Episode 291: How To Choose A Myo Course with Hallie Bulkin, MA CCC-SLP, CMT®, CPFT™

Hello, friends, and welcome to episode 291 of the Untethered podcast. This is your host, Holly Balkan, and we're going to dive into how to choose a MYO course. Maybe we'll talk about certification today. Maybe I'll make that a separate episode for next week. Let's see how much time we have. I only want to make this like, you know, a quick episode and not make this like too much of a deep dive. So as I was sitting here thinking about this, I have to obviously put in the disclaimer that I am the Creator of the Myo Method at the myomethod.com I have my own Myo course, but I think that's also what you makes me. What's the word I'm looking for? You know, able to talk about. I'm like, the word's not coming to me. Able to talk about this topic because I know what it takes to create a course and I have taken another course before other than my own. And so anywho, I want to give you some tips and some things to look for. And considering. You know, I always joke I'm like the worst salesperson. I think I'm a great salesperson, actually. But I joke I'm the worst salesperson because I'm always like, you pick what's best for you. So. So this is not going to be a hard sell on my course. I want to give you some actual helpful tips to help you kind of weed through what's out there. All right, so let's jump in. Quick disclaimer. All information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway, tethered oral tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest. Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose. Get started. Okay, everybody, so obviously I am Going to give a shameless plug. My course is@themyomethod.com if you want to check it out. I would be remiss not to share that with you, but I want to dive into some of the biggest things that I ask people when they come to me and they say, hey, like, how's your course different than this course? I'm never going to speak poorly about a course that I've never taken. Um, I'm not going to speak. I can't speak at all about that course. Right. And so I think people are, like, looking for me to compare my course to others. And honestly, I can't do that if I've never taken the other course. I can only tell you what I offer. And so what I want to do is, while I could spend this episode tell, you know, selling you into the mile membership or the mile method. Excuse me. What I want to do is I want to talk to you about, like, what you should look for or in a course. Okay. So. And really how to reflect on what you're seeking. Because, you know, Maya was a evolving field. There's constantly new courses being put out. Some of them may be great, maybe some are not as great. I don't know. Without taking them, I can't really speak to that, and I can only go on hearsay of what other people are telling me. But one of the biggest things that was happening was people were constantly. Let me just tell you, I had no plans to create a mile course. Back in, you know, 20. 20, 20, 21, a lot of people were coming to similar things to what I was hearing in the feeding world and that the reason why I created Feed the Peas, people were like, I. I'm scared. I don't get it. I've taken courses. I'm still confused. I don't know how to assess. I don't know how to treat. How do I dip my toe in? How. Where do I get started? Like, how do I do this? Right? And even with the course that I took, while I think it was a great course, I still had to, like, spend a lot of time afterwards figuring out, like, what each patient needed and why does this patient need this, but that one doesn't. And, okay, I'm seeing this on this muscle. What does that mean in terms of, like, exercises or, you know, neuromuscular rehabilitation? Like, how does this translate to that? I spent a lot of time figuring that out. And that's what I put in my course. Right. It's not a clone of the course I took. It's not a clone of other things that I've taken, but it is. It's. There's a lot of research involved and a lot of other information that I basically pulled in. Everything is properly cited. Don't worry. Credit is given where credit is due. But I wanted to make it easier. Just like I did in Feed the Peds. My goal was to create a course with no fluff. Like there are certain organizations that said you have to have a 28 hour course. Why? Why does that to be 28 hours? Show me the research that says someone who takes a 28 hour course is better than somebody who takes a 23 hour course. What if the 23 hour course has more information in it that actually helps somebody get out there and assess and treat? Whereas the 28 hour course is just meeting some like checkbox on a form in order to qualify to be promoted by a certain organization. Which, by the way, these organizations, some of them are not promoting courses anymore. But that's neither here nor there. Things keep evolving right in the MYO space. And so if you know me, I am not one to conform to others. I am someone who is. You know, I've got adhd. I learn differently, I retain information differently. I learned I had to study differently in college. Like I went from high school. My transition from high school to college was tough because I realized I didn't know how to study the way that I needed to for myself. And there was like a lot of things. And I've talked about that in the past. It's not where I'm going with this episode, but it really opened my eyes to the fact that people learn differently and people need information. They. People need to be able to hear information. Again, people need information chunked in certain ways. And so it's important to find a course. When you speak to the course, the person creating it or their team, or you're reading what's on their sales page, or you're trying to grasp, like how things are broken down. Like