Massage, however, makes sense: it feels like a conversation with muscles and is literally hands-on. You touch the muscles and they respond with their story. Some are tense and others are not, and you make can compare them to each other to see which ones need the most work. The more you speak with the muscles, the more you sharpen your ability to communicate with them. Just like learning a language, you start to have far more complex conversations as your sense of feeling grows.
I first noticed how learning massage was like learning a language when I was in Swedish massage school. You start with basic words. Then you learn grammar, sentence structure, and how to pronounce things correctly. Next, you move on to creating basic sentences. Later you start to try to carry out basic conversation: this builds in complexity and understanding. Massage felt very much like this, except words and sentences were replaced with muscle density, tension density, the feeling of skin, the lines of the body, and the breath of the person. The building blocks of the language of massage came together to create one detailed conversation. Instead of conversing in my fluent language of Swedish massage, I felt like I was starting from scratch with learning the foreign language of Thai massage. I knew from the start that it was a completely different creature.
Thai massage dates back thousands of years, and was passed on through generations of monks through scriptures. It originated from both China and India, but became something different over the generations. A lot of it works along Energy lines called "Sen Sip", which shares similarities to Indian shakra's "Chinese Meridians", but is still very different. There are 10 of these lines and they originate above the navel and spread throughout the body. Blockages to these are considered blockages of "wind energy" and are believed to lead to sickness.
Thai massage itself separated into two branches: Thai Royal and Thai Common Massage. Thai Royal was practiced originally on royalty; it involves many movements, proper alignment, and modesty of body. Thai Common was that of the commoners; typically practiced by family members and friends working on each other after a hard day of work. Thai common uses far fewer positions than Royal and is more freeflow. It is also considered to be less modest due to the closeness and positions of the bodies of the giver and receivers. In Thai massage, it is more common for the receiver to wear full clothing. The massage is performed on mats on the ground rather than on a massage table. Thai massage requires that the receiver remains loose, so it involves a lot of stretching. It tends to be more vigorous compared to Swedish, which involves less body movement.
The "Modern Thai Massage Movement" was revived through help of Thai government in the late 1970, early 80's thanks to schools such as TMC. This movement began after years of Thai massage receiving a more nefarious reputation due to its association with use in the sex trade in the 1950 and 60's. Even today when I would telling friends I was going to Thailand to learn Thai massage, the person would sometimes respond with a sex joke. Many people don't realize that Thai massage has a vast history and deep ties to ancient medicine.
Week 1 began a mere four days after I arrived, exhausted and bleary eyed. My class consisted of some of the most beautiful people the world has to offer. It is true that mostly people of good heart and intention study how to help people heal their bodies, and these people proved no different. They consisted of two Aussie gents, three Americans ladies, a British guy, a Swiss gent living in Thailand, and a Swiss woman who joined us for our last few weeks. There were around 20-30 other students completing both shorter and longer programs, but I will concentrate on my class. You bond quickly when you are learning hundreds of different positions and bending each other in sometimes awkward directions, and with a lot of laughter we became a tight crew along with whatever lovely female Thai teacher that was stuck with us each day. Week 1 was all about learning properness of body and hands through a series of well over 150 positions. The struggle was real, and we left each day feeling rather exhausted and sore, both in mind and body.
This was the 150 hour Thai Intensive training, and it indeed was that. My hands hurt, my knees hurt, my back hurt. I told them early on that I had weak wrists and thumbs and preferred elbows, and quickly received the nickname among my classmates and teachers as "Mr. Elbow". Those that know me know I like to joke and am kind of loud (which might be an understatement). I was joined by two of the biggest loudest jokers possible: two Australian body building brothers that looked like what statues of Greek gods wished they could look like. Over the course of five weeks, they would lovingly earn the nicknames of Big Trunk and Little Trunk, due to the size of their core bodies, not the size of something else. The rest of our class, though quieter but no less funny and quirky, earned nicknames as well. The two American woman earned the nicknames of Snail (because of the snail tattoo she got in Thailand), and MPA (More Power Always, because holy shit, could you never give her enough pressure). Completing this group was the Swiss gent, who became known as Farmer Nick due to his plans of starting an organic farm in Thailand with his Thai partner Peace (classic hippie stuff). Together, these clowns would become the guests of the Mr. Elbow Show. Stay tuned for the next episode-- Week Two: Mr. Elbow and friends learn real suffering.
