Thoughts on the Thai Massage Sequence

Here we go again.  After years of thinking about what is traditional Thai massage, what is the “traditional” sequence taught to beginners, and how does this impact the teaching of Thai massage in the west.  I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible.

I have gotten a bunch of Thai massages here in Thailand.  Most are horrible.  The way people are taught and what they are taught does not feel good to most bodies.  Then I see what most westerners are taught in many schools around Chiang Mai and there are so many problems I don’t know where to begin.  How about at the beginning?  The first move often taught in a Thai massage sequence is where the client is in supine, the giver is at their feet pressing them down to the ground, and forcing their legs into lateral / external rotation.  This simple, traditional start to the “sequence”, for many people, strains the inner knee.  Feel it and see if you don’t feel some strain on the inner knee when someone presses your inner feet / toes toward the floor.  When the hips are tight as they are with so many in the west, they do not roll out and the knees take the brunt of the torque.  So, here we are teaching a one size fits all sequence that begins with stressing out the knee joint, causing tension in the person receiving and of course, reflecting back to the giver adding tension to them.  I could go on with almost every position as it’s often taught.  I could also go on with the sequence that things are done in too and I will do it soon enough.  But suffice to say that simply the amount of time spent in supine on one’s back at the beginning of the massage without a break, 1/2 hour, 45 minutes, an hour or even more in a massage I had recently here, is hell on the back, creating discomfort, stiffness and tension.

I don’t know why this is.   Perhaps, because Thai bodies are so different from western bodies, that things that are bad for a western body are good for a Thai body.  And our bodies in the west are different.  Very different.  I remember when my son Oliver was at Pichest’s last year.  Pichest immediately took his foot, pointed to it and said, “culture already!”.  What he meant was that the shape of his nine year old foot as determined by our shoe wearing culture was already bearing telltale sign of the west – not to mention the problems associated with it.  So with our western body shapes in mind, how can we assume we can just take the “traditional” thai massage sequence direct from Thailand without changing it to fit our needs.

Pichest looking at Oliver’s foot last year

I think that part of the problem comes in due to the fact that many people who study Thai massage whether it be in the west or here in Thailand, is that these people tend to have certain body types that are atypical of most westerners – especially United Statesians.  Often times young, often times yoga students or the like, backpackers, and simply people who have not been swallowed by the kaphic tendencies of our culture.  So in a way, the way Thai massage is typically taught feels good, or at least not bad, to these body types. However, the people we often work on, do not have the same capabilities that the practitioners have.  And when they have only been taught by Thai people and only practiced on lithe westerners, then this practice runs head on into body types and constitutions that are not able to accept or integrate that way of working.  This not only causes problems for those who receive but also for those who give, who have not been trained how to work with a really big person, a really stiff person, or a really sensitive person.

All this makes me not want to call what I do Thai massage.  And that is why I am happy to be changing the name of the school.  I like Thai healing better.  It speaks to the bigger picture.  The mindset and spirit that is underneath it all.  Because that, in my opinion, is what counts anyways.  The look of it, whether it be a “traditional Thai sequence” or anything else, doesn’t matter.  That’s where we get hung up on outer form and duality.  I won’t speak any more on that for now so as not to cause too much controversy in one day!

So, this all leads to a new sequence that Michelle and I are creating out here.  As we’ve been working on it, we are surprised at how different it is, how many moves we’ve left out, and more.  It’s been fun picking apart each move, looking for alternatives, and looking for different, easier approaches.  We are creating something that has the health and safety of the practitioner in mind first and foremost combined with the maximum effectiveness for the receiver.  In addition, we are trying to create a certain flexibility that allows a beginner to be able to perceive when other approaches might be appropriate for a client.

All this does not come out of the air or a twisted desire on my part to create some new trademarked branded Thai massage.  It comes from my desire to simply feel good about what I am teaching to beginners, knowing that it will be safe and effective and enjoyable and healing.  And with these principles being the guide, not “tradition”, we can create something that I can feel really good about teaching and sharing.

