Thai Massage: The Lazy Man´s Yoga!
If exercise sounds like a good idea ---- but not good enough to get you moving, Couch Potato --- maybe you´d like this approach. How about if all you did was lie back and relax, while some other kind soul moved your body parts ever so gently yet firmly into yoga-like positions, leaving you relaxed, stretched out, and energized after this no-work workout?
That, in a nutshell, is what Thai massage is all about. When yoga teacher Barbara Anderson took a class in Thai massage from Patrick Shaw, she found it to have many similarities to yoga and The Feldenkrais Method®, a gentle system of teaching people to move better that Barbara teaches in classes and one-on-one sessions for clients at her studio, Body & Soul of Kansas City. People call Thai massage
the lazy man´s yoga, because students are coupled up, and one person maneuvers the other through stretches that look amazingly like yoga postures.
"Thai massage, yoga and the Feldenkrais Method® all open up joints, ease tension, and relax you," Barbara says. "In Thai massage you get very stretched out without any effort on your part. In yoga, you do these positions for yourself; in Thailand, people do it for each other. Both approaches are important, both are useful. Combine the two disciplines, and you have a great "Thai IntoYoga" class! It´s very nurturing, and feels go good you´ll be smiling through the workout. In these workshops, we do active yoga postures and then use the passive Thai massage stretches to improve those postures. It´s an experiment that seems to be working well for students."
Patrick enjoys the enthusiastic response from both teacher and students. He has been practicing therapeutic massage since 1989, and started studying Thai massage about eight years ago in Chicago, then in Thailand. "The roots of Thai massage come from the ayervedic medicine and Hatha Yoga of India, and were introduced to Thailand about 2500 years ago," Patrick says. "It found its place in the Buddhist tradition because the monks in the temples would do Thai massage on the people who came to the temples to be healed. Thai massage incorporates a lot of stretching and broad pressure to release the area being stretched. It´s a very physical, energetic massage that unblocks energy pathways, opens up the feet and legs, and brings energy up into the body."
Yoga student Mark Sappington was familiar with Thai massage because his massage therapist incorporates it in his work. Sappington wanted to learn some techniques to improve his flexibility. "It pushed me to the farthest point in flexibility I´ve ever been," he said. "The teachers are good and patient, and we are told from the start we are not in this to rush through it." Linda Voran, another participant, brought her husband David to the class. "He felt the benefits in his shoulders," she said. "It does stretch you out, and encourages communication between you and your partner, too."
Call 816/363-8282 for more information. Come with a partner, or get partnered up at class.
written by Linda Rostenberg
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