"Massage, You Want Thai Massage?"

by Jonathan Nash
(UK)

Somewhere along the line, I got the idea that I wanted to do a Thai Massage course. I'm not sure why really, as I'd never had a Thai massage, didn't really enjoy receiving massages, and had never really thought much about it all before!.

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I'd heard that Chiang Mai was the capital city of Thai massage courses, so when we arrived there I began to look into the various options available.

Due to the time of year, some of the courses which I looked into were not running due to lack of students. This was a bit of a shame, as some of them were very well recommended by people and websites which I'd looked at.

Other courses only offered 10 or 15 day courses and while we had a fair bit of time to spare, we did not have that much! What I really wanted was a five day course which didn?t take up too much of my day! After all, after nearly three months of travelling, spending a lot of time learning would be a bit taxing on my brain!.

Eventually, I settled on the Loi Kroh Traditional Massage School .It was just a sort 20-odd minute or so walk from Elliebum ,where we were staying. Classes ran daily from 9am to 3pm, and the course ran over four days. I did the beginner's course, which ran through basic Thai massage techniques.

After the first day, I was absolutely shattered. It's lucky the breakfast's at Elliebum were good, because I needed all the brain/body food I could get. Neither my mind nor body knew what had hit them, and at the end of the first day I could barely walk!.

As my muscles got used to it things got a bit easier, but it never got too easy. The course was a little more formal than I'd have liked it to be, I'd rather have had a bit more of a laugh, but the teaching was one-on-one, and my instructor, Pare, was a very good teacher.

She was also very good at massage, and my aching muscles were always a bit disappointed when it was my turn to massage her. She was also a lot smaller than me, making some of the moves a bit odd from my perspective. In some of the techniques, the masseur has to climb right on top of the client, I was worried I would squash Pare, but we had no problems!.

Towards the end of the week, as I got to know Pare, we had a good laugh, she would make fun of the fact that I'm so stiff I could barely touch my knees when I'm standing up!.

I really felt I had come a long way, and now I can both touch my knees and sort of give a Thai massage. I was really exhausted though after all the learning and exercise, and looked forward to the weeks and months ahead of travelling with a renewed vigour (after four days of being a slave to a course).

Still, I definitely enjoyed the experience. I still need to practice, so if anyone wants an amateur Thai massage in which I may injure them, let me know!.

For more on our visit to Chiang Mai please check out our
"Mood to Travel" blog.

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