Therapy teaching centre The Full Movement Training School is celebrating after being given official accreditation from the Federation of Holistic Therapists.

FHT is the largest and leading professional association for therapists in the UK and Ireland, and the news means that the Nottinghamshire-based Full Movement Training School has achieved official recognition for its course.

The Full Movement Training School, which teaches therapists a unique technique devised in the East Midlands, has been conferred an accredited course in the Full Movement Method Diploma Level 3.

"This is wonderful news for the team at The Full Movement Training School, as it gives us extra kudos, and will also show future students that we are an organisation that delivers results and that they can be confident in," said FMTS director Liz Thomas. 

The news comes as the Full Movement Training School prepares to launch courses in the New Year, which will be taught in Colwick, Nottingham, and the Eco-centre near Car Colston, Nottinghamshire.

Held roughly once a month at weekends over two years, the courses will teach participants to become therapists in the Full Movement Method, a unique method of resolving muscle and joint pain, immobility and malfunction.

It was developed by Andy Thomas, from West Bridgford, Nottingham, who had treated hundreds of patients over many years, including sportsmen and women, actors and road accident victims.

For many years, Andy trained therapists locally, nationally and abroad to practise FMM, and students have gone on to open FMM clinics in Bournemouth, Sheffield and elsewhere.

Andy, who died in March 2011, also ran the Nottinghamshire-based Shanti Yoga School, which has trained dozens of yoga teachers in Hatha Yoga. The core postures in yoga are at the heart of initial diagnosis for FMM, and Andy saw the flexibility that yoga postures bring as a fundamental key to relieving pain via FMM.

Shanti Yoga School has also recently gained its own official approval - an accreditation from Yoga Alliance UK, which sets standards for yoga, yoga teacher training, yoga teachers, and yoga training providers, and is re-opening in a new home at the eco-centre at Shackerdale Farm, Car Colston, near Bingham, in 2012.

"Now that both organisations have accreditation we are ready to take Andy's legacy forward, and are looking forward to welcoming new students in the new year, and to teach them how to become therapists in FMM or teachers of yoga," said Andy's wife Liz Thomas. "We are also running Continuous Professional Development courses for existing teachers of both disciplines."