The therapeutic elements of Thai Massage
Most Thai Massages in Thailand are full body sessions with the bulk of the time spent on the legs. If you have special requests, let’s say shoulder work, the therapists will always agree. But they will almost always still do a regular full body session and maybe spend a few minutes extra on the shoulders.
There are not many therapists in Thailand who can really focus therapeutically on a specific area and work the blockages out. The average Thai Massage session in Thailand is very much a one-size-fits-all affair. Everyone gets pretty much the same treatment.
The emphasis on leg work in Thai Massage
The one area where the Thai therapists shine is the legs. That is what they spend most of the session time on, and that is where they have the most techniques. Many people (non-Thais) have wondered why there is such a focus on the legs in Thai Massage. I have often heard the theory that the reason is that the Thais have traditionally spent a lot of time in the fields and on their legs, and that is why they need the leg work.
I live in Chiang Mai which is the center of the Thai Massage universe with countless Thai Massage schools and massage shops all over town. Chiang Mai is a big city and nobody works any fields here. People sit in their cars, they have office jobs, and they spend lots of time sitting in front of the TV. So the leg theory is certainly not applicable here, but still the Thai Massage therapists all focus mainly on the legs.
Sitting on chairs impacts the upper body negatively
Whatever the reason for the lower body emphasis might have been, today it is just a tradition which is being maintained without any real logical reason. The fact is that today’s jobs are mostly in sitting positions, and that means that the upper body is negatively affected. Shoulders slump forward, the spine is out of alignment, the neck is stiff and the hips are tilted unnaturally. These are all results of sitting in chairs all day long.
My personal focus in my Thai massage practice and teaching has shifted towards more upper body work. Most of the therapy requests of my clients have usually been issues with neck, shoulders, and back.
Full body sessions versus specific therapeutic work
There is certainly a benefit of working on the entire body, but I have found that doing a full body Thai Massage session and spending lots of time on a particular area is often not possible within the limited time of the session. So I have developed very specific therapeutic approaches to deal with individual problem areas in great depth.
Many times it is possible to work out problems in the body if you spend enough time on them. Often I will work for one hour just on the shoulders, or the knees, or the hip, or the neck, and I have seen very positive results from this approach. Generally I ask the clients if they prefer a full body session or detail work on their problem area, and they can decide.
Thai Massage therapy video courses
Recently I have created a series of Thai Massage therapy video courses that teach you in detail how to focus on specific areas in the body. These are therapeutic applications that I have used successfully for many years, and that have shown good results consistently.
Have a look at the special Thai Massage therapy video series and you might find that it will really help your skills in the therapeutic arena.
Re: emphasis on leg work in Thai massage.
…or it may have something to do with the (energetic) fact that ALL our blocks originate in the navel / sacro-iliac region and wrap deeply around the opening of the root chakra (the pereneum), spreading into the groins, inner windgates, insides of thighs, outsides of thighs and into the ASIS, ilium, iliac crest and hips. If you do not do the legs well, you may as well forget the rest.
The legs, being part of the root chakra, are the foundation on which we build our entire lives. They are the channels through which we are energetically connected to our parents and our ancestors.
If the connection through your root to your own earliest childhood; to your family; to your ancestors, which runs through your legs is blocked, or hurt, it needs to be healed and cleared before the rest of your energy – and your life – can be attended to.
Leg work is not only important in Thai massage, it is essential. The feet mirror your connection to the earth; the ankles mirror the openess of the heart; the calves refelect the condition of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th chakras; the knees reflect the condition of the kidneys and stomach; the hamstrings = the condition of your earliest childhood; the quadraceps = the quality of the connection you have with your parents; the outside of the thighs = the quality of your belief system and the whole pelvic girdle reflects the entire history of your childhood, family and ancestry.
If you can understand the legs and the pelvic girdle, then you understand all else in the body – in terms of energy, energy blocks and energy balancing.
As an example: timidity and fearfulness can be passed onto you – and indeed into you – at the time of your conception from a parent who may have been overly timid in themselves. This timidity then ‘asecends’ in to the 2nd chakra (kidneys) as your energy centres develop and evolves into diiferent forms of fear and timidity depending upon the circumstances of your life from ages 0 – 11. The energy of fear, sittng in the kidneys, is one of the great causes of lower back weakness.
Energetically the chakras are paired, which means that the condition of kidney fear energy in the 2nd chakra is mirrored in the fifth chakra as the fear of giving voice to our needs and our deepest personal truth. It is also the fear of being ridiculed or rejected if we speak what we feel deeply. This fear of speaking our needs or deep inner truth causes inflammation and swelling in the sides of the neck – especially from the centre front of the neck to the sides of the neck. It is literally the energy of words blocked in the throat and is one of the great causes of neck and throat weaknesses.
Think for an instant of a client who cannot tell their bullying employer to go f*ck themselves for fear of losing their job. Where do you think you are going to find the energy block? The neck. What is the root of the block? Fear. And where is the origin of fear?
The origin of most neck and throat issues is to be found in the 2nd chakra and the root of all isssues in the 2nd chakra is to be found in the 1st chakra – the pelvic girdle and legs. It always, always comes back to the foundation on which you build your life.
And this is why I love Thai massage in Chiang Mai, especially when you can find an old masseur/masseuse who will spend two or three hours working your legs. There is nowhere else in the world where you can get ‘bottom-up’ therapeutic massage like this. It’s the best it gets. It is the only place where Thai massage is truly understood.
Hi Robert,
thanks for another one of your really informative and insightful comments. I certainly agree that leg work is very important, and that Thai massage does a great job with it.
In my mind it would be even better if those Thai Massage therapists who can do such a great job on the legs could do an equally good job on the upper body. Sometimes I really feel that I need serious hands-on work on my shoulders, let’s say. My experience has been that this is not as easy to get as good leg work here in Thailand, and often just plain impossible.
This is something I try to balance out with my personal style of Thai massage work. I have even developed a modality which deals exclusively with upper chest, neck, head and face, called Heavenly Head Massage. This is a combination of bodywork and energy work.
I feel that more options and more choices in the Healing Arts world benefit the profession as a whole and add more value to it. We all have our preferences and the more therapists there are who can accommodate such preferences, the better it is for the Healing Arts community and their clients.
Thanks again, Robert, for a well thought out comment. Your insights might be better off as guest articles on my blog where they would be more prominent. Clearly you have a lot of offer.