About Us

At Carolina Massage institute, we believe massage therapy is both an art and a science. The art lies in the therapist’s ability to create a conversation with the client, both verbally and nonverbally. Our program develops therapists’ ability to create a treatment plan to help clients feel balanced, centered, and deeply heard.

To support this intuitive conversation, we ground therapists in the best practices, using research-backed Western and Eastern approaches. Because any good conversation includes a lot of questions and careful attention to the answers, we teach our therapists to stay critically aware and up-to-date on the latest medical approaches to manual therapy. Our students graduate with a balanced sense of creativity and rationality to serve each unique client for the benefit of the individual and the greater community.

Program director Sara Owens is always available at info@carolinamassageinstitute.com. We encourage you to make an appointment to visit, ask all your questions, tour the space, and get to know us!

Administration

As our program director, Sara Owens is the primary point person for all your questions about our school and our programs. Reach out to her anytime at info@carolinamassageinstitute.com. When you do, you’ll love her welcoming energy and deep, enthusiastic care for our students. Be sure to ask Sara about her diverse background in service industries, including owning several coffee and ice cream shops, ongoing police department crime analysis work, and teaching yoga!

Theresa Warren, our director of education, became licensed as a North Carolina massage and bodywork therapist in 2009 after a career in public relations and marketing. A graduate of Body Therapy Institute, Theresa was also a member of the faculty there from 2011 to 2016. Originally from St. Louis, MO, where she graduated from Fontbonne University, Theresa has proudly called North Carolina home for the past 20 years.

While operating a private practice in Durham since 2011, she refers to herself as a “massage missionary,” providing bodywork in numerous other massage therapy environments, including Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat and Durham Bodywork. Mindfulness of proper body mechanics and dutiful attention to work/home balance allow for a long life in a beloved profession while also spending time outdoors hiking or at the beach with family.

CMI’s owners, Lies Sapp, JD, and Sage Rountree, PhD, also own Carolina Yoga Company and Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat, where CMI’s student clinic is held. As yoga teachers and spa aficionadas, they place a premium on body awareness and self-care, and they are honored to hold the space for your learning to help others through massage.

Faculty

Kelly Bowers, LMBT, our business teacher, has been practicing massage since 2000. She has been providing basic business education to massage therapists since 2003. As the CEO of the Healing Core, she teaches basic business courses around the country. Kelly is also a professional writer and has published three books on business for the healing arts community. She writes a blog on the business of massage (Have Hands, Will Travel) and is an NCBTMB-approved continuing education provider for massage therapists.

Kelly is motivated to help massage therapists be competent business owners because she’s seen too many gifted practitioners leave the field because they can’t make the business side of the house work for them. She uses her skills from her previous profession (technical writer, aka “professional explainer”) to make business topics accessible and nonthreatening. She works at the Medical Massage Clinic of Durham.

Kelly Cox, LMBT, is our myofascial release instructor. He graduated from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine with a Bachelors of Health Science focused on Asian Holistic Health & Massage. This program, based heavily in Traditional Chinese Medicine, goes hand-in-hand with his background in martial arts. Martial arts serves as his practical and unique foundation in biomechanics as well as cultivating the mind-body connection. Accompanying his eastern endeavors, Kelly continues to be a lover of science. His background also includes psychology and zoology, which provides him insight to behavior, motivation, and the physical processes of being human. He continually updates his understanding of how massage and movement work.

His specialization is Sport Massage. He started Randori Bodywork, a massage business based heavily on athletic optimization. He works routinely with collegiate athletic programs and serves on the medical staff for a U.S. National Team.  He has provided massage around the United States and the world, including at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Munsie Davis, LMBT, is our ethics teacher. She has been a self-professed workshop junkie since her graduation from Hampshire College with a degree in what is now called somatics. She credits her parents’ holistic lifestyle with her interest in healthy living and the power of touch. As a holistic manual therapist, Munsie blends a variety of skills, using touch as a medium for accessing the homeostasis mechanisms in the body.

