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“Traditional” Thai Massage

November 10, 2022 By: Drew Humecomment

traditional thai massageThere’s a lot of talk about traditional Thai massage in the community. As in, a lot of people use that word “traditional” to market themselves – using it in a way that attempts to differentiate themselves from people who don’t practice in a traditional way.

In many cases the inference is that those who don’t practice “traditionally” are charlatans of the practice and/or not as good at what they do.

But if asked what they mean by “traditional”, most people don’t actually really have much information – or any way to really clarify what that means. It’s become one of the many buzzwords out there – because as consumers, we often make a false equivalence between “traditional” and “better”.

Some people try to say things like:

  • ? Starting at the feet and going up and down the body is part of tradition, or
  • ? Working on the left side of the body for females first is part of the tradition, or
  • ? Learning in Thailand is traditional, or
  • ? A particular set of postures, or
  • ? Executing the postures the same way I was taught by my teacher and their teachers before them.

But none of those things describe a Thai tradition – they mostly just describe popular practice (especially in commercial settings).

Some will get a little closer with the idea of “practicing like they do in Thailand”.

The trouble with that is, that if you look at different regions across time, you’ll find evidence of people practicing Thai massage in all imaginable ways – from fully clothed with no oils, to fully unclothed with oils, from treatments with only hands and thumbs, to the use of the feet for the entire session, from heavily stretch-focused, to heavily massage-focused, from the use of our limbs for pressure to the use of wooden hammers and tools.

In that way, tradition could be every and any style of physical practice, because it’s been practiced in so many ways in Thailand. So tradition can’t be about the techniques. Or at least, it can’t be the differentiating factor in the idea of traditional and non-traditional practices.

But some will suggest it’s not so much about the technique, but instead about their order or sequence.

Some sequences will be labeled traditional, where others will be called a blend of different practices. The thing with this is though, that sequences only really started to become a popularized thing more recently in history, when the traditional medical practices of the Thai people were being lost due to Westernized medicine coming in and taking over. So manual therapy was cut down and packaged up into sequences to become more of a tourist draw (to learning the practice).

So again, not really capturing the essence of tradition.

What then could we say IS traditional?

Because there are elements that make a practice of Thai massage traditional. From the last 12 years of studying and practicing, I’ve been able to draw a few real answers out of the teaching community, leading to the following four ideas. This is what we might consider elements of actual traditional Thai massage, distinguishing it from other traditions (and other forms of manual therapy):

  • ? A foundation in Metta (compassion/loving kindness)
  • ? Inclusion of Thai element theory into your work (which is distinct from other element theories of other traditions)
  • ? Some kind of movement practice
  • ? Some kind of devotional practice

For those last two, some will suggest these must be certain forms. We have interpreted it a little differently.

We teach 1, 3 and 4 all the time, and we touch on 2 (but also blend it with element theory from other traditions). Yet, even with that we prefer to use the phrase “Thai-inspired manual therapy” instead of “traditional Thai massage”, since there has been some debate over the topic and we prefer to let everyone else worry about who gets to use the term “traditional” and who doesn’t. We try to do our best in the maintenance of traditional elements even while calling it something slightly different.

So keep an eye on that word because it pops up in a lot of different spaces – like in the yoga community too, and it doesn’t necessarily carry any inherent value even though we commonly give it value. It carries even less value when the school/discipline can’t tell you what they mean by it.

Something to ponder.

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