they tell you, like, here are the content areas and whatnot. Does that jive with you? Are you confused looking at it? Or do you go, oh, that's a cool outline. Like, okay, yeah, that seems like something I could jump into. Or you kind of going, like, why are we talking about that? Like, why are there all these other content areas here? Like, this doesn't seem relevant. Or I looked at this course and this course, I'm like, why are they so different? Right? Like, these are good questions and they're things that you should ask the people producing those courses, Right? Maybe it's me, maybe it's somebody else. I don't know. But in order to do that, you need to understand what your objectives are, right? You need to understand, like, what are your options? What are you trying to get out of this? Are you someone who's looking to expand your practice? Are you someone looking to incorporate Mayo into the work you're already doing? Is it totally new to you? Are you looking for something more advanced? Like what. What. What are your professional goals? And which course feels like it aligns most with your goals? Right. That's a really good place to kind of sit with and reflect on initially. Then you might want to kind of look at who's teaching the course. If this person is not somebody who can assess or treat Mayo, they have. They do not have any business teaching a course. There are people teaching, like, baby myo and other stuff that are not myotherapists. There's also people who are not an slp, ot, pt, rdh, or dentist, that. Or dental colleague. I like to say to encompass everybody in the dental world that are teaching my courses. That, again, they don't have the proper licensure to do that. So that's really important to look at. But I think it's important to make sure that the course covers things like the anatomy and physiology of the orofacial muscles. Diagnosis, right. Treatment planning, like, the actual application, the functional application of what you're learning. Like, are they giving you exercises and just saying, go do all these on everybody. Are they giving you exercises and teaching you? Who needs them? How, you know, if somebody needs them? What muscle groups are involved? What are those muscles responsible for? Hi. I do that in my course. I have never found another course that does that, but maybe they're out there and I'm just not aware. I don't know. And then are they sharing actual case studies? Are you able to see real evaluations done? Like, recorded? They can be recorded. That's fine. Mine are, you know, are they showing you how to actually apply these techniques? Like, are. Like, my exercises are all recorded in a library. So you can see the techniques applied. You can see the treatment in action, if that makes sense. These are critical things for someone who's new, especially if you're doing a virtual course and especially if you want to have a library of this information to be able to go back to as you're working with patients and you're going through, like, assessment and treatment, especially in the beginning. This is a resource that many people tell me they Watched over and over and over again in my course. So does the course that you're, you're going through, do they offer a recording? Do they offer lifetime access to that recording? Is that something that they offer you? Right. Because that is something like, yes, we might need a little theory in there, but that we really need practical application. We really need to understand what we're doing, why we're doing it. If you cannot explain to your patient what, what you are doing and why you are doing it, then that course failed. You just going to put that out there? You should have the information contained within, within that course to be able to have conversations with the people that you're treating. Okay. The, you know, some people will say, well, you should only learn from people who have been in the field for 25 years who are teaching. Why? Why? I mean, look, if somebody is like a year or two out of school, they maybe shouldn't be teaching a course yet, right? But once somebody has had enough time out of school that they've special, if they have something new to teach or a new way of teaching it, then maybe they have something to offer you. Maybe they do have something that would be worth listening to. Right. I do think that it's become kind of like a, a cool thing to do to like try and create online businesses and courses. And that's all good and great. I just encourage someone, if you're going to do it, please make sure that you're actually an expert in what you're doing. Right. Please make sure it's something that you can do in your sleep. The things that I teach, excuse me, the topic areas that I teach on are literally things that I could teach in my sleep. They are so second nature to me because that's my experience, that's my expertise, that's my specialty. Right. And if there's areas that aren't, then that's when you might want to bring somebody else in to teach those areas that you're not specialized in. Like I've done in my feeding course, for example. Right. So it is important to look at instructor expertise and to make sure that they are truly specialized in what they're teaching you. And they didn't just buy this course from somebody else and turn around and start teaching it. Because that's also happened in the myo and feeding world. Okay, let me see what else I can tell you. We talked a bit about like learning format. Excuse me? Whether it's like online, like my course, for example, is online. A lot of courses are back in person now. Some People learn better in person. I don't. So I wanted the online course. I created everything I wish I had, basically between my mile course and my beating course. Um, what else do you have the opportunity to engage with others, like, outside of