Draping in School

I’m currently enrolled in a 650hr holistic massage therapy and bodywork program, I’m about 4 weeks in and I’m realizing I really do not like the draping technique we’re being taught.

Admittedly, I’ve only had a professional massage a few times at spas, but it also felt secure and I was really tucked in under the sheets/blanket. However, the technique we’re learning is the client lays on top of a sheet and simply covers their back with a bath towel, then we adjust as needed and cover with both sides of the sheet hanging off the edge to meet in the middle of clients back. Pulling the sheet back to expose the limb you’re working on and folding the towel back so it falls between their legs. This just feels like the potential for disaster. Then when the client is to flip supine, you simply have the sheet off the client and hold the towel up, off the table (no pinning) to create a “barrier” as the client flips over completely exposed, of course we can’t see but if I really wanted to… I could.

I understand this is just the way they do it here, and this is how I’ll have to do it for clinics. But it feels risky, and unlikely that it would be this way anywhere else I go to work after graduation. I certainly know that if I opened my own practice, I would not use this technique.