The 5 Myths of Thai Massage Training

There are several stereotypes that are often repeated and might prevent you from adding Thai Massage training to your list of skills. Let’s look at them closely and separate the truth from fiction.

Myth #1: Thai Massage is painful

This is just not true! How can I be so sure? Easy – from the feedback of my clients. I have been both practicing and providing Thai Massage training for over 20 years, and I have never hurt any client unnecessarily.

However, I can tell you why this perception exists. First, let’s rephrase the statement to ‘Thai Massage is potentially painful’.

Why is that so? There are two reasons:

1. There are many stretches in Thai Massage. If you take them too far, they can easily become painful for the client.

2. Thai Massage makes plenty of use of elbows, knees, and feet. It is easy to cause pain with those techniques.

Swedish Massage, for example, uses hardly any stretching, little elbow work, and no knees or feet.

In addition, long strokes on oiled skin are less likely to cause pain than the direct linear pressure of Thai Massage.

What does this mean? A rookie Swedish massage practitioner is much less likely to cause pain than a rookie Thai Massage training graduate.

Fact: Thai Massage can be done in a very gentle way. You can literally put someone to sleep during a session.

You can put your clients into a blissful and trance-like state that makes them feel like they are walking on clouds after the session.

Conclusion: Strong pain is NOT caused because Thai Massage is by its nature painful, but it is caused by inexperienced, insensitive, not well-trained, or even brutal therapists. In the next section you will find out why there are some of those around.

==> Related reading: Thai Rocking Massage, a painless and unique system 

Myth #2: Thai Massage can be learned in a short course

In Thailand, where I have lived for two decades, it is very common to see one, three, or five-day Thai Massage training courses advertised with the guarantee that you will learn to do a two-hour session. In the Western world short courses are also commonly promoted.

While you might be able to do some rubbing, pushing, yanking, and stretching for two hours after a 3 or 5-day course, you will not be properly trained to understand the subtleties and the sensitivity that is required for doing effective and high-quality work.

Such short courses can be a good starting place, but if they are confused with the actual training that is required to be a good therapist, then all I can say is: “Clients beware”!

Myth #3: Thai Massage training is always better in Thailand

This is not true!

Nowadays there are many excellent teachers in the Western world who have developed unique and highly effective styles.

Some have moved away from the traditional style which is typically taught in Thailand and have blended it with elements from yoga and other modalities.

The fact is that most of the creative development, most of the recent evolution of Thai Massage, has taken place outside of Thailand and has taken this ancient art to new levels.

If you think about it, the same thing has happened with yoga. Almost all of those famous yoga styles have been developed in the last few decades by Western practitioners.

==> Related Reading: How The West Rescued Yoga And Thai Massage

It can be cheaper and more fun to study in Thailand, being in exotic surroundings, the tropical environment, and the immersion in a different culture. But it is not true that the actual Thai Massage training will necessarily be better there.

Actually, sometimes the opposite is true, especially in smaller schools where teachers hardly speak any English and do not have very high standards.

Myth #4: Thai Massage mostly consists of stretches

If you watch Youtube videos, you will mostly see an unending array of stretches. Most of them are done on flexible yogi women who can easily be twisted into a pretzel shape.

But the reality is different. Your average session doesn’t always look like that.

The average Thai Massage in Thailand consists of more muscle and pressure techniques than stretching. You can easily do an entire session without a single stretch, and it can be a great massage.

I know this for a fact since I have done it countless times over the years, and I have received lots of such non-stretch sessions.

You cannot do a two-hour Thai Massage session with one stretch after another unless you want to drive your clients crazy. This would not be a massage anymore but a high-intensity workout session.

Also keep in mind that stretching should never be done on cold muscles. It should always be preceded by lots of warming and loosening techniques that prepare muscles for possible stretching.

Myth #5: Thai Massage is linked to eroticism and sensuality

Fact # 1:  Massage in general has always and will always be used as a come-on for erotic affairs. It doesn’t matter if you are in Hanoi (Vietnam), Bangkok (Thailand), Amsterdam (Holland), or San Francisco (USA).

If you walk around in the red light district of any major city or read the classifieds in the newspaper, there will always be lots of sensual massage on offer. 

It’s not just Thai Massage. It’s done with any kind of massage. And this will never change.

Fact # 2: Although sensual massage has no place in professional therapy, outside of that massage lends itself very well to a prelude to intimacy within relationships or marriages.
And there is nothing wrong with this at all. Just the opposite, in fact. It can be a wonderful relationship enhancer.

Fact # 3: It is true that Thai Massage has been exported by Thai women, especially to many European countries, who provide ‘extra’ services as part of the massage.

But none of these three facts have anything to do with the actual, authentic, therapeutic Thai Massage training which is part of a healing system that has been effectively practiced for hundreds of years.

Many things in life can be used for more than one purpose.

Just because knives can be used for violent purposes doesn’t mean that they are inherently bad and that you will not use them to slice your bread or cut a melon.

Just because drunk drivers can cause unspeakable suffering doesn’t mean that cars are bad and that you will never again drive one.

And just because Thai Massage or any massage is sometimes used for purposes that have little to do with therapy and healing does not reflect on its tremendous potential as one of the most amazing and effective healing arts in existence.

Quality Thai Massage training is one of the best investments you can make in your healing arts career.

The author, Shama Kern, is the founder 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.