Tips And Tricks For Learning Thai Massage Part 8

The Right Way To Move Clients In Thai Massage

Thai Massage is a graceful and artistic healing arts modality. It takes a lot more than knowing how to do a particular massage stroke or technique.

You need to know how to use your body correctly, how to use good body mechanics and how to work with least effort. This includes knowing how to move your clients gracefully from one position into another position.

This video demonstrates how to move your Thai Massage clients correctly and easily between supine, prone, side and sitting positions without having to ask them to turn around on their own.

4 positions in Thai Massage

In Thai Massage there are more positions for the client than in most other massage styles

Limitations of a narrow work space in Thai Massage

The question is how to move your clients from one position into the other? 

If you have a narrow mat or you are working on a massage table, then you have no choice but to ask your clients to move around and turn over on their own because you don’t have enough space to move them.

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Advantages of working on a wide mat

But if you are working on a wide mat, then you have a much better choice: You can do the moving for your clients without them having to do anything on their own.

That’s of course a more elegant way. It is much more convenient for your clients. You don’t have to bother them with frequent request to move into another position.

You need three things to accomplish this:

Creating a better experience for your clients

In Thai Massage as in any other massage, it is important to create a pleasant atmosphere, to make it as comfortable for the client as possible, and to allow the client to relax and drift off into this wonderful trance-like state which can be experienced during a great massage.

Unlike other massage styles, in Thai Massage there is a lot more motion. The client is moved around a lot during stretches and in several positions (supine, prone, side, sitting).

It is not the ideal experience for your clients if you have to ask them repeatedly: “can you please turn over”, “can you please lie on your right side”, or “can you please lie on your left side”. It is much more pleasant and elegant if you can do all these movements for the client.

Now you have the technical skills how to do all this. You just need a large enough mat, and then you can provide a better experience for your clients.

The author, Shama Kern, is the founder and director of Thai Healing Massage Academy. He has been practicing and teaching Thai Massage for over two decades and he is the creator of 20 Thai Massage online training courses.