Yoga and Thai Massage are members of the same family. During the time of Buddha, about 2500 years ago, a physician from India traveled to Thailand and introduced what became known as Thai massage. His gift to Thailand was his skill of yoga and yoga therapy. Therefore the term Thai Yoga Massage is very appropriate, although this term is not used at all in Thailand but only by western practitioners.

Yoga itself never really made it in Thailand. There actually is a form of Thai yoga in Thailand, but it is not widely known and hardly practiced by anyone. Yoga arrived in Thailand, but only the massage aspect (yoga therapy) survived and the self practice yoga was forgotten. Recently Thailand has been experiencing a renaissance of yoga, but it was introduced by westerners who set up quite a few yoga centers in the tourist areas of the country. Only in the last few years have the Thais started to take an interest in the Indian version of yoga, and now there are also yoga schools for Thais.

The Thais and the foreigners don't usually study in the same yoga schools. Why is that? One reason is the language barrier, and another reason is that the Thais approach yoga as well as life in general in a more relaxed, easy going way, whereas westerners take their yoga practice very seriously. Thais find western-taught yoga classes too intense and competitive.

What accounts for the recent popularity of Thai massage? For thousands of years massage and herbal medicine were standard and effective treatments in Thailand until modern medicine appeared on the scene. Gradually western medicine started to replace Thai massage. It was only revived by foreigners who took an interest in this unique therapy. They wrote books about it, published videos about Thai massage therapy and established Thai massage schools.

The decoupling of Thai yoga massage from yoga had led to a degeneration of the quality of this healing art. For many centuries it was mainly practiced in the temples by monks. In recent decades it often became a thinly disguised come-on for sexual services. However at the same time western therapists started to take it very seriously as a massage therapy. They began to re-establish the connection with yoga and generated an enormous amount of interest for Thai massage treatments and training in Thailand. There are countless Thai massage schools in Thailand, almost all of them catering exclusively to foreigners.

The Thai government has been making serious efforts to lift the standard of Thai massage by establishing training facilities for Thais, therapists and schools, issuing official certificates, and promoting higher standards.

In its basic form, Thai massage is simply a sequence of stretches and pressure points, a mechanical bodywork system. But the addition of yoga principles to the mechanical aspects of the massage can raise it to a true healing art. Mindfulness, awareness of one’s own body and the client’s body, engaging from one’s "hara", the energetic center right behind the navel, awareness of one’s breath, conscious channeling of healing energy, and an increased sensitivity of touch all greatly increase the quality and effectiveness of the treatment.

Thai massage is a lot more than a system of massage techniques. The combination of yoga principles with Thai bodywork is not only an ideal combination, but it brings Thai massage back to its roots of yoga. After all, they are part of the same family.