And of course, it all has been inspired by my teacher, Pichest Boonthumme, who could care less about tradition and cares deeply about the potential, not just of the healing practice, but of each individual person to awaken, grow strong, open their heart, and share their own healing with others.

Again, and I can never say it enough, THANK YOU PICHEST!!!

Telephone Meditation

If you have a habit of anxiously picking up the phone the moment you hear it ring (I do it myself at times – though less than before), let it ring while you take one mindful breath. Try waiting a full two or three rings before you pick it up and see how it feels. You can try this with text messages as well. When you hear it ding, don’t look at it right away. Check in with your body and breath first. See how your body reacts to that little ding. Take a breath and let it go. Then, either continue doing what you are doing and look at the text later, or look at it now. But either way, that little spacer in between the summons and your reaction can lead to greater understanding and wisdom.

I got this idea from a book I got in Thailand a few years ago at a little used bookstore in Chiang Mai. It is called The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism by Kenneth Kraft. There are many ways to remind ourselves slow down, breathe and relax throughout the day. The book also talks about a doctor, a compulsive clock watcher, who put green dots on his watch and the clock in his office. Every time he saw a green dot, he took a breath and relaxed his shoulders. He estimated t

Geeking out with Mia and the Pauls!

hat he took a hundred relaxing breaths throughout a typical day and he slowly let go of his clock watching habit.

Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Present Moment, Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living talks about driving meditation in which we take a breath and gently bring our attention back to the moment every time we see a red light or brake light.

There are so many opportunities in our daily lives to come back to the present. In this way, our meditation can extend beyond the mat to any moment of our day.

The Little Doctor

Mor Noi with Rick

This article was written by Karen Ufer who joined CSTM in Thailand last March. One of the teachers that we really love is Mor Noi, and this post describes Karen’s experience with her. Enjoy!

Mor Noi: the ‘little doctor’ in Chiang Mai
(Mor = doctor, Noi = little)

A stunning discovery that I made on my last trip to Chiang Mai in March 2011 with the Chicago School of Thai Massage was Miss Amporn (gold from the sky) Srakrupan called Mor Noi – a healer of a kind, a true wisdom woman, a psychic and medical intuitive, a jewel in the lotus flower. She was trained in Traditional Thai Medicine and became a Thai medical doctor. She developed her own theory about the cause of illness and created her own, special method of healing. She represents the ‘soft touch’ of energy healing in Thailand in contrast to the deep pressure often felt with Nuad Boran (Traditional Massage). Her gentle, warm energy hands connect to the natural energy flow of the body as well as to the single cells forming the tissue. She believes that the cells carry the memory of the past and store whatever happened to the body: trauma, accident, disease. Her gentle healing touch aims at the same goals as Thai massage: opening the energy flow, releasing energy blockages, balancing the energy of the elements (air, water, earth, fire) and activating the inherent self-healing mechanisms of the body.

In many ways, her teachings are ‘same same’ to Pichest Boonthumme- a Master of Traditional Thai massage – sometimes even using the same words or phrases. The spiritual healing – healing the thought – is deeply connected to the dharma teachings of Buddhism and is completely in line with the wisdom Pichest embodies. They are also comparable in their teachings about the dominance of the mind over the body and the resulting problems from being too much in the mind. Both healers are strongly influenced by the beliefs about the world of spirit– the need to live in harmony with them and the energies they represent in the world.

Mor Noi’s theory about the four natural elements (water, earth, fire and air) reflecting the physiological processes in the body is also rooted in the old traditions of Thai Medicine. With her broad range of education and her amazing intuitive abilities she adapted this ancient knowledge about energy and elements to the 21st century and our modern illnesses and diseases. With regard to life energy she even refers to concepts of modern quantum physics. Listening to her is a refreshing shower of receiving the magical truth of simplicity.

The difference between Pichest and Mor Noi is the ‘how’ – the way they touch the body and heal the mind; the way they move energy. Mor Noi works on the table with a soft touch and treats the mind and body simultaneously talking to the client and guiding the mind through the body. Pitchest addresses the mind and the body separately. He heals the mind through his dharma teachings, meditation and prayers. His way of healing the energy and releasing blockages happens on the mat on the floor through deep circulatory compressions as an essential ingredient of his famous style of Thai massage.

