Is traditional better than non-traditional?

Thai massage has almost a certain mystique about it. It sounds exotic and it looks quite amazing with all those stretches and yoga-like positions. It is the only massage system that I am familiar with which is branded as “traditional”. Whoever heard of ‘traditional’ Swedish massage or ‘traditional’  sports massage? But Thai massage is promoted as ‘traditional’, implying that this makes it somehow better than non-traditional.

Actually the truth is just the opposite. Some of the very best Thai massage teachers I ever had were all very much non-traditional. They developed their own style, they were very creative, came up with modifications and significantly diverged from the ‘traditional’ style that is taught in most schools in Thailand. Read the rest of this entry

Why is everyone frozen in time suddenly?

Imagine this: You are walking in a crowded market with thousands of people milling around, and suddenly everyone freezes, standing motionless. What is going on here!? You will get used to it. Every day at 8 am and 6 pm all over Thailand a mini ceremony takes place in honor of the King. A special song is played over the loudspeakers and everyone stops whatever they are doing and is standing motionless until the song ends. At that time everyone just continues with whatever they were doing.

This can happen in all kinds of places. It is a familiar scene at Chiang Mai’s busy Sunday market. While you will not see it in big city traffic, I have been in smaller towns where all traffic just stopped in the middle of the street as soon as the song started to play. If you go to Bangkok’s huge Hualampong train station, all the police and security people will line up in a row and salute while all passengers stand up to honor the king twice a day. Read the rest of this entry

Thai massage is very popular nowadays. It is being offered in spas around the world. Here in Thailand massage schools are popping up everywhere, and students come from all over the world.  Many books and DVDs are available for home study. However little is written about the challenges  that therapists can encounter.

The positive side of a Thai massage business

There are two sides to being a Thai massage therapist. New practitioners see mostly one side: Meaningful work with decent income, holistic, positive, and beneficial healing work, interaction with many interesting and wonderful people (clients and fellow therapists), the ability to have one’s own business, set one’s own working hours, and contribute something of value to the world. Read the rest of this entry

What does it mean to be truthful? In the west we think that there is an easy answer – tell the facts, don’t hide anything, say it as it is. But it turns out to be a confusing fact that other cultures don’t agree with this definition. Thais have a very different relationship with the “truth”. We call it lying, but that is just our own cultural bias, and it is more of a judgment than a correct assessment.

Is there a correct definition for the “truth”?

The western model of truth often places truth ahead of other considerations, like being inconvenienced or put in an uncomfortable position by speaking the truth. We have sayings that confirm this: “Call a spade a spade”, or “Just the truth, nothing but the truth”. Lying is considered totally unacceptable to us, and the truth is upheld as a sacrosanct principle. Read the rest of this entry

The answer that comes to mind most easily is “money” – massage therapists can make $60.-, $70.- or even more more per hour. But the focus of this article is everything except money. After having done massage therapy for many years, I know that money alone is not a good enough reason to be in this profession.

Thai massage happens to be my specialty but the concepts in this article really apply to any massage therapist. Every therapist knows the rewards and challenges of this work, and I intentionally choose to highlight only positive aspects in this context. Read the rest of this entry