Thai massage through the eyes of a woman

I am a man of your age and like to have a Thai massage once or twice a week. An ordinary massage of one hour (sometimes two hours) without a happy ending in an ordinary massage parlour.
Every time I come back to Thailand it takes some searching and trying to find a pleasant masseur (m / f).
A Thai massage is body work where both bodies must match in my opinion. The skill and technique of the masseur is also important. A good Thai massage is a blessing for me and feels good. The musculoskeletal system may sometimes be moved a little further than what it is normally capable of. When this is done with care, it is stimulating but certainly not painful. Over time I notice that you become more flexible in my bones and everything moves more easily.

I have also experienced painful massages. This does not have to be ignorance of the masseur, but then there is no mutual match as far as I am concerned.
This can be the case when the build of the masseur does not fit well on my body. I think of things like size and strength of the hands, fingers and feet, weight of the masseur, amount of "meat" on the bones (forearms) etc.

I sometimes massage myself and have noticed that people differ enormously in build (muscle building, flexibility, dimensions and mutual proportions of the bones, etc.), so I can't give everyone a good (pleasant) massage.
It is important to have contact with the customer as a masseur because you cannot feel what your massage causes the customer. Matters such as routine and experience also play a role.

A massage that hurts or bruises (after the end) is not pleasant or worth repeating.
It may be worthwhile to look further and try out various masseurs.
It remains human work between two different bodies and so every massage with a different masseur will be different.

Very nice that a woman is speaking. I've been reading this blog for a while and this is a nice addition because it's written from, you guessed it, female perspective.
This just gives a different picture!

When I am in Thailand I enjoy a massage every other day. It is important to find a good masseuse. And as for that painful massage, I found the solution for that years ago. I always have an Oil massage done. That painful Thai is not for me, and I can't relax with it either

Very nice to read Monique, I go to the masseuse every day during my 4 week stay once a year, but I still want to enjoy myself, so if I'm sunburnt I'm delicious with aloe vera and otherwise with oil, I now also know that I'm bauw bauw instead of slowly have to say when a new masseuse shows up again! 😉

I also liked to have a Thai massage. Since my wife worked as a masseuse, I was not short of anything. Unfortunately, since she started her agricultural business again, the massage sometimes falls short. Since she also likes to be massaged herself, we regularly go to a massage parlor together on holidays. This, until at the end of the massage where the masseuse tries to separate the head from the torso with her arms, I heard a cracking sound and a shooting pain in the neck. The pain has now disappeared, but the crackling sound has remained. If I sit in the same position for a while and then turn my neck, I hear a sound like a branch breaking. Very annoying and sometimes an anxious feeling. A photo didn't shed a different light on the condition so I have to continue with a creaking neck. No, no more Thai massage for me, but they can still treat the soles of my feet.

What a nice story about Thai massage described from a woman's point of view. I am also a woman and I happen to read this blog because my husband reads it a lot.
Years ago I came into contact with Thai massage in the Netherlands through a masseuse who also offers Shiatsu massages. I did not know the Thai variant and was curious. I liked it and was indeed as it is also called: Yoga for lazy people. It asked for more.
Some time after that we would go to Thailand for the first time and the Thai massage came back to mind. I wanted to learn this form of massage and combine it with my Pilates practice and decided to see where I could learn this. I ended up in Chiang Mai at ITM. Eventually I mastered both the northern and southern variant of Thai massage and foot reflexology as well. I now practice this in the Netherlands. Still love to undergo it yourself, but also giving is fun to do and a whole "work-out" for your body.
Pain in the body or in the feet, of course, indicates the necessary. However, I notice that there is a big difference between Western people and Eastern people in the experience of pain and especially relaxation. If the pain is too intense for our experience and we can no longer relax, we cramp or get vicarious tension. All of this works against solving the problem. Especially in the southern "Wat Pho" variant of massaging you learn to exert a lot of pressure. I build this up with my clients, otherwise they'll hit the ceiling and won't come back anyway, if they don't get up immediately and run away. Then I'm not even talking about tackling a problem. A physical problem also always “lives” in the mind. Not being able to relax mentally results in physical complaints. The solution is therefore twofold, which is also solved in the same way in the eastern countries. Meditation, yoga etc and you name it. Massage is more than just working on a body.
I find it difficult in Thailand to determine whether you enter a good salon and then also get a good masseuse. In April I got a fairly young masseuse who turned out quite well on my back. This worked out in such a way that I could hardly get up and was left with quite a lot of pain, which only subsided after 2 days. Not fun when you're on vacation! I am now starting with a foot massage and try to read from there how skilled the masseurs / seuses are.
What happens very often is that there is 1 'learned' masseuse who teaches the other ladies by doing. Because it is usually known that the Thai massage can be quite firm, the masseuses do their best to also unpack firmly. Bruises are really not necessary for a massage to be effective.

