Table Thai is an interesting segment of my curriculum. This class was frankly something I did not want to teach. My true love is free. Mat based work creates space, depth of pressure and mobility that’s impossible on a table. The table once you understand mat based parameters seems like a very small provincial culturally imposed box.
That being said Lmt demanded table Thai. After thinking about it I understood their situation. After all they couldn’t just ditch what they currently had particularly if they worked in a table based facility. How would they do the work on a table?
I’d dealt with this myself. My last job with someone else was at a chiropractors office. No one staff included cared at all that the crazy hippie guy kept raving about something called Thai massage. This was my last attempt. I literally decided this was the last job I’d have as an Lmt. If this place didn’t work I’d go be an investment banker. All I had left was success or failure.
I was developing hand problems again. I was tired. The staff wouldn’t listen and the clients just wanted to pay $10 for their hour session as part of an insurance payment. I was a cog in a very large dysfunctional machine.
Fed up I just started telling clients, “take off your shoes lay down on the table as you are and let’s see where the problem is.” I said so with confidence. Ten minutes in I’d ask, “do you want to keep doing what we’re doing or do you want to take off your clothes for swedish or deep tissue?”
9/10 times they exclaimed, “no this is really good. Let’s keep doing this.”
???
I created table Thai clients by not telling them what I was doing.
This is a situation most of you will face. Our battle isn’t bodywork. It’s marketing, advertising and cultural conditioning. I will cover this verbally in the classes you’ll see here again and again. Many of you will glance over it. Many will not Really watch what’s here and I’ve come to accept that. If you do watch in depth realize that when I talk in class this is 16 years of rubber meets the road bodywork.
I fought tooth and nail to deliver what I’m giving you and I will not stop until the entire massage industry looks at mat based bodywork for what it is a foundation changing paradigm that is easier for the therapists and often more pain relieving for clients. I will not stop and have a maniacal obsession with sharing the work far and wide.
It’s very common to hear someone at Thai massage jam® say, “I don’t understand this is so amazing. Why don’t massage therapists do this?” When given an opportunity even Lmt in core curriculum who are also studying clothes on table and mat based work when asked for a choice would say, “aww, we have to work on a table and have them get naked? We like this mat based stuff and get to use our legs and feet!”
When given a choice more and more western consumers will choose the mat.
Don’t believe me? Give it twenty years.
What’s in this class alone even online can change your practice forever if you watch if you observe and if you use what I’m teaching you. Table or not this is great work. The thinking is different. The cultural boxes must be destroyed.
Sell relief. Sell pain relief. Sell mobility. Sell relaxation. Don’t sell Thai massage.
In the western marketplace Thai massage means nothing legally or culturally. I eventually will rebrand to another name after a failed attempt to trademark Reboot™. The reason I decided to change names was in part because seasoned Lmt would get a 3 hour session with me on a mat and announce in shock that what I did was not Thai massage.
After having written 700 pages of sequence manuals and 9 DVDs of core content I was being told that the work I was doing was not Thai. “What do you mean?”, I would ask. They would stammer and stutter and just say, “Your work is amazing. I’ve never had anything even close to what you just did but that’s not Thai.”
“What’s the difference between what I just did and Thai massage?” After a pause they would say, “You don’t follow a sequence. Every Thai massage I’ve ever had is just a sequence.”
I would shrug and just say that sequences are like scales. Once you learn them you play jazz. Jazz much like artistic bodywork is improvisation. In my work….I play you.
Learning online has its challenges. Many think you cannot. I think they’re dead wrong and hopefully you’ve subscribed to our vault. I’ve no plans on slowing down and more ideas bubbling up to change the massage industry forever.
That change starts with you on a table. Let’s get to work.
People learn in different ways and I’m doing my best to share information as clearly and concisely as I can.
The best way is multiple factors variables and repetition. I think you’ll do best to take out a table put the videos up on a screen and work with someone going through the series sequences and working with someone. Even better find a fellow Lmt work with them and go through the course together.
Feedback particularly verbal feedback is important. As we learn it’s best to hear the work feel the work see the work and talk about the work. All makes for a better experience.
Enjoy and I appreciate any and all feedback. Please join our vault and get access not only to our library of videos but our private facebook group where you can ask questions and get answers.
This 142 page workbook gives you the basic sequences you can use on a table. When I teach Table Thai I tend to just sample selections of this knowing that table based therapists will grab simple tools and apply them in their table sessions not perform entire Table Thai sessions.
You can follow these series page by page and they are wonderful sequences but I think it’s more potent if you use pieces and blend it into your work. I originally did not wish to write this series. I’m a dedicated mat based practitioner that still finds the massage industry funny in its insistence on maintaining status quo and working on a table. Once you understand mat based work and the power of using your legs and feet you can be very frustrated when tools are taken away from you.
The videos that follow this workbook go page by page through this sequence. Feel free to flip around and use what works best for you.
Ashlyn Zamora is a wonderful yoga teacher and acroyogi in the Austin area who now lives in Colorado. I asked her to model for this series and she’s usually bubbly fun. Ashlyn is on one end of the extreme of bodies. She’s almost hypermobile and lacks strength which I suspect she’s working on as a yoga teacher.