Mor Noi is the female, yin version of how to connect to the pranamaya kosha – the energybody – and activate the self-healing mechanisms of the physical body by removing energy blockages. Her touch is as powerful as it is soft. She does not press or sink into the body. Instead her touch connects you to a new awareness of the energy flow in your body or your own blockages. She works on both entities – the body and the mind – at the same time. She has a way of withdrawing your mind from processing external signals and directing it towards observing and feeling the body, urging it to LISTEN to the body.

Mor Noi teaches you that the mind can make the body sick by making too many demands on the body. She acknowledges that the mind can also make the mind sick. Wrong thinking and judgment of the mind can lead to an even more disturbed perception of the external world. The body can also make the body sick. These are chain reactions of progressive illnesses which cause the weakness to expand throughout the body. The body can also make the mind sick. This refers to dealing with physical problems which change and affect your thinking, perception and emotions about life. Mor Noi regards the body and the mind as separate entities with different energies. The energy of the thoughts is very different from the life energy in the body. It is essential to heal both of them simultaneously. Only the restoration of a healthy communication and interaction of these two important dimensions will lead to true healing of the body-mind-soul unit.

The body does the self-healing best when the mind leaves it alone. This means the complete allowance and letting go of the mind’s need to stay in control even of the process of healing. Mor Noi teaches us that one major ingredient of healing is love. A sign on her desk says, “We need love! The body needs love!”

It takes a really good practitioner, lots of self-discipline and practice of meditation to take your mind to this special state of letting go. Mor Noi can help you do it. She takes you to a deeply relaxed, trance-like state being somewhere between awake and asleep. Once the mind is still and completely present, the body is set free to heal itself.

Her major focus is on the abdominal area as the center of most health problems. Additionally, she intentionally elicits emotions during the session. She believes that energy blockages are caused by negative emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, guilt which are stored in the body. Mor Noi intuitively connects to these emotional blockages. She talks about her sensations and brings repressed emotions back to your awareness.

As a former psychotherapist and neuropsychologist, I know how difficult it is to heal emotional trauma or physical memories through the mind. The state of letting go is not easily achieved with the mind, if at all. On the contrary, it happens quickly in the body, when the mind is still. This experience was my biggest insight into the interaction of the mind and body influencing the energy flow. I experienced the magical moment of energy shifting in the body during my session with her. It seems that if the healer is capable of relaxing the central nervous system to the extent that the client experiences this ‘mindless’ state, the body liberates itself from suffering. Giving the body this kind of freedom and allowance, one might even be able to reverse the dynamics of a given disease, as chronic or progressive as it may seem. Energetically this reversal of the spiraling motion of energy can be compared to reversing the rotation of a ceiling fan. See what happens when you press the appropriate button on the remote control to change the movement of the fan. The movement slows down to the point where there is no motion at all and then it turns the other way. Perhaps it is just the same with the spinning energies in our body?

Of course the client has to be willing to undo his/her obstacles to healthy functioning on all four causes of disease: 1. food 2. mind 3. elements 4. karma. Mor Noi’s clinic with her cooking school and the sweet herbal garden provides everything you need to fully enjoy the holistic healing of your unique body-mind-soul unit. How I enjoyed receiving the wisdom and the touch from Mor Noi. As an advanced Thai therapist having used the tool of traditional Thai massage for the last 6 years, she opened the door to a new way of providing ‘soft’ energy healing for the client.

Karen Ufer (RTT)
Scottsdale AZ
May 2011

Ustai Ustai Tara Farak – Same Same but Different

Here is another amazing piece of writing by Joe Jablonski (Class 5) in Nepal.  Poetry and prose.  Expansive, lovely, zen

Sitting on the roof of the clinic watching the sun set-

yellow-orange streaks of light wash the hazed sky

through dark gray clouds rising from behind

ancient Asian green hills loafing,

forming a soft wall to the west of our plateau.

the colors of red and brown clay bricks

shelter people with an uneasy contentment

sitting, casting shadows in their one-room homes

Buddhist and Tibetan flags wave

in a sea of steady warm breezes from the sub-continent.

the certain but soft notes of a distant trumpet player

waft through the valley

complementing the occasional hum of motor-bikes,

the warning song of large black crows,

and the laughter of monks chasing a floating frisbee.