Amanda Figueroa is our Swedish massage teacher. She graduated from Blue Ridge Healing Arts Academy in Concord, NC, in 2000. Amanda started her massage career in a chiropractic clinic, where she developed a passion for understanding the intricate workings of the human body and how every system functions together as a whole to create ease or dis-ease. She has taken many workshops on topics including Neuromuscular Reprogramming and orthopedic and medical massage to enhance this understanding.

Amanda believes that a skilled therapist can bridge the gap between relaxation and therapeutic massage to provide both for their clients. She has lived and worked all over North Carolina and started her private practice in the Triangle in 2015. She loves the field of massage therapy and derives deep satisfaction from being the best part of her clients’ day. She is very excited to help newcomers to the massage profession learn how rewarding it can be to help others achieve their health and wellness goals.

Brianne Godwin, LMBT, is our Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, and Kinesiology teacher. Since graduating in 2009 from Natural Touch School of Massage, she has operated a private practice in Carrboro and Mebane. She finds that when given with skill and supportive intent, massage speaks for itself as one of the primary components of a health regimen.

During her collegiate years as a varsity swimmer at Northwestern University, she received biweekly massage as a preventative measure and attributed this practice to staying injury-free all four years. Now she finds great joy and purpose in leading others to the therapeutic effects of massage. Brianne is delighted to be part of the Carolina Massage Institute, educating future massage therapists to meet the growing demand of this therapeutic profession.

Stacy Hewitt, L.Ac, LMBT, is our Eastern energetics instructor. Stacy’s journey to become an alternative healthcare provider started in 1997 when he graduated from the Carolina School of Massage Therapy and furthered his postgraduate education with advanced certifications in geriatric, orthopedic, and structural bodywork. He also pursued training in Jin Shin Do acupressure and Reiki. With his training as a massage therapist, Stacy volunteered at a Community Holistic HIV clinic. While volunteering, Stacy witnessed the healing power of Chinese medicine through the use of acupressure alone, and that sparked his interest to pursue advanced studies in Chinese medicine.

Graduating at the top of his class, Stacy received his four-year graduate degree in acupuncture at the Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine in Sugar Grove, North Carolina. While at Jung Tao he was fortunate to have studied in the lineage of one of the world’s great masters of classical Chinese medicine, Nguyen Van Nghi. Stacy currently practices acupuncture full time in addition to teaching acupuncture clinical skills at his alma mater.

Stacy’s expertise in acupuncture and acupressure combined with his enthusiasm for teaching and real-world clinical experience makes him an excellent resource for his students. Incorporating real-life experience and hands-on practice, Stacy’s classes not only provide an understanding of Chinese medicine and energy work, but more importantly provide valuable bodywork techniques that can easily be incorporated with any massage modality.

Ren Pollen is assistant teacher for the student clinic. Ren is a Licensed Massage and Bodywork Therapist, Certified Integrative Reflexologist, and graduate of Body Therapy Institute. She has been offering massage at Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat since day one and is eager to show you the beautiful space there.

As the Practicum instructor and Mind-Body Instructor, Donia seeks to inspire students to grow in their own voice within the structure of a solid foundation of education. Donia began her love of how the body moves, heals and functions through her years of studying yoga. She created and founded Carrboro Yoga Company in 2003 and left in 2010 to follow new paths in the Napa Valley of California. She began studying massage from Lifestream Massage Institute in Napa and worked in some of the finest resorts in the valley—Calistoga Ranch, Auberge du Solei, Meadowood Resort and Spa—as well as at the Ventana Resort in Big Sur.

Her education led her to study, work and live at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, a pioneering school in the training and education of massage an beyond. The specialized style of Esalen Massage has been sought after internationally. Esalen is where eastern philosophies met with western massage in the 1950s and grew to include many modalities, including Gestalt Therapy, early developmental psychology, quantum physics, neuroscience and the power of holding space for the innocence and truth of every body. Donia has assisted and taught meditation, massage and couples massage workshops at Esalen as well as created and led Self-Care for Body Workers Workshops in Bali, Indonesia.