There is no single standard form of Thai massage, one could even say that there are as many variations of massage as there are regions or teachers. Even individual villages or families have their own massage techniques or variations. Passing knowledge from teacher to student and preserving the tradition of one’s massage school is very important in Thailand, and the name of the school or family surname is an indicator of the quality and skills of the graduates of that school. The reasons for this diversity seem to be the small amount of written materials about massage until recently, which would have standardized styles. The second reason is the trend of embracing Western treatment techniques since the 19th century, which caused traditional healing methods to be abandoned. Massage was therefore passed down orally, allowing more possibilities for new versions to emerge.
However, there are two main massage styles: Northern and Southern, associated with the two most well-known massage schools: The Traditional Thai Medicine School at Wat Pho in Bangkok, where the southern massage style is taught, and The Shivagakomarpaj Institute, also known as the Traditional Medicine Hospital in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, which represents and teaches the northern style.
The Traditional Thai Medicine School at Wat Pho in Bangkok was established in 1957 and is the most well-known and respected massage and herbal medicine school in Thailand. Stone tablets depicting human figures with schematic lines of energy pathways are embedded in the walls of one of the temple buildings. These images, once the only theoretical source of Thai massage, depict 60 figures: 30 front views of the body and 30 back views, with networks of energy lines and therapeutic points, along with explanatory inscriptions carved beside them.
Marble tablets with carved human figures and energy line pathways, located in Wat Pho temple in Bangkok.
The Traditional Medicine Hospital in Chiang Mai was founded in 1962 by teacher Sinthorn Chaichakan, who enriched the massage techniques he knew with techniques used by hill tribes from the areas surrounding Chiang Mai.
Both centers present slightly different massage styles corresponding, in a sense, to the temperaments of the people living in the north and south of Thailand – the former are gentler and calmer than their southern neighbours, so the northern massage style is slower, gentler, focused on stretching and therefore more relaxing than the southern style, which is a more energetic, stronger form of massage focused on acupressure (pressing).
With more frequent contact between the north and south, the differences between the northern and southern styles are blurring. Masseurs experienced in both styles often use them interchangeably depending on the needs of the person being massaged, performing, for example, the northern massage style during a full-body general massage and the southern style when working on particularly stiff and painful muscles. However, despite the diversity of styles, the basic principles and philosophy of massage are the same for all styles, schools, and masseurs.
In addition to the above division of schools, theorists in Thailand distinguish two systems or two schools of traditional Thai medicine: the “royal tradition” and the “folk tradition”. The royal tradition developed over the centuries, as its name suggests, in the royal courts. It was mainly influenced by Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and Western medicine. Unlike the folk tradition, it developed a unified system of theory and practice. An example of this tradition is the massage school at Wat Pho. The folk tradition, on the other hand, does not have a single specific style but varies from village to village or teacher to teacher. It was passed down orally from teacher to student and presents traditional medical techniques practiced in Thai lands before the arrival of other medical systems. It also contains a number of magical techniques associated with beliefs that existed before the arrival of Buddhism in Thai lands. Representatives of this tradition may be more associated with a shaman or healer than a masseur in the general sense.
Piotr Druzgała