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Providing quality on Reiki Evolution training courses

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Ever since we started teaching Reiki, we have tried our very best to provide as much as we could by way of ‘quality’ in Reiki training. We looked at what seemed to be the main ‘complaints’ that people had when they were not happy with the Reiki training they received, and tried to learn from this when teaching Reiki ourselves. Here is a list of things that people have not been happy with when receiving Reiki training in the UK, and a description of what we have done to make sure that we are not falling down in these areas:

  1. Inadequate or nonexistent written materials to accompany the course
  2. No ongoing contact with the Reiki teacher, or it is made clear that the teacher is not prepared to support the students long-term
  3. No way of getting together with other Reiki people for regular practice or to exchange experiences
  4. Non-Reiki topics creeping into the courses, for example a strong emphasis on spirit guides, crystals, and angels etc
  5. Not knowing what to do in practice; no clear guidance having been given about what to do
  6. Insufficient hands-on practice on the course
  7. Courses with very little content, and drifting off topic to deal with non-Reiki subjects

How we provide quality on our courses

Course Manuals

We provide comprehensive and detailed, easy-to-read and practical manuals for all our courses. The manuals cover everything we deal with on the day of the course, and more besides, so there is no need to take notes. Note taking is such a pain: you frantically scribble, desperate not to miss what is being said, you can't relax, and you can't really enjoy the course. When you get home you have the chore of having to get your notes into some semblance of order, and most likely you won't be able to read your writing anyway!

We hate having to take notes so much ourselves that on our courses you can relax, safe in the knowledge that everything we do is there in the manual for you to take home with you. Our First Degree manual is professionally printed and bound, A4 size, and runs to 170+ pages, with 60,000 words and many digital images. The Second Degrgee manual runs to 110+ pages. The Reiki Master Teacher course manual has 240 A4 pages, 80,000 words, with digital images, summaries and diagrams. So even if you forget absolutely everything that we do on the course, that's still ok because you have the whole course to keep at home with you, to refer to whenever you like.

"Having now read all three of your Reiki Manuals, I have to tell you that they are the most comprehensive and well written Manuals that I have ever had the privilege to read! The depth of your knowledge on both the Reiki Energy and its history simply astounded me. In my opinion, you have produced something of great value for both the Reiki Student and the more experienced Practitioner/Teacher. Being easy to read and understand, full of practical techniques, and written in a most warm manner. Thank you so much for allowing me to read them. Highly recommended!"

Lynne Hayes, Reiki Master Teacher

Audio CDs with commentary and guided meditations

Our Reiki1, Reiki2 and Master courses are accompanied by various audio CDs which provide extensive audio commentary tracks and also useful guided meditations that talk you through daily energy practices. By having on CD the main things that are said to you on the day course, you really are able to 'take your course home with you'. You won't forget the main themes and messages of your course because you will have listened to the CD before you arrive on your course, you will listen to your teacher on the day of your course, and then subsequently the CD provides a permanent reminder of the essence of your training, to refer to whenever you like. Pre-course study carried out using the course manual and audio CDs allows your live training to focus on working with energy rather than imparting information, a much better arrangement and one that leads to more effective learning.

For First Degree, you receive two CDs, one containing commentary tracks and the other - "Reiki Meditations" - which will be useful for your First and Second Degree courses. At First Degree the 'meditations' CD will help you with Hatsu Rei Ho (daily energy exercises) and the a self-treatment meditation that Usui Sensei taught. For Second Degree the 'meditations' CD helps you helps you to get to grips with the energies of earth ki and heavenly ki, and walks you through a distant healing session, and Second Degree has its own commentary CD too. So instead of fumbling around trying to read the instructions in your manual when doing these meditations, while still trying to keep in the flow of them, you can simply flip on the CD, close your eyes, and follow the instructions. Your meditations will flow all the more easily because of this, and you'll learn how to do it without having to try too hard! The Reiki Master / Teacher course is accompanied by two audio CDs (and a DVD) which again provide extensive commentary tracks and guided meditations, including sections which talk you through (and display as video sequences) carrying out a Western attunement and a Reiju empowerment.

We think it is important to make the techniques as accessible and straightforward as possible, and we feel that these CDs achieve this well.

"I have a Reiki II coming up this Friday and I have been listening endlessly to your CD which is a constant source of "reinforcement" to me. Even though I am supposed to know it by now, there is always something there for me to be reminded of. I think it is a beautiful, professional and informative reminder of the Reiki II course."

Jean Livett, Reiki Master Teacher

"Just a quick message to thankyou for the wonderful CD's that you have produced for Reiki Levels 1 & 2. I found them informative and extremely helpful for both myself and my students. The guided meditations were particularly helpful. On the Reiki 1 CD Hatsu Rei and the Self Healing Meditations were excellent. I have found myself using them every day and I can thoroughly recommend them to anyone, not just those who have been attuned to level 1 but to all levels!! The symbol and Distant Healing meditations on the level 2 CD helped me to focus intently on my personal symbol work. The distant healing meditation gave me a chance to sit back and enjoy the energy that I was sending out. Thank you!!"

Andrea Ferguson, Reiki Master Teacher

Small class sizes

It is not uncommon to find 10, 20 or even 30 students on some Reiki courses and we believe that this is unacceptable. We believe that quality in Reiki training comes with small class sizes and for this reason we restrict ourselves to a maximum of six students for our First Degree, Second Degree and Master Teacher courses, though at many of our venues the maximum is four.

When you have a small number of students together it is easier for them to relax and feel comfortable sharing their experiences with each other. When there are too many people on a course it can be very difficult for people to ask questions for fear of being seen to ask a 'stupid' question (even though half of the people in the room are probably wondering the same thing!), but with small numbers people are less intimidated, and you can receive the undivided attention of your teacher.