We go through the workbook page by page but now you get to see motion. As we go through this series you’re getting the same sequence but slightly different variations depending on our model’s physical parameters and this was by my own design. I presume that having a different model would slightly change the sequences as I worked on someone and give nuance that using the same model would not.
If possible grab a table and someone to work on and go through the series. All of the movement involved is much fun.
There have been serious discussions about table cream glide and nudity in session that I continue to entertain. The challenge is that I think Table Thai is done better clothes on so you can mobilize someone without fear that they’re naked or feel naked at any time.
Adding cream and glide means you can’t get a grip and you’re stuck sliding across skin instead of accessing compression and shear. I don’t think the tools are inadequate but I want therapists to explore a broader range and feel they already know how to drape and they already know effleurage. What they don’t know is Thai.
My verbiage is, “take off your shoes, lay down on the table as you are let me move you around and see where we’re going to work.”
You can change the sequences in any order that you choose based on position. Time and again I almost always put receivers on their side to start at their upper back and neck. Teaching classes has been instructive and I’m amazed at the number of therapists who never use side lying position unless the client is pregnant. Side lying becomes a core component of Table Thai in my experience and many students agree with me after using it regularly.
Getting on the table can be a challenge. Always consider your table and balance. I teach this cautiously especially at a distance. It’s not you or your balance but the actual table itself. If the table breaks we have a major challenge in equipment failure. I don’t want people getting harmed trying to use new tools. Since I’m not there to check out your table I don’t want to instill fear but I also don’t want to create a situation where you or a client could be harmed.
Sitting on the table is far more safe than kneeling or God forbid, standing. #ymmv
Livestream 1 Upper Back & Neck with some Quads
Anatomy covered: Trapezius, Gluteus Maximus and Medius
Livestream 2 Knee issues, Adductors, Hams and Quads
Anatomy Covered: Adductors of the hip, adductor magnus, hamstrings, biceps femoris, semitendinosus, hamstring tear, vastus muscles and vastus lateralis
Livestream 3 Neck Work
Anatomy covered: Trapezius, levator scapulae, suboccipitals, scalenus medius, scalenes group and semispinalis capitis
Table Thai 4/6 Lower Legs
Anatomy covered: Calves, soleus, fibularis longus or peroneus longus? and tibialis anterior
Livestream 5 Low Back and Hips
We cover some of the basic of low back pain discussing herniated discs and the essentials for the common muscularly induced low back pain we see in session for the bulk of clients.
Anatomy covered: Psoas, quadratus lumborum, acetabulum and femur shape position of sacrum and ilia.
6 of 6 We had a power outtage. 🙂
Attribution
Video 1/6
Trapezius
https://gfycat.com/watchfuljitteryhog-depression-movement-scapula
Anatomography, CC BY-SA 2.1 JP https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons
Gluteus Maximus
BodyParts3D/Anatomography, CC BY-SA 2.1 JP https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons
Original by sv:Användare:Chrizz, 30 maj 2005, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons
gluteus medius
BodyParts3D/Anatomography, CC BY-SA 2.1 JP https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.e, via Wikimedia Commons
Anatomography, CC BY-SA 2.1 JP https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons
These videos from the Lauterstein Conway Massage School in Austin represent a sold out class at the school. They’re also a view of what’s to come in our subscription service. More quality more information and direct access so you can ask questions and build the practice of your dreams.
Hip traction and mobilization on a table. This includes discussion about client care and body mechanics.
Using your knees getting on the table to access the feet and calves. Always be mindful of the rules and parameters you have culturally and whether your table and the facility you work in allows this.
Getting on the table to use your feet to compress the hamstrings and mobilize around the hips. Foot position as well as the part of the foot you use makes a huge difference. Practice practice practice.
Using knees in the gluteals and then getting on the table for double knee compressions. Many students are concerned that they’re too large for this getting on the client but in my experience the pressure is so broad with enough contact that it’s never been an issue. Go slow and be aware of your table and it’s parameters.
Marketing is a complex subject and we cover some ground here.
00:00 Menu or services. Jack of all trades and master of none. Don’t feel like you have to offer everything.
4:00 Clients often base decisions on price. Our goal is to educate and steer them where we feel works best for them and us. They’re not mutually exclusive.
12:00 Educating your clients can bring huge changes to your practice and $$$.
14:20 Math comparison of private practice and working for someone else. You don’t have to choose one or the other but if you want to be affluent in my experience you need to work for yourself.
23:00 Go directly to the consumer and cut out the middle man.
Psoas anatomy and logistics. On a table this is where I’ll have you start. You’ll eventually move into side lying but for therapists who primarily work prone and supine this is a wonderful starting point.
Psoas in side lying. This is the easier version you’ll do on larger than you clients. There are many ways to do the same thing and we’ll always choose the one that is best for us and the client.
This neck work is considered by many to be advanced but this is just par for the course in what I’m teaching long term. Pay attention. Study. Practice.
Give. Receive. Repeat. There is no alternative.