I close my eyes and feel the comfort of home –

wherever it is, whenever it is…

I am here now and nowhere else.

a soft drop of cool rain on my thin warm pants

returns me from my slumber

to watch the tops of trees dance with their waving leaves

open hands grasping each wet gift from the heavens.

a soccer ball being dribbled in the dirt alley below

catches my wandering gaze:

a young boy entices his even younger brother

to guard a make-shift and imaginary goal

as a pack of vagrant dogs choose the victor

with guttural groans and uneasy dancing

a black and red bird sings to

harmonize with distant packs of homeless dogs

and the melodic tone of an approaching micro.

a cat lazily approaches and joins me on the roof

as the sounds of the Puja rise from the Gompa next door

the horns, drums, and chanting bring me back to the roof

reminding me of tomorrow –

more people to treat, more lessons to teach

and more importantly…

Greater lessons to learn of compassion, kindness, patience

and Love.

Namaste!!!

Reaction Reflection

Give Me a Handful of Coffeebeans, I'll Show You the World

This morning on “Being” the show on NPR hosted by Krista Tippett, Sylvia Boorstein was interviewed and she has this great reflection that she uses when she finds herself “reacting” to some situation in her life.  I love it.  Especially the “sweetheart” part.  Calling myself “sweetheart” makes me smile.  How you say this to yourself is also important.  If you listen to her say it, you will understand the motherly way that she does it.  Not patronizing or condescending, but full of love and compassion.  http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/what-we-nurture/video_in-the-room.shtml  It’s near the end of the interview, just in the last few minutes.

Sweetheart,

You’re in pain,

Relax take a breath,

Let’s pay attention to what’s happening,

Then we’ll figure out what to do!

And I love that it really brings compassion / lovingkindness meditation into the moment.  Let’s break it down:  sweetheart  – immediately we remind ourselves to love ourselves.  There’s something about that word that is like us as a child melting into our mothers arms and her saying, sweetheart, it’s going to be alright! You’re in pain – It comes from the fact that mentally clinging to anger, irritation, annoyance causes ourselves mental pain.  The recognition of our own suffering is the baseline for the development of compassion and understanding.  Relax, take a breath – Coming back to the breath is what we do in the formal meditation practice when we find ourselves getting caught up in a “story”.   It helps us to recognize the physical tension in our body that we are creating with our mind and reminds us to let it go.  And the exhaled, sighing breath assists us in letting go.  Let’s pay attention to what’s happening – Once we calm our body and mind, we can be more clear about the reality about what is happening at the moment and see it in a more dispassionate way.  When we let go of the emotion around a situation and just see it for what it is, we can make better decisions, which of course leads to the final sentence in this mantra.  Then we’ll figure out what to do – Patience, putting space in between an event and our reaction to it can help us to have more compassionate, conscious reactions to situations.  We can understand what is happening more clearly and then act in a way that creates less dissonance, less difficulty, less pain and suffering, and more peace in ourselves and others.

Thank you Sylvia for this offering!

Beating the drum slowly slowly

Everyone has a drum or two that they like to beat.  Some idea that they come back to regularly in their thoughts and conversation.  Something that that colors their world in a certain way.  I think one of my drums began to be constructed sometime in high school.  I was on the cross-country team.  It was a race and my friend Dave and I were somewhere in the back forty, maybe half way through the race.   At that point the runners were pretty spread out and we were running together.  I suggested that we slow down a bit, take it easy.  It wasn’t like we were going to win or even come in near the first half of the runners.  He agreed.  And I slowed down.  Or at least I thought I did.  After a bit, Dave said, “I thought we were going to slow down?”  “We did”, I said, feeling substantially less winded than I did 30 seconds before that.  “No, we didn’t,” came his winded reply.  I don’t know if I made this leap at that moment or simply on looking back at it, but what I realized was that when I decided to slow down, what I did was relax.  I let go of a bunch of that tension in my body and instantaneously I felt like I was floating.  That moment was certainly one of the “a-ha” moments that let me to the path I am now on.