"The day was very relaxing and informative, and what I think really helped was having only a small group of students - this allowed us plenty of time to ask questions."

Julie Mallion, Kent

"To anyone considering Reiki, I would highly recommend Taggart's courses. The programme is well thought out and the small group sizes are ideal."

Zoe Smith, Essex

"We were only a small group and that made us feel like we had a special, personal focus."

Geoff Watts, Surrey

"I like the small group, which allowed for more one to one teaching from Margaret.”

Bernadette Wrighthouse, Argyll & Bute

Ongoing Support

We believe that this is very important. Once someone has attended one of our Reiki courses, they are able to obtain support and advice in a variety of ways. Their first port of call would be the person who taught them, and every one of our team of trusted teachers is happy to provide advice about Reiki to their students. Students can also contact Taggart King for advice if they wish. All students are also offered the opportunity of joining an online support/discussion community where they can share experiences with and obtain advice from hundreds of other Reiki people who have trained with Reiki Evolution.

"The support available to students after the live course is first class."

Gill Belton, Leicestershire

"The post-course follow-up and support links are great; better than any other course I’ve been on.”

Lesley Taylor, Essex

"I am very pleased with all the encouragement and support which is ongoing. I made the correct choice when I chose Reiki Evolution for my training.”

Julie Moore, Nottinghamshire

Regular Newsletters

We publish a free Reiki 'eZine' (newsletter sent by e-mail) every three months. It is sent to all our students and to a large list of other subscribers, currently totalling about 13,000 people in various countries. Each eZine usually contains an article written by Taggart as well as other bits and pieces, comments and occasional Reiki news. They are suitable for people who are finding out about Reiki for the first time, Reiki practitioners and Reiki teachers.

Internet Support Group

As mentioned above, we host an Internet support group – with over 1,000 members as of September 2007– that students can use to keep in contact with each other, exchange experiences and advice, building a sense of community.

"I really appreciate the internet support/discussion group – this has been a mine of information and any queries I’ve had, I’ve found that the question has been raised before and the beauty of it is that you get answers from more than one experienced practioner who all give basically the same answer but often from a different perspective.

It’s a wonderful idea."

Catherine Buecheler, Cambridgeshire

"The Internet discussion forum is fab! This is definitely something that puts you above the rest!"

Claire Burch, London

Free Updates to Course Materials

Once you've been on one of our courses, we like to give you the chance to learn as we do, and grow with us, so when we update our manuals we like our students to have copies if they want. If our students have e-mail addresses then they can join our Internet discussion group, and they can access updated versions of the First and Second Degree manuals from its homepage for free.

People who have trained with us at Master Teacher level are also 'plugged in' to us, so they can obtain updated versions of our Master manual for free via the homepage of their Master Internet discussion group, as well as the First and Second Degree manuals.

"Treatment swaps"

We maintain a “Treatment Swaps” list that is sent regularly to all our students. It is a bit like a ‘classified ad’ where students can list their name and contact details with a view to swapping Reiki treatments with other Reiki Evolution students in their area, and it is a way that students can find people in their area to set up their own Reiki shares and get-togethers.

Reiki Shares and Development Groups for our students

We now have over a dozen Reiki shares available to our students to attend in different parts of the UK. All the Reiki ‘Shares’ (get-togethers) are hosted by people who have trained with Reiki Evolution. Shares are currently take place regularly in Cambs, Durham, Essex, Glasgow, Kent, Leics, Lincs, London, Suffolk, Somerset/Wilts, Surrey, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. There are also more formal 'Reiki Development Groups' in Harrogate and Melton Mowbray.

Keeping "on topic" when we teach

We make sure that we stick to Reiki – and only Reiki – on our courses, so you won’t find New Age stuff, crystals, spirit guides or angels on our courses. There is nothing inherently wrong with these things, of course, and many people within the world of Reiki are interested in them, but they are not Reiki so we do not include them on our courses. When we teach Reiki we teach Reiki.

"The manuals are outstanding: clear and intelligently written. They gave me a real feel for trying to find a more intuitive and stripped-down style of Reiki, uncluttered by a lot of the “New Age” paraphernalia that Reiki seems to have accrued. Although a practising Pagan, I really appreciated the crystal- and Angel-free approach!"

Penny Lister, North Yorkshire

Practical Courses

Our courses are down to earth and practical, so our students are in no doubt about what to do and how to do it. Our courses are set up so that the student follows at least six hours of pre-course study (First and Second Degree) before they attend on the day of the course, so students arrive already knowing quite a lot about Reiki and what we are going to be doing on the course. The course itself thus recaps on things that are already fairly familiar to the student, and focuses mainly on practice, not sitting there listening to someone talking. Thus students have sufficient time available to develop their confidence in what they need to do. We even provide our students with a ‘homework’ sheet that focuses them on the main areas that they need to work on to get to grips with Reiki.

"I came away feeling that I had an excellent grounding in the Reiki 1 course information, and also confident that I would be able to give Reiki to myself and others."

Julie Moore, Nottinghamshire

“What a difference to the First Reiki course I attended! I did not do Reiki 1 with Reiki Evolution. The first course did not give you any kind of prior learning to do and the manual given to me afterwards was poor. It was unfortunate, because I felt that I had missed out slightly being so unprepared the first time. The Reiki Evolution manuals were easy to understand and very comprehensive. The CD was almost relaxation in itself – who needs meditation! Taggart’s voice is easy to listen to and the CD together with the manual helped me to feel very prepared."

Suzanne Berry, Northamptonshire

"Your idea of home working then a practical day works really well and makes good use of people’s time. My view so far is that Reiki Evolution provides what people need, in a highly professional caring manner. 10/10 SUPERB.”

David Jemitus, Surrey

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