A nice and innocent piece about Thai massage degenerates into a vicious discussion about Eastern and Western medicine. Still remarkable. The reason is that someone self-righteously defends Western science, which is based on evidence and reason, against the romantic and mystical belief in the Eastern approach (which must be good just because it is so old and there are “hundreds of thousands books” have been written about). The pessimism about one's own achievements among many Westerners is characteristic of those who tend to believe more than they see. Despite the fact that almost everything that has been invented in this world is due to Western science, up to and including the computers and the internet with which this blog was created, people stubbornly cling to belief in alternative therapies, mysterious potions to cure AIDS. cured, ground tiger penis and cobra blood instead of Viagra to increase potency, etc. Still, I suspect and especially hope that in the event of a real ailment, such as an inflamed appendix, these believers go to a hospital and this appendix is ​​treated in the Western way to extract. I actually miss a response from Jomanda, because unfortunately Sylvia Millecamps can no longer respond.

Beautifully and nicely written. More women are very welcome. I agree with most here on that point. Unfortunately, I only had the opportunity to enjoy Thailand once. Three weeks. Apparently they were so good that when I returned to the office, I made a sound and a red light flashed. What is that, I asked my colleagues. How about your own phone? That says enough about what 1 weeks Thailand does to you. At least with me. (before one Willem starts burning me down here with his woolly and sober vocabulary).

Naturally, I immediately took the chance to undergo a Thai massage. My first time took place on Koh Samui. That went well. Well, it was the first time, so I had no comparison material yet. On the third time, the 'female manager' went a bit further with being funny and made a thai nauseous remark and squeezed my chest for illustration. As a guy fine. But not with a woman. And certainly not with me. That was also the last time I was treated there.

On Koh Tao, I have had the very best massage to date. While hubby kept a low profile in the shade because of a virus in combination with a sun allergy. I went looking for a masseur. At the Koh Tao Resort on the beach, there was a place where you could get a massage. An old Thai man (they're not that tall, while I'm 1.63 myself) stood up and immediately offered me to take a seat. I didn't have to take off or take off anything other than my sarong for a change. I could keep my bikini on. The best man conjured up a wafer-thin long cloth. Covered my entire body from toe to neck with it. Finally it started.

I was so taken care of without having to resort to shouting bauw bauw. He certainly wasn't soft-handed. It is a kind of massage that I also give myself: firm, nice but not painful and certainly not too soft. I use soft massages for other private purposes. Then he told me to turn on my side. Oh dear, went through my head. So that's where that well-known creaking part comes from the bag of tricks. The male grabbed my body at certain strategic points and started counting. It flashed in my head: it's going to happen at three. Wait wait wait, I could say quickly. Let me control my breath first… I was given that space. Okay, let's do this. One,….Two…Bang!

Unfortunately I couldn't suppress a cry, but it turned out to be less painful than all those warning stories and experiences I heard from other Thailand travelers. After I announced that I would make my First time at Thialand trip. The little man looked at me and said in a tone that you blindly obey: not ready, turn other side. The whole circus was repeated.

Next to me was a lady, apparently a Dutch woman, who remarked: Have you never had a massage like this before. To which I indicated, if that were the case, I wouldn't react like that, would I? Anyway. After I paid the best man the amount promised, he claimed back his canvas and I cleaned myself up, I already noticed the difference.

My whole posture, how I stood and walked, changed. I walked straighter. Also felt a kind of burden or tension from me. Since that massage, which was unfortunately the last one before I was yelled at in Thai by a Thai military police officer at the airport….

….it took more than a week (I had already returned to the Netherlands) before I heard my back crack and creak from misery. So much regret that I did not manage to kidnap the best man in my hand bag and then take it with me to the Netherlands, where I would love to undergo his massages, 1 x a week, I would be satisfied with that, but more and more often allowed…As long as the effect remains the same…

PS. An Aloe vera massage is really bullshit .. petting it a bit with aloe vera and paying 300 bath for it. Yes, then I want at least a happy ending as a bonus… :P