Friday, 7 December 2018

Spot Specific Thai Massage .

Massage is often long in Thailand - book yourself in for the morning or afternoon ! 

Thai massage can be very long compared to many modern therapeutic forms of massage . Two or three hour therapeutic massages are not uncommon in Thailand to treat a problem. This may not be possible for everyone outside of Thailand , whether due to reasons of cost or time or culturally that we're not used to the idea. 75 or  90 minutes spot or region specific treatment is considered on the short side for Thai Massage but of course good work can be done in that time. 

Why is it so long traditionally ?

There are likely two or three main reasons why Thai massages are so long . One is the consideration that no body pain situation has developed in isolation from the rest of the body and therefore there will be other related areas contributing to the problem needing work. Another is that Thai massage theory teaches that each layer of the body must be addressed in turn in order for the recipient to feel comfortable enough to allow the therapist to work deeper into the next layer . This takes time or the process can be too uncomfortable.  Chronic pain in particular may take time for the therapist to get through to effectively. A third reason is that Thailand has had a massage culture for thousands of years and historically the idea of short timed sessions would have been strange in a less time/money pressured society . It's easy then to see how Thai Massage became so long. 

How does spot or region specific Thai massage work ?

Shorter sessions sacrifice the whole body element of the treatment in order to focus in on a particular area or areas of need and can therefore be done in 75 or 90 minutes - this allows the therapist time to safely work through the layers of tension or blockage to hopefully reach or get closer to the core of the problem , and if there's time to start exploring related areas.  This may not be enough to fully address the situation in one session, but that could be attended to in further sessions if necessary . 

For more information on Thai Massage in Totnes you can list my page here