Thai massage with a happy ending

The past five days I have spent massaging people and receiving massages, with the effect that I am now the proud owner of the ‘certificate of achievement’ of the Wat Po traditional medical school. I have mastered the general Thai massage course and so I can call myself a masseuse, I guess. Apparently, you are able to open a massage parlor here in Thailand just with this certificate. Wat Po, where I studied, is the largest and oldest temple in Bangkok and is famous for its giant lying Buddha and, no surprises there, Thai massage. In fact, Wat Po is seen as the place where traditional Thai massage originates from.

The type of massage that I learned the past few days isn’t the relaxing kind, during which you doze off. It is actually quite painful. You don’t use oil, but just press points on the body with your fingers, hands, elbow or feet. The points you press are on one of the ten major energy lines in the human body. According to my instruction leaflet these lines are everywhere in the body, about 2 centimeters under the skin. When you press on certain points of these lines (and in a certain way) the internal energy will be stimulated, which will heal ailing organs and glands and get rid of toxins.



my foot with massage points


A lot of the Thai massage philosophy reminded me of the ideas on the body in England in the Middle Ages / Renaissance. For example, Thai medical theory considers the body to consist of the four elements (earth, water, wind and fire). If these elements are out of balance, the body will become ill. What I remember from university courses, it was believed in England during the before mentioned periods that the body consisted of the 4 elements (also called the 4 humours), which corresponded to bodily fluids (black bile, phlegm, blood and yellow bile). These fluids had to stay in balance for the body to stay healthy. Kind of the same thing, right? But I have never read anything about massage as a remedy for humours that are out of balance in the Middle Ages/Renaissance. I think bloodletting was a more popular remedy back then.

Anyway, back to my course. I was in a group with 5 other people and we had to learn about 100 massage positions in just 5 days! It wasn’t just these points on the body we had to memorize, with every position you have to know how to sit (down or up), how to place the hands (from above or from the front), where to place your feet, how much pressure to use, and the right sequence of all these positions. We also learned when we must not give a massage to people, but that part was pretty straightforward.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do a follow-up course, but I would very much like to do one in the future. I will practice a lot during the coming period on my fellow traveler(s)! It probably will come in handy this Saturday, after I have been on a 13 hour bus ride to Cambodia.

Love,
Jonna

Alpha

This is the first time I made an attempt to write a post for my blog. I am not a fan of writing a diary, so that is why I have been postponing it all this time. That and because I am dead scared everybody will notice all my spelling and grammar mistakes! ‘Why have a blog in the first place?’ It seemed like the best solution to all the people who asked me to e-mail them while I am travelling. And I guess it still is.

As this first post is just a kick off, I am making it easy on myself and leave it at this. Let me finish by saying that soon posts will follow with juicy stories, cute pictures and gory details of everything I encounter in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, New Zealand, Morocco or anywhere else I might be.

Love,
Jonna