staff costs on the back end of the school, and then we focus more on hiring people here at the school to act one on one," Ridenour said.

Ridenour said his idea for the school came from his personal experience in massage school as a single father back in 2010.

"The regular school system didn't work for me," he said. "I had trouble. They had a very strict schedule where you have to show up Monday through Fridays from this time to this time, and it just didn't work. The more I talked to people, the more I realized other people were having that issue."

So, Ridenour said, instead of complaining about the class hours, he decided to set up his own school.

"I wanted to make that course work with the average working adult," he said. "That's when I set out to work on a self-paced course to allow more people to be able to go to school. That's really where we got our start."

That Massage School's course is made up of 200 hours of online learning and 425 hours of in-person learning and is presented in three different phases: Bootcamp and Fundamentals, Learn By Doing/Case Studies and MBLex Preparation.

The school also offers elective hours up to 375, which includes specialty practices such as hot rocks, cupping, trigger point therapy and pregnancy.

As of Nov. 14, Ridenour said the Richmond school has six students with a normal tuition cost of $1,500, but tuition is 50% off until Nov. 24 so that his school can make "high-quality massage therapy education" accessible to the community.

"Students' tuition just barely covers rent most of the time," he said. "Our clinics are also how we keep tuition down, so instead of having students pay everything, people book a reasonably priced massage at $40 an hour, and then that actually helps pay their tuition. It's really the clinics that keep the lights on."

Currently, the school offers 60- and 90-minute sessions for customers using the services and is also having a promotion where first-time visitors pay $30 for an hour.

That Massage School also has locations in Goshen, Knox, Fort Wayne and Middletown, with a sixth planned for Bloomington. It is accredited and regulated by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, which oversees all massage schools across the state.

Evan Weaver is a news and sports reporter at The Palladium-Item. Contact him on X (@evan_weaver7) or email at eweaver@gannett.com.