Temple outside the northern Thai city of Chiang Dao

When I was in Thailand a few weeks ago, I was talking to Paul W. on the phone about the stress and tension he was feeling on his return to the west.   I said, let’s start a “Relaxation Revolution”!   Let’s make it “OK” for us to take off and rest when we are sick or tired.  Let’s feel ok about not getting everything on our list done today.  And yes, let’s block out time for “ourselves”.  But let’s not be fooled by blocking out time for ourselves.  Because it’s not enough to kill ourselves working for a week and then take half a day at the Korean spa.  It’s more about how we approach our life every moment, every day.

When I was in Thailand this time, as usual, I quickly sunk into their way of walking; slow, leisurely and in no hurry.   After a short time, I didn’t have to think about it too much, it’s just the way I walked.  Sometimes, when I would walk with Thai people, I would be walking really slowly, and to my surprise, I would realize that they were walking even slower!  I mean, they were barely moving forward.  I intend to keep walking this way.  And I can do it.  The only thing I need to do as a compromise to this culture which values promptness, is that I need to leave earlier.

The other day I was walking to the train and I had plenty of time.  But after a block or two I realized my pace had moved back to Evanston speed.  I caught myself, just like I catch my mind when it is wondering in meditation.  It’s like, “oh yeah, that’s my intention!” Then I bring my mind back and slow down.  And as soon as I do so, just like in seated meditation, just like in that race in high school, it’s like this wave of tension instantly exits my body.  And suddenly I am alert to the moment, I notice the trees, the smells, the birds, the sidewalk, the feel of my feet touching the ground, my breath, and when my mind drifts, I notice that too.  What I realize is that the fast walk happened when I was thinking about what I “needed” to do that day, who I “needed” to see, and all the things I “needed” to do.   When I slowed down, all that disappeared like a ghost when the light gets switched on.

I am appealing to you all right now.  Remind me.  Next week, next month, three months from now, will I still remember?  Will I be able to protect myself from the strong energies of this fast paced, materialistic society we have created?  I can with your help.  We all need each other.  We need each other’s help and support.   After all, the third jewel in the Buddhist doctrine is the Sangha.  (Buddha and Dhamma, being the first two).  We bow to the sangha because it is bigger than us.  It is the collective practice of all those looking to develop their minds in beneficial ways.  The sangha can guide us, support us, and help us.  We are the sangha.  And we must not forget our responsibility to hold space for each other and remind each other what’s possible, even in the “modern world”.

So the drum that I am beating beats out a reminder to slow down.  It’s a slow beat.  It’s the beat of the breath over the beat of the heart.    And when I follow the beat of the breath instead of the heart, I find that my heart has space to grow stronger.  And when my heart grows stronger, there is more space for compassionate understanding.  Perhaps you feel that too.

“Cha cha” they say in Thailand.  “Slowly, slowly”.   The future will arrive soon enough.

Throwing Stones

I hope you enjoy this really great piece of writing by Riley Koren, CSTM grad and participant in our recently concluded month long Thailand Adventure.

“When you throw a stone into water, it hurries the quickest way down to the bottom of the water. So it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a purpose. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world as the stone passes through the water, without doing anything, without touching anything; he is pulled, he lets himself fall. His goal pulls him toward it, for he admits nothing into his soul that would resist the goal.”

–Siddhartha, Herman Hesse (translation by Rika Lesser)

Riley as Ruesri at Wat Po

Paul Fowler read this to me, sitting in his apartment in Chiang Mai one evening as we shared our latest theories on self-healing. I love it because it reconciles two apparently contradictory ways of living, both of which I believe:

1.“Let go and go with the flow.”

2. “You create your own life.”

The first seems passive, and the second, quite active. Both seem true, but how can I let things happen and make things happen at the same time? Siddhartha tells me these are not two choices, but one . . . or as Thai people are fond of saying in English: “Same, same.” I make something happen by allowing it to happen, by stepping aside and not preventing its happening. I create something by allowing it to come into being, by admitting nothing into my soul that would resist.

