Be Patient when learning Thai Massage

“We over estimate what we can accomplish in 2 months and underestimate what we can accomplish in 5 years”

This is one of the quotes that I use often at the end of a Thai Massage Training at Blue Garden Chiang Mai. I see so many students, highly motivated with high hopes, who are at the end of the course sometimes a little disheartened about the actually progress they have made. I am using this quote to encourage them not to give up and help them to understand that any skill/professions takes time to learn, so also Thai Massage. You are not becoming a professional Chef in a couple weeks or learning a language fluently in a month. The same it is with Massage. To master an art (or to become good at it) takes time, dedication, sweat and frustration. It also takes allowance of yourself to be on this journey and when you keep practicing (studying) all of the sudden when you are down the road for 2 years and look back you see how much you have progressed.

So when you are coming to Chiang Mai to become a Thai Massage therapist. How to practice patience:

1. Spend time to learn the basics; don’t rush after a 1 week or 2 weeks beginners course onto an advanced course. You will feel completely overwhelmed (I will do a full Blog in the future, just about this subject) and will feel lost. Instead repeat the beginners course.
2. Don’t sign up for a teacher training course; if you never have done Thai Massage before do not sign up for a teacher training. Just think about it how ridiculous it actually is;  you never have done Thai Massage and within 10 weeks you are trained to be a teacher. Use the time instead to focus on the fundamentals
3. Set time out to practice; lets says you are lucky enough to come to Chiang Mai for a longer time (2-3 months). When you finished a training, do not go to the next course. Find a friend to practice the material you learned on a daily basis for 1 or 2 weeks, and maybe repeat the course again. Some schools (also our place) give the possibility for the student to use their facilities to practice
4.  Spend time to learn the basics; no this is no Typo mistake, just to stress the importance of this. Just think about that the basics are the foundation of the practice, when the foundation is strong it will be easily to add on. When I was learning myself I spend a long time just learning the basics and from there it was much easier to progress.

Having experienced myself the benefits of being patient within my practice and also with students who were committed to learn. This is the reason why I am organizing once a year the intensive 1 month Foundation Thai Massage Training. This one month we are completely focused to learn the fundamentals of Thai Massage, intensive teaching and a lot of practice.

Warmly…..

Remco