Thai Yoga Therapy For Your Body Type [Paperback]

This is a terrific book and groundbreaking. To my knowledge, it's the first time Ayurveda and Thai Yoga have been connected and revealed to have the same roots. It is both a course in the principles of Ayurveda and a course in Thai yoga massage and it brings them together to create a wonderfully synergistic and flexible therapeutic modality, easily adaptable to various constitutional types. Anyone who learns this system is enriching herself and raising her healing potentiality immensely. As both a student and teacher of Ayurveda and Thai Yoga, I find this book easy to understand and, most importantly from a practioner's point-of- view, highly practical. Thanks, Kam Thye and Emily!

It is unfortunate that this book attempts to portray traditional nuad boran (Thai massage) as being inextricably woven into the Ayurvedic medicine of current day India. This is simply not true. Traditional Thai massage developed within a unique system of medicine indigenous to, and practiced only in, Thailand.

While there is reason to believe that ancient Ayurvedic medicine influenced early Thai medicine, it is also clear that the Thai traditional medicine system incorporated aspects of early Buddhist medicine as well as indigenous Thai beliefs. The Thai medicine system utilizes native medicinal plants, many of which are not used in India, and the way in which diagnoses (doshas) are carried out in Thailand in order to treat illnesses is different than the way it is done in current day Indian Ayurvedic medicine. Mr Chow, with this book, misrepresents traditional Thai massage and Thai medicine, and instead transmits a mishmash of Sanskrit terms and Ayurvedic concepts to his students and to the general public, claiming that they are Thai when they clearly are not.

Mr. Chow has misrepresented Thai massage at other times in his courses and books. The basic sequence that he and his "Lotus Palm" students teach, for example, begins in seated position, but this is not the way Thai massage is practiced in Thailand, nor does it represent the way that Thai massage has evolved over the years. Beginning at the feet in supine position is one of the most integral and important aspects of a Thai therapy session, since it allows the therapist to remove blockages in a systematically holistic way, beginning with the feet, onward to the lower and upper torsos, and eventually finishing with the head. Chow's own teacher, the late Asokananda, was continually upset because of the way Chow performed and taught Thai massage over the years.

In this book and others, Chow misrepresents Thai tradition in that he teaches Sanskrit terminology, mantras and other Ayurvedic concepts and associates them with Thai massage. Why claim, for example, that the traditional gesture one makes with hands clasped together before and after a Thai massage is called a "namaskar" (a Sanskrit term), when it is actually called a "wai" or "wai khru" in Thai language? Why teach Sanskrit mantras when there are traditional Thai supplications that fall wholly within Thai tradition? Chow must know these things, yet he deliberately chooses to misrepresent Thai tradition by using alien terms and incorporating foreign elements into his "Lotus Palm method." To some, this is nothing short of insulting to Thai tradition, to Thai culture, and to those of us who wish to dignify traditional Thai healing arts.

Simply put, this book contains false and misleading information. Don't buy it if you expect to learn about traditional Thai massage.
DmF

For anyone who is familiar with the teachings of Kam Thye Chow and the Lotus Palm School and who believe in the evolution of Thai Yoga Massage as truly one of the best things you can do for both you the massage therapist, and the client you will love this book.

This book opens doors for Thai Yoga Massage to the yoga, ayurveda and general community because it grounds the practice in easy to understand yet deeply penetrating and time honored principles of Asian/Indian medicine. Simply put it inspires and teaches you how to give incredible Thai Yoga Massage and further shows your clients how they can take all the wonderful benefits and incorporate them into their everyday life.

It has made a very noticiable difference in my practice, because it gives me a strong foundation to understand why I choose to use certain postures with certain clients, and why I put some aside. It has helped me to channel my intention and energy in such a way that at the end of the massage my clients will relate to me how they have benefited from the experience, and it almost matches word for word the thoughts in my head for what I was hoping to accomplish with my session.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Thai Massage, and when you combine this with Kam Thye's first book that relates to Thai Massage in a more classical sense, you start to have a more complete picture of the vision that Thai Massage is a complete wellness system.