A good Thai Massage is a really enjoyable and beneficial experience. Why? There are two ways to explain this – the scientific way and the experiential way.
The first one is often presented by the massage therapist profession, by the massage therapists.
As a professional Thai Massage therapist and teacher, I happen to be part of this group, and I am well aware of what my colleagues have to say.
However, in contrast to most of them, I have spent most of my Thai Massage career in Thailand, and therefore I have quite a different perspective. This is what I would like to introduce here.
How is a professional Thai Massage supposed to feel? Is it a feel-good sensation? Is it a blissful feeling? Is it a clinical experience? Is it a healing experience? Is it a relaxing feeling? Is it an invigorating sensation? Can it be painful? Is it a sensual feeling?
Some people actively or furtively seek out the combination of massage and eroticism. Others detest just the thought of any sensual massage elements and see it as something awful. Is there a right and a wrong here?
Let’s take a deeper look at this issue and analyze it without prejudice.
Why this topic can be aggravating for professional massage therapists
This tends to be a sensitive topic for professional massage therapists. Sometimes they have had to battle a misguided public opinion that massage is just a disguise for sexual services.
And sometimes female therapists had to fend off callers who were clearly looking for non-professional services. Some of them might even have had inappropriate requests from men during their sessions.
Some Thai Massage sessions can feel like workout sessions. You are pressed, pummeled, stretched, yanked and kneaded – sometimes in painful ways.
And then…there are those sessions which make you feel like you are walking on clouds, like you entered massage heaven. What’s the secret here? What accounts for the difference in those sessions?
Here’s the secret: Thai Massage techniques on their own, without certain refined elements, are just a mechanical system without a soul. It lacks the essence, the spirit, and the element of a true healing art. There is a lot more to it…
How is ‘healing’ generally defined in massage therapy?
Healing in massage therapy is a tricky subject. It is often avoided by tiptoeing around the issue, by mentioning benefits without making any healing claims.
Here are some ways how the (healing) benefits of massage are typically presented:
It lowers your blood pressure
It relaxes your muscles
It increases the production of endorphins
It improves your flexibility
It releases tension in muscles, connective tissue, and joints
But, God forbid if you mention that it can actually help to cure, heal, or improve an actual disease. That can get you in trouble mighty quickly.
Why are Healing Arts practitioners not allowed to heal?
Here is an amazing fact. Massage is part of the healing arts world, but in quite a few countries, including the USA, massage therapists are not allowed to say that they heal anything.
So if massage therapy is a healing art, but it doesn’t heal anything, what exactly does it do?
There are major teaching institutions with ‘healing arts’ included in their name that teach massage therapy.
A good question would be – what do they tell their students? A healing arts institution teaches a healing art that is not allowed to heal anything. Isn’t this a strange contradiction?
During one and a half decades of practicing and teaching Thai Massage, I have learned quite a lot about the magic of touch. I know it is there, I have seen it, felt it and experienced it, and I don’t need any more proof other than my experience.
I am a professional Thai Massage therapist, and I enjoy receiving massage as much as I like giving it.
Why? Because it makes me feel great!
However I can’t help but notice a trend towards establishing the benefits of massage in increasingly scientific terms. While this is certainly important and useful knowledge, I want to emphasize another aspect.
Come with me on a mind opening journey. It’s a story about heartfelt touching, about moving energy in everyday life and in massage therapy in a way that is more fulfilling and that will benefit both your happiness and your income. You might find it fascinating.
For children physical contact is normal
We are all born with a need to be physically touched.
This is quite obvious when you watch young children play or interact with their parents.
But very quickly most cultures train us to not touch each other. It might be a cultural taboo or even a religious injunction.
A touch experiment
A number of years ago a team of researchers conducted a ‘touch’ experiment. They traveled to several countries, and sat down in cafes or restaurants. Then they counted how often people touched each other.
