Thai traditional massage, nuad bo rarn, is the buddhist manual medicine practice that has become folk medicine in Thailand, skills being passed on from one generation to another for thousands of years. It has been called also „lazy man’s yoga“ as it contains many passive movements and yoga-asanas-like stretching positions while the muscles and joints being worked on by therapist.
The rhythm of thai massage is calm & meditative, following the natural rhythm of breathing, and the pressure goes very deep, using mainly gravity & bodyweight of the therapist in most ergonomically sustainable movements. In addition to palm pressure also elbows, knees, feet, sitting, standing and walking on client are used. Depending on school & choice the massage can also be performed with less stretching and more with thumbs pressure along the point-pressure channels called sen-lines in Thai medicine, thus reminding more acupressure & shiatsu.
In usual procedure the softer and easier palm pressures are used both before and after deeper and sharper thumb or elbow pressures, and also dynamic stretching movements are alternated with more soothing pressure techniques. The massage is usually given fully clothed, ideally wearing natural loose fitting clothing, on large mattress on the floor. Full length of thai massage procedure can take even 2-3 hours and go through 5 different positions of client –lying on back, on one side, another side, on stomach, up-side-down-position which means again lying on back with legs raised, and cross-legged sitting position, reminding lotos-asana.
Therapist should be informed about all previous traumas and medical conditions as many specific movements (as with artificial joint) or pressure on specific areas (as with osteoporosis or pregnancy) can be contraindicated, but one can’t say that using one full medicine system would have any number of absolute contraindications.
It is suggested to drink water or green tea after a massage to help body to get rid of metabolic residues.
Duration: 1h / 1,5h
Price: 45 €/ 60 €
