Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction


When I first learned Thai Massage in 1992 it was barely known in England. The School of Oriental Massage was the only place offering courses in the UK. Our teachers Harry McGill and Stephen Brooks supplied us with the book Traditional Thai Massage published in Thailand by Sombat Tapanya in 1990. This, they imported themselves from Thailand and at that time it was the only book available.


Little did I realise then what an excellent choice of training I was making. After just four weekends of study and plenty of practice I had gained a diploma in Traditional Thai Healing Massage and professional insurance. The ‘Life Centre’ had just opened in London’s Notting Hill and I applied to work there. I was ‘auditioned’ by the owner and on the basis of that massage I was offered a beautiful place to work.


The novelty of Thai Massage in 1992 guaranteed me plenty of publicity and patients and in a short time I had a thriving practice. I soon came to see that there was an enormous difference between practising in a classroom and practising in a clinic. I offered one-and-a-half-hour sessions and often I was fully booked with six sessions back-to-back. In a short time I had to learn a lot about timing, pacing and efficiency. I realised that many of the techniques, although fun in the classroom, simply did not work on ordinary patients of average flexibility. I pruned my technique until I was left only with the most safe and effective ones. Two years later I was asked to start teaching Thai Massage at Morley College in London.


My aim back then was not to begin a long-term career as a massage therapist but to find a way of financing my training as a psychotherapist. In 1991 I had happened upon Stanley Keleman’s extraordinary book Emotional Anatomy. Serendipity led me to Belgium, where I joined a workshop Keleman was leading. There began my interest in bodywork, albeit under the influence of Keleman’s ‘hands off’ approach. I returned to London and signed up for a three-year training in integrative psychotherapy. Practising Thai Massage was supposed to be a way of paying for my training and of ‘learning on the job’. Instead, it became my main occupation for 15 years. But then that’s its beauty; despite being quite simple to learn it provides a wonderful structure in which to keep on learning. Thai Massage became for me my meditation, my relaxation, my yoga and my tai chi. All of these possibilities are folded into this direct and intimate form of bodywork. Thai Massage also taught me that my strength as a therapist lay not with words but with touch.

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Jun 4, 2016 | Posted by in MANUAL THERAPIST | Comments Off on Introduction

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