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November 22, 2011
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What is the difference between Thai massage and Shiatsu?
November 22, 2011
Offline Also, has anyone heard of Watsu? It is a water based Shiatsu used much like thai but in a heated pool or spa. It was designed by Harold Dull around 1980. There must be a water based thai also.
June 28, 2010
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Watsu was developed at Harbin Hotsprings in northern California. This is a beautiful hot springs resort with lots of massage therapy and training programs in Watsu and Shiatsu and lots of other modalities. Personally I studied Chi Nei Tsang there, and I used to trade my Thai massage sessions for Watsu treatments with some of their teachers there. There is no water based Thai that I have ever heard of.
I have studied Zen Shiatsu as well as Thai Massage. Your question is hard to answer since there are several styles of Shiatsu as well as of Thai Massage. There is certainly quite some similarity between the two modalities. Thai Massage makes much more use of intense stretching techniques, and Shiatsu focuses more on energy line work based on detailed theoretical principles. Zen Shiatsu uses the abdominal area for diagnosis and can develop a treatment protocol from there which is not done in Thai Massage.
I have traded quite a bit with Shiatsu practitioners, and we are clearly talking about two massage modalities within the same family. But to compare apples with apples, you had to zero in on specific styles within Shiatsu especially.
November 22, 2011
Offline Thanks Shama. I find it all fascinating. We have a aquatic instructor here at my facility that has done 3 of the thai workshops with me. She does personal training in the water as well as Thai Massage. I turned her onto the Watsu material and site and possibly she could learn and incorporate into our physical therapy and wellness program. Love the acro "flying stuff" too. We did some of that a few weeks ago. I figured you would know something about it.
June 28, 2010
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Yes, Acro is fun. It is just amazing to me how all these treatments and modalities develop, change, grow and evolve. And I am happy to be part of this process.
October 16, 2012
Offline this link is very helpful for getting any type of knowledge regarding massage
November 22, 2011
Offline Thank you for the link.
June 28, 2010
Offline Jindi, it is obvious to me to me that you want to promote the Toronto Massage Center since you made an almost identical post under another thread. This forum here is meant for actual discussion about massage training, not for promoting things.
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