Certified: The Art of Thai Massage

As our time in Thailand is slowly coming to a close, I realized I only had one chance left to learn Thai massage. A gift to myself, I spent the holiday break (the only consecutive free days I have left before we leave) getting Thai massage certified in Chiang Mai. Not wanting to spend an absurd amount of baht or waste my time only learning a small portion of a Thai massage, I opted to go to the same place Win went during his 2008 Thailand trip.

Win described the course as a week of getting and giving massages, and he vouched for the awesomeness of the instructor. Her 5-day whole body massage course was about half the cost of the bigger, less personal massage schools. Not bad for a hundred dollars.

So, I too went to Ms. Aree Sanyaluck, but my experience was a bit different from Win’s. For starters, I was the only student. This meant that, as I was the only one practicing, it was all massage-giving, no receiving. But, hey, I didn’t have to worry about being paired up with some creepy tourist as a massage partner. Since I was practicing on Aree herself, she knew exactly how well I was doing and how to correct me. Plus, I got to learn at my own pace.  

So, I spent five days hanging out, massaging Aree, while her three black cats lounged in the sun or stretched out alongside us. Aree turned out to be a ridiculous individual. After teaching for 26 years, she speaks not only fluent English, but also French, inadvertently slipping from one to the other occasionally. We talked about Thai schools, farang men, the Thai version of prostitution (‘girlfriends’), different types of tourists. I listened as she professed her profound hatred for most of the massage schools around Chiang Mai, especially those that teach Wat Po style (carelessly popping, cracking, and walking on backs); she told me about her herbal medicine work with the local hospital and the psychiatric hospital; and I learned about her time in Australia and Europe learning massage through a program set up by the King. Not a bad way to spend time off work.

Giving a Thai massage is incredibly exhausting, with all the lifting of dead weight, pulling and stretching of limbs, and bending the recipient into some very yoga-esque positions. But it was a ton of fun to learn, and apparently, I am a natural at it. This probably has something to do with the fact that I get a Thai massage every week ($10 for two hours, who could resist?) and I know what things they do that I just hate. I blew through the five day course in three and a half, so Aree taught me the extra two days (foot massage) on day five. For free. A wonderful New Year’s present.

And, the whole arrangement worked out in Win’s favor as well: once I finished the course, Aree had me practice on Win. Twice. So at least one of us got a free massage.