Thai massage is founded on yoga practices on the principle that stiffness and lack of flexibility are also a sign that energy is not moving freely. 

Trapped or stagnant energy leads to all manner of dysfunction if it is there long enough. Imagine water being trapped behind a dam... eventually a dam will burst if the building pressure isn't managed. In a human body, this presents as high blood pressure, joint or disk issues, torn ligaments and more. Flexible, strong, relaxed bodies are typically healthy bodies.

In a Thai massage session, you are fully clothed, laying on a mat on the floor. The practitioner then puts you through a variety of modified yoga poses while also providing accupressure line activation with hands and feet. If you have ever wondered what it would feel like to be a human pretzel (in a pleasant way), this will give you that experience. You will be gently stretched, twisted and bent in different ways intended to open any "stuck" energy and to increase your natural stretch and range of motion. It is an amazing experience worth having.

Normally I would say that this is not the kind of massage you will fall asleep while receiving it but I had this client once....

He was a big guy (he was at least twice my size) and his profession was a very high stress, high pressure one. He tried Thai massage once out of curiosity and fell in love with it and it became his "go-to" choice of massage. He was receiving immediate and obvious benefit from his sessions with me and on his 3rd visit, he was very comfortable much less inflexible than when we had first worked together. 

When stretching out less flexible people it is very important to pay attention to soft end feel vs hard end feel and all the levels of resistance between so that you don't hurt them. Sometimes close my eyes because what I see visually can be distracting from what my hands are "seeing" and telling me. In all forms of bodywork, closing my eyes makes the language of the body, including joint and stretch resistance easier to gauge.

I take him out of a final hamstring stretch and proceed to position him in a modified happy baby pose. This is, essentially, your feet being held together while I fold you in half and push your feet back toward your head. It is an awkward looking pose but it is a powerful and gentle stretch that opens up the lower back, hips and hamstrings all at the same time. When people are twice my size, it is also awkward to put people into this position! 

I concentrated on positioning him safely and avoiding hurting myself in the process. Finally, on the count of "1-2-3", I pushed his feet and legs back toward his head for this amazing stretch. I looked down at his face to gauge his tolerance and make sure I wasn't pushing past his discomfort limitations. And there he was, snoring.

He had fallen asleep during this session of being pulled, pushed, twisted and rotated like a human pretzel and even now with his feet near his head and his body folded in half, he was offering a gentle, rumbling snore as feedback. I held back a burst of laughter behind a tightly sealed grin and continued. He woke up a few minutes later, unsure how long he had been asleep and apologetically embarrassed. As a measure of where he was on the "this is something you might be embarrassed about" scale, I pointed out that some people experience unexpected flatulence during massage and all he did was fall asleep while being twisted around like a Gumby doll. 

Yes, it happens. No, we don't talk about it. No, there is no weird or embarrassing response to it. However, if we are both caught off guard by an obnoxiously loud one from you, then I AM going to laugh, and so will you. No one knows why but farts are always AS funny as they are embarrassing, no matter how old or civilized you are. Important note: this is not an invitation to show off your fart-on-demand skills in the office. That would not be funny. Thanks in advance!

 As always, he felt improved and reinvigorated afterwards and guessing from how deeply he had slipped into a momentary nap, I can only assume that he really needed both the respite and the stretching.

Thai massage. You have to experience it to appreciate it.