that course, right? So, like, for example, with my course, we do give you three months for free inside the MYO membership so that you have access to all these other tools, but also our community of mentors, of colleagues, of people you can link arms with. Um, that way when you're going through the course, you are connected, right? It's not like you just buy a course and you're out in the wide blue ocean floating around by yourself, kind of trying to figure all this out. Even though you've got everything you need, like, you're still like, what do I do? You need to. You need the mentorship component, right? That's why we give you three months free in the membership so that you have the mentorship at your fingertips. Right? So that is super important. And that's a big thing that I have found is lacking in the MYO world and feeding worlds. But my world, especially mentorship, major, major, majorly lacking. Not something that you get with like an in person course typically either, especially for 90 days following, like investing in that course. And then, you know, there's. There should be like testimonials of people who have taken the course. Like, read them, read what people are saying about it. Like word of mouth. If you go and ask what course you should take in a Facebook group, you're going to probably get a whole bunch recommended. Which ones are people, like, saying, like, helped in the most? Like, read them and see what you feel most drawn to. It may not be me, it may not be my course. I am okay with that. Like, I know I'm not everybody's cup of tea. I'm not for everyone. That's fine. I am biased, right? And talking about my own course. But there are other courses out there that are also good. And so I'm sharing this and I'm recording this today because I want you to have like some different thoughts around what course to consider, right? I want you to have like a framework. I want you to kind of go, okay, who's teaching it? Do they have the expertise? What are my own personal objectives? Right? Like we talked about, is this person, you know, someone who is licensed to even be teaching this? Hi. That's important. And like, what is the learning format? What does that look like? Is there mentorship involved? What other resources am I going to get right? You know, we talked about the support and mentorship, but what other resources will I have access to? And then what are the people saying about the course? So when you start to look at it in that light and you kind of do your own research, you're going to find the course that you most connect with. I will caution you to stay away from courses that teach 12 week frameworks or programs. If they are preaching a 12 week MYO framework or program, those programs don't work. Excuse me? You are wasting your money, period. End of story. We get a ton of those people into my practice all the time who have now spent thousands of dollars and have nothing to show for it. And it angers me, which is why I am, I am going to maintain my inner peace. But it really, we get worked up about this because it's criminal. It is criminal. So in terms of like when you're talking to people, if they're telling you they do a 12 week program, right, and they teach a 12 week program, just like I've cautioned patients to not sign up for them, I'm cautioning, cautioning you not to take courses that teach 12 week cookie cutter programs. Okay, all right. That, that's my two cents. Now, when it comes to certification, as I mentioned, we don't necessarily need to have certification, but let's save that for a separate episode. We can kind of dive into that. The one thing I do want to mention is that the only place that offers the CMT certified Myofunctional Therapist is me, Hallie Balkan. Through my business, I am in no way affiliated with the aomt, the Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy. They have stolen my intellectual property. And there are, there's legalities behind the scenes involved, there are lawyers involved. It is kosher. I have confirmed with my attorney that I can share this. And I have shared this in the past. They still have not taken it down. This has been going on for a very long time and it's causing market confusion. So if you're confused, you see the cmt, you see it's affiliated with my name, but then you think you're getting the CMT through the aomt. You are not. You are not getting the cmt. I actually have the trademark, the registered trademark on the certification, the certification, trademark on cmt. So nobody else can use that unless you've gone through my certification. So if you have questions about that, email supporteedthepedes.com if you've noticed market confusion, if you've invested with another company because they intentionally misinformed you or misled you. Please do reach out to me because we've actually had some people email us about that, thankfully before they invested and we were able to clarify. But this is some of the stuff that goes on in the Maya world. It's gross. Please don't get involved in it. But yes, we are the only ones who offer the cmt that is the Mile certification. We will do a whole episode on that separately and talk about certifications that are out there. I will share why I dropped my com from the IAOM if you guys are so interested in knowing that because I just cannot affiliate with them any longer and that's that. I know just dropped a whole big like load of information on you. But for those of you who are like what? What? Why'd you drop it? What happened? I will talk all about the CMT and the calm and all that fun stuff from my own personal experience on the next episode. So stay tuned. All right everybody, this is Hallie signing off. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@halie balkan.com or pop over to at Hollybulcan on Instagram to get all the latest updates.