How would I start piercing?

at the moment I am looking for an apprenticeship in piercing (with little success of anywhere in the west midlands (help would be gratefully appreciated)), I have looked on fourms and some people have said it takes years to be fully qualified but loads of courses have said the training takes 1 day - 2 weeks, are these worth looking at or a bad idea to look into? its an industry I am very interested in but cant seem to find what I'm after. Even when I asked a professional piercer all she said was "look on the internet to see what you can find". So can anyone help?