My Yoga Practice Feels Stuck — Can Thai Massage Help Me Reset?
If you have practiced yoga for a while, you may know this feeling.
Your practice isn’t necessarily bad. Nothing dramatic has happened. But somehow your body feels different.
The poses that normally feel comfortable may feel tighter. Your practice becomes repetitive. Perhaps you’ve been practicing less frequently, or you’ve taken a long break and are trying to return.
Sometimes you simply think:
I need a reset.
Yoga has been part of my own life for many years, and that background is one of the reasons I have such an appreciation for Thai massage.
The two practices are certainly not the same—but there are fascinating places where movement, body awareness, breathing, stretching, and relaxation meet.
Receiving Movement Instead of Creating It
During yoga practice, you are the one creating the movement.
You decide how you enter the posture. Your muscles support you. You maintain your balance. You control the depth of the position, and you decide when to come out.
Thai massage changes that relationship.
You become the receiver.
I support and move your body through various positions while incorporating compression, gentle rocking, assisted stretching, and other Thai massage techniques.
For someone accustomed to actively performing yoga postures, it can be surprisingly different to stop doing and simply receive.
Thai Massage Is Not Someone Doing Yoga to You
Thai massage is sometimes described as “assisted yoga.”
I understand why people use that description, but I think it can also create the wrong picture.
My goal isn’t to reproduce a yoga class while you lie there.
And I am certainly not trying to see how many impressive yoga-like shapes I can put your body into.
Thai massage is massage.
The movements and stretches are tools I can use within the session, and I adjust them according to the individual person in front of me.
What If I’ve Lost Some Flexibility?
Then you arrive with the flexibility you have today.
That’s enough.
If you once practiced yoga regularly but haven’t practiced for months—or years—you don’t need to regain your previous flexibility before receiving Thai massage.
Bodies change.
Our movement changes.
Our lives