Thai Massage is not just a job. It is not just a type of work. It does not just provide a good income. It is enjoyable to learn and practice. Why is that?
1. Thai Massage is fun to practice
You get to play with an almost infinite variety of techniques, modifications, adaptations, and ways to make it uniquely your own.
Thai Massage is not just about following a set sequence, but about being intuitive, creative, and innovative.
There are hundreds of techniques and stretches available which can be combined in countless ways to create a therapeutic masterpiece.
Done right, it is the work of a healing artist, not of a ‘massage mechanic’. It is an inspiration, not a fixed routine.
There is a saying: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.”
But if you have a wide range of tools at your disposal, you can create something quite unique.
That’s exactly the case with Thai Massage.
You can be like an artist who creates a beautiful scene. In Thai Massage you can create harmony, balance, well-being, contentment, profound peace and improved health in your client’s body and mind.
2. Thai Massage is beneficial for the therapist
Typically people assume that massage is good for the client and that the therapist is just working. However, in Thai Massage, the therapists benefit along with their clients. How is that?
When moving around with their clients in all those positions, practitioners become more aware of their bodies, develop more sensitivity, become more flexible, and experience a feeling of connection, contentment, and purpose. It’s a beautiful feeling.
When learning Thai Massage, therapists should work with perfect body mechanics. This means they get the most effect with the least effort.
They learn how to use their body weight without muscling people, and they get to use many different body parts.
In the process, they avoid one of the biggest dangers of the massage profession – overusing and injuring their hands and wrists. They can safeguard their health and their profession.
Thai Massage helps therapists to develop something like a sixth sense, an inner feeling for what is right, what works best, and how to move.
They learn how to focus, how to stabilize their own energy, and how to enter a meditative state of mind during their work.
Many practitioners either have a yoga background, or they become inspired to learn some yoga in order to help them with their movements in their massage work. Thai Massage can improve both the physical and the energetic state of the therapist.
3. Thai Massage is creative
There is no such thing as an ‘ideal client’ for Thai Massage. It works equally well on small, large, light, heavy, young, and old people.
The secret is that there are so many elements in Thai Massage that you can choose from.
You can combine massage elements, passive yoga (stretching) elements, kneading, rocking, traction, and energy line work in lots of ways and create the perfect session for your client’s needs and wants.
In the beginning, you will study a routine to learn the Thai Massage techniques, and this will evolve into your own creative system over time.
4. Thai Massage is elegant
In Thai Massage, techniques are not done one after the other in a mechanical way, but they are connected with perfectly synchronized transitions.
Imagine that you are moving across a dance floor with your partner in perfect harmony and perfect synchronization.
Imagine gracefully flowing through the room with your partner. A dance is not a collection of steps, but a continuous flow where one move seamlessly connects with another.
After a while, you will experience such a feeling of flow in your Thai Massage work. It doesn’t happen in the beginning when you are trying to remember what move comes next.
But once you know the techniques and don’t have to think about them anymore, you can focus on the elegance of the transitions and the flowing dance of moving with and around your clients.
5. Thai Massage helps you to really connect with clients
Thai Massage is not based on the Western scientific concept which relies primarily on anatomy and physiology.
Instead, it is based on the concept that there is an energy in the body that can be strengthened and balanced. This energy is the underlying cause of illness and well-being, and it can be positively affected through Thai Massage.
And here is the essential element: This energy can be best affected in the client if it is present in the therapist in a balanced and focused way.
Or, to express it differently, the Thai Massage therapist does not just activate this energy in the client, but also transmits energy through a focused mind and healing intentions.
There is an energetic interplay between the giver and receiver. If nothing comes from the therapist, nothing will happen for the client either. So the secret is in the connection with the client.
At Thai Healing Massage Academy we focus on this connection in Thai Massage. Therapists learn to not just work ON a client but WITH a client.
To clarify one thing: This is not a special connection or unique energy that you have to be born with, but it can be learned through proper training.
This energy focus refines the practitioner’s sensitivity and perception, it strengthens awareness, and it makes it easier to connect with the client on a deeper level. You feel more, you sense more, you pick up more clues.
From my personal experience, I can say that many times I intuitively knew what was wrong with the client, and how to best approach it during the session.
This energetic awareness has helped me to become a more holistic and better therapist and a more conscious human being.
It is an amazing feeling when you truly connect with your client, you feel the energy flow, and you know that a shift is happening.
It uplifts you and fills you with inspiration, gratitude, and a deep sense of fulfillment.
How and where to learn such Thai Massage skills
Not every Thai Massage school teaches (or knows how to teach) on a holistic, energy-based level. In fact, many teach you a sequence of techniques and not much more.
If you want to learn Thai Massage in a way that makes it:
…then this might be exactly what you are looking for:
The author, Shama Kern, has been practicing and teaching Thai Massage for over two decades. He is the founder of Thai Healing Massage Academy and the creator of 20 Thai Massage online training programs.