The Thai healers I met in and around Chiang Mai understand this deeply. They taught me to heal my body by allowing it to heal, to relax a muscle by inviting it to relax and then giving it the space, love and support to do so. Even the woman who gave me a spectacularly uncomfortable abdominal organ massage works gradually, gently – always with my body, never against. At the first placement of her hands over my abdomen, she announces, “Ah. Energy block here,” and proceeds to focus on unsticking the energy that has been stuck for years in my core. In the process, her hands happen to find themselves quite deeply embedded in my psoas, my kidney, my pancreas, my who-knows-what . . . but this is secondary, only a result. In her mind, she is following energy. Opening, never forcing, but encouraging each block until it opens, in which case she whispers, “Thank you,” or until it doesn’t, in which case she moves on.

Another bodyworker I met, who insists that her work is Thai massage even though it looks different from all other Thai massage I’ve seen, works by allowing my muscles to float up to the surface and meet her hands. “You push, they cower away. They scared,” she says. She impersonates my muscles, flinching and curling up into a ball. “You have to work gentle, like this. Not need more than this. You work too hard.” She tells this to every Westerner I’ve seen her encounter: “You work too hard. Let it go.” She moves her hands over my body, sensing heat and emotion. She pauses, lets her hands come into contact with my body and then waits, listens, allows. “It’s okay,” I imagine her saying to my muscles, “Let it go. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” Lying in bed that night, I feel aches reaching up from deep inside my back and hips, connecting my conscious mind with muscles I have ignored for years.

It is this touch, more than anything else, that I bring home with me, that seeps into my way of being. It is this question with which I challenge myself as I work and live: “What can I sense if I just stay here, silent and still and present? How much can I learn by just pausing and listening? How can I relax more deeply into this moment? These questions are with me in the softly-lit massage room as I settle into my first physical contact with the person on the table or the mat, the person with whom I will spend the next hour of my life. But they do not leave me when the hour is up; they follow me down the sidewalk and slide with me through the train’s closing doors, tug my sleeve as I reach into the cabinets to find dinner, climb into my lap to block my view of the computer screen and remind me to breathe.

Paul had warned me that each time he goes to Thailand, he comes back intending to keep living in that “cha, cha” (“slowly, slowly”) way, and that each time, it eventually gets lost in our forward-thinking American culture. After my month-long stay, “cha, cha” keeps me faithful company for about a week before threatening to beat a hasty retreat back across the Pacific Ocean. It isn’t the pace of my fellow CTA-riders’ footsteps or the immediacy and precision with which we demand food, service and answers; it’s my own thinking that is beginning to scare away the calm. The content of the thoughts is not the disturbing factor. The thoughts are pleasant and exciting, inspired by e-mails, phone calls and meetings and centered around new opportunities for healing, relationships and work. It’s merely their presence that overwhelms me. They show up in droves, stealing from me the pure awareness of waking up, sucking the life out of my food and turning a deliciously hot shower into the thing I have to do before going to work.

It becomes an ongoing cycle, this process of forgetting and remembering, of allowing myself to be carried away by thoughts and then feeling the gentle voice of my grounding questions, pulling me back to here and now. And slowly, I become aware of a change in my view of this, the meditation of life. The task of remaining in the present moment is becoming the joy of existing in the present moment. I first practiced meditation grudgingly, because monks and teachers told me I should, because they did and because they looked peaceful. Now I am beginning to experience how much better my food is when I taste it, how much more joy I find in walking to the train when I feel my feet on the ground. Mindfulness is growing from a distant intellectual concept into my favorite state in which to live.

With this tool, I can allow opportunities to flow into and out of my life, to receive each one as it comes . . . hold it, but gently, not pinning it too tightly to lists or calendars. Bless it, delight in it . . . then let it go, give it space to become the fullest expression of whatever it is. As Paul told me recently, “I have an amazing life and that has nothing to do with a perfect life which doesn’t exist. So I prefer to focus on the amazing part!” Instead of trying to fit each thing into its perfectly scheduled slot in my life, I choose to experience it where it is, when it is there, and to see the beauty in that.