Laura, the secret is what I call the "power of softness". Many people think that softness means a lighter touch with less intensity or power. But actually it has nothing to do with strong or light, it is a quality of touch. If you imagine your hands doing a dance, or doing Tai Chi-like movements instead of pressing, that will change the quality of your touch. Practice floating your hands down towards your partner's body and sinking into the muscles with the feeling of softness while only using your bodyweight.

And yes, the closer you get to the knee, the more sensitive it becomes. It is not only the sciatic nerve, it is the fact that there is much less muscle mass around the knee than further up the thigh. It is best to avoid working strongly around the knee. (The same applies to the elbow.) However I have created an entire therapy course that deals exclusively with working on the knee. You might want to check that out at some point. In there I use mostly rocking techniques that make it easy to eliminate any pain in and around the knee area.

Laura I feel honored by your comment. I really do love helping my students to develop the more refined and and subtle aspects of massage.

Fantastic! I am so happy for you! I think you can look forward to doing better and better sessions as the course progresses.  

Laura, regarding getting close to a man's genital area: You are right, this is an issue to be aware of. But it does not only apply to Thai Massage, but to all kinds of massages. Here in Thailand they have an easy solution - they just don't care.

Every therapist knows that the genital is designed for expansion, and this can easily happen during a massage session. Unless the man gets a raging erection and starts groping the female therapist, they simply disregard movement in the genitals. In the vast majority of cases, there is no sexual intent or feeling involved - it is just a biological function. Actually, often the man feels much more embarrassed by this involuntary movement than the therapist.

Naturally you need to use common sense and not get too close to the genital area. Throughout my videos you will find repeated references to this issue when there are techniques that are close to the genital area. But you can never totally eliminate this issue, it is just the way how a man's body is designed.

Regarding "not getting it right away", don't expect too much from yourself. It is totally normal to not get it right away. Imagine giving a music student a violin and some sheet music and expecting that it will instantly sound heavenly. It will first sound scratchy and terrible, but with practice it will sound beautiful. That's just how it works when you learn something. Nobody "gets it" right away perfectly. Don't be hard on yourself. 

It will never be enough to practice a module of the course only one time. You need to rewatch them several times and keep practicing and get a lot of feedback from your practice partner. 

Soon you will get a module that shows the flow of everything you have learned so far. There won't be much explanation in it since you have had that in previous modules already, but it will look more like a real session in flow. That will help you put the pieces together.

Thanks Laura, I am so glad that the course is working well for you. I really love interacting with my students and answering questions and supporting everyone:)

Hi Laura,

two tips to get into that position:

1. When you are standing and step forward until your feet end up below your partner's shoulders, use your knees and thighs to push your partners knees outwards as much as possible. When you bring your partner's feet down below your knees, make sure that your knees are straight and not bent. This requires the least initial stretch.

2. Make sure that your partner's hip is coming up. You cannot just do this stretch only by bending the legs forward. It only works because the entire back is curving and that allows the legs to go down. This stretch effects the hamstrings, hips and entire back, and all those parts have to move. Often you have to gently maneuver the legs in place first if you feel resistance. This stretch does not work if your partner stiffens up or resists in any way.

But anyway, this is a real yogi stretch, and I rarely do it on regular clients unless they are quite flexible and enjoy stretching. I show you a wide range of stretches, but the idea is not that you use all of them all the time. Only use the ones that are suitable for a particular client and skip the others.

And yes, you can modify stretches to accommodate clients who are not so flexible, but actually it is more advisable to work on stiff muscles directly with pressure or rocking techniques rather than trying to get someone into an uncomfortable stretch which they cannot handle easily.

I am so happy that you are progressing nicely and that you are getting good feedback from your clients.

Shama