Postural Problems & Thai Massage

Here is a case study from Tom Doyle:

About 8 years ago just before we opened the Thai massage Centre I was doing Thai massage outcalls to hotels. I had a call one afternoon to see a lady. Her boyfriend had booked the massage because she somtimes responded well to massage although he had never heard of or tried a Thai massage.

The lady in question was not in a good way when we met, she was jetlagged, very thin, and her body was, to put it bluntly, extremely twisted with one shoulder almost against her cheek, her spine and hips were in orbit, and it looked like her jaw had slipped to one side, and although she looked about 60 was in fact only in her 40's.

When she was 5 or 6yrs old she had broken her jaw. It was wired together. Then one side of the wiring broke, but her parents didn't take her back to hospital to fix it. To compensate for this she lifted her shoulder on that side as she thought it made her face look straight. This in turn put her back out and so on.

So I cleared an area of floor and put down my futon and explained what Thai massage was all about, and for a while I thought she might back out of it especially with all the stretches that she thought would be impossible for her to do. The massage was to be for an hour as dinner was booked at eight pm. Once I had started with her though I knew it would be a lot longer than that.

I first addressed her posture by doing the correct stretches, but then found her needing her meridian channels opening, and this was when I felt the energy going to her. I could feel her responding to my touch, and I could feel so much energy going into this person, like I'd never felt before. Two hours later we picked her up and placed her on the bed; she only wanted to sleep. Her boyfriend went out to dinner alone. I was paid and went home.

Next day I get a call to go back to the hotel for another massage. Here she is greeting me at the door not recognizable as the same woman. She tells me it was the first time in 20 plus years that she had slept 12 hours straight, and without any medication, and how good she felt. The result was obvious: to look at her and see the straight and upright posture she had and her bright face. I worked on her again and then they were to leave to go back to the States in the morning.

Four am next morning I get a call, could I please do one more massage, we'll be there within the hour, OK I said. They arrived with suitcases, and I managed to give both her and her now converted boyfriend a full Thai massage before taking them to the airport for the flight home. That was 8 years ago and the lady in question then tracked down a Thai massuese in Houston, USA who now does a regular visit to her house.

Tom Coyle, Thai massage therapist (Cairns, Australia) | Tom's web site | Learn more about Thai massage. | Find a Thai massage therapist