Why every Nail Tech should go back to basics
As a successful and professional nail technician, ongoing training is essential for a long and prosperous career – and each skill must be mastered in stages for success.
Prerequisites are certain areas that must be satisfactorily completed before you enrol on another, usually more advanced class, or before you are admitted to a certain training programme. By meeting a prerequisite for a course, you are demonstrating that based on past success, you are prepared to successfully complete an advanced course. This advanced course will typically build on any prior knowledge gained.
Why is this important?
In the nail industry, it can be too common for techs to want to skip past foundation stages, straight to the advanced stage. We all want to jump ahead to the ‘fun’ elements but this can be detrimental to your skills and career. Enrolling in a course for which you have not met the prerequisites can set a student up for disappointment and hinder the experience for others.
Everyone has bad habits; it’s part of human nature. Can you honestly say that you picked up and mastered everything that you learnt on your beginner course?
The industry is constantly changing, so there is always something to new to learn. There will be foundation elements that may have been updated or new techniques developed. The length of time that you have been a nail technician or how experienced you perceive yourself to be is irrelevant as to whether or not you need to hold a prerequisite and still follow the same steps that is required by all technicians. A true master understands and appreciates the fundamental basics of enhancement structure and skills and never stops building on this education via the correct path.
I for one, along with many other experienced and successful techs and educators, continually update my knowledge and abilities and work through the correct stages to ensure a full and thorough understanding. Thirteen years into my career and I regularly return to ‘back to basics’ training, which is essential for every technician.
Valuable courses are about quality, not quantity. Creating one nail but competently absorbing and truly understanding each component and technique to create that nail is far more valuable to your success than completing a full set, where you may have learnt the techniques on the day but will not have a true understanding to take back to your nail business. This is particularly relevant to learning different nail enhancement shapes. You cannot learn advanced shapes before you have worked your way through a true understanding of salon shapes, then advanced salon shapes. Learning one shape in one day is far more valuable than trying to master five. The brain can only absorb so much information in one go, so concentrating on one skill at a time will provide you with greater success.
This is also applicable when attending a course with a different educator. Each educator will have alternative fundamental skills they teach.
It is important that you attend an educator’s set programme and work your way through the appropriate levels of their teaching techniques to obtain the most from your learning.
If you skip these stages, you will miss out on valuable foundation skills and that will hold you and the other attendees back from reaching full potential or achieving success in your course.
An educator’s programme and prerequisites aren’t set through wanting to make more money, it is set from their experience and knowledge of the elements required for the best success from their students. While you may have an understanding of what is being taught, there will always be a new technique or valuable piece of information you learn as well as refreshing on prior skills will only build on your abilities.
Trust your educator and education programme that you are enrolling on and respect the prerequisites for the course to ensure you benefit and gain the most knowledge and skills possible to take away to your nail business.