Boek Deepening your Thai massage

Deepening Your Thai Massage

An East-West Approach to Thai Bodywork

Pain isn’t always where the problem is.

You release the knee. Your client leaves happy. Two weeks later, the pain is back.

This book is for Thai massage therapists and bodyworkers who know their techniques and want to understand what happens underneath them. Why a complaint keeps returning. Why the painful shoulder softens after you’ve treated the other one. Why one deep sigh from your client can shift more than a dozen techniques.

From routine to real attunement

Many of us learned a sequence and give it, client after client. This book helps you let go of the fixed routine and meet the body where it speaks. You learn to feel what is under your hands, to see how someone lies on the mat, and to adjust your massage to this person and this complaint. Your clients notice the difference. They feel seen, their complaints ease, and so they come back.

Two maps of the same landscape come together here: Western anatomy, fascia and the nervous system, and the Thai Sen, Lom and the Buddhist qualities of Metta, Karuna, Mudita and Upekkha.

Things you’ll bring into your next session

It’s rarely too deep. It’s usually too fast. How to listen with your hands to the way the body responds to your pressure, and let that set your pace. And why building up over three repetitions gives the nervous system the safety to let go.

Muscles don’t work alone. How tension further along a myofascial line keeps pulling a complaint back. You’ll follow Ilse, a runner whose knee pain only stayed away once the whole back line was treated.

The body holds what the mind forgets. Why emotion can surface under your hands, and how to give it space.

Your breath is a tuning fork. How your calm breath invites calm in the person on your mat.

Massage from relaxation. Using your body weight, gravity and breath, massaging from your hara instead of your strength.

Nine steps through Body, Mind and Energy

1. Nourishing Herbs
2. The myofascial lines
3. The bridge between muscles, nerves and movement
4. The power of intention
5. The parasympathetic nervous system
6. The language of the body
7. The Sen
8. The breath
9. The power of movement

A book and a video course in one

• Hardcover, full colour, 186 pages
• 21 video demonstrations, opened with a QR code right next to the text
• Photography by Harold Pereira, known from Happinez and Yoga Magazine
• Poems and quotes woven through every chapter
• Written in English

What readers say

Enriching and Inspiring
What a truly enlightening book! This is so much more than a manual of Thai massage techniques. It takes you to a deeper layer, where body, energy and mind come together. (…) Everything is woven together in an accessible and inspiring way, so that you not only learn techniques, but truly understand what you are doing and why.
Remko Landtman

It beautifully bridges ancient Eastern wisdom with modern Western anatomical understanding. (…) It is an invaluable masterpiece.
Alek Indy, Thailand

Is this book for you?

Yes, if you, give Thai massage or other bodywork and want to understand why you do what you do. If you learned a set sequence and long to respond to the person in front of you. If your clients leave happy, and you would love them to come back. If you’ve practised for years and want to embody what you already know more deeply.

Probably not, if you’re looking for a quick manual of techniques to copy step by step. This book asks you to feel, look and experience.

About the author

Tirza Bottema began learning traditional Thai massage in Chiang Mai in 1991 with her first teacher, Mama Nit, and brought it to the Netherlands in 1993. Years of study with Thai teachers followed, including Ajahn Pichest, Ajahn Sinchai and Ajahn Paesuwan. To understand the Western side as well, she later studied physiotherapy, alongside her background in anthropology.

She founded Thai Dee, which has been training Thai massage therapists for almost 30 years. It is the only Thai massage training in the Netherlands recognised by health insurers. In this book she brings together scientific insight and Thai healing wisdom, with deep respect for the tradition at its heart.

How to order

In the Netherlands: order directly from me for €65. To keep costs low, I ship once a week, every Monday.

Need it faster? The book is also available at Bol.com.

Outside the Netherlands: the book is available worldwide through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many other online bookstores. Search for Deepening Your Thai Massage Tirza Bottema.

Want to go deeper still?

Continue your path with Thai Dee’s trainings and retreats in Thai bodywork. Discover Thai Dee

May this book take your touch one layer deeper.