Nazaree Puma and Melissa May

While scrolling through Instagram (#physicaltherapy), Crean College staffers recently discovered some highly stylized PT content on a channel called “Nu Movement.” We were immediately taken with the beautiful photography and clever captioning and decided to message the channel to get details about the creators. We were thrilled to find out that one of the founders is Chapman PT grad student Melissa May ’22.  We caught up with Melissa recently and she agreed to let us feature Nu Movement on our blog. Here is what she had to say about the project’s inception:

“Nu Movement is a project that has been developing and evolving over the course of the past three years. While completing undergrad at U.C. Davis, I found an amazing friend, Nazaree Puma, who also aspired to become a physical therapist. During that time, we bounced around the idea of opening our own clinic in the future, but nothing really came from that idea until this past year. In the last year, we realized that we could launch our project now and document our journey as physical therapy students and young therapists.”

Nu Movement and similar channels are part of a growing trend in the Physical Therapy field. Even APTA hosted a segment on it’s podcast last year titled “Entrepreneurship in Physical Therapy” to discuss all of the new and innovative ways clinicians are bringing PT and movement awareness to the public. Social media is just one of many ways PTs are sharing their knowledge and personal journeys. But a big chunk of the content that is currently on YouTube and other platforms lacks style and sophistication, which is why Nu Movement is so unique.

“Our goal is to inspire and empower others to pursue their aspirations and create educational content to teach others about their bodies,” said Melissa. “We expect that as we learn more and our clinical expertise expands, our content will evolve and reflect our new knowledge.

Melissa May ’22

As we grow into our careers the goal is to also reflect back on our transformation as therapists.”

We wish Melissa and Nazaree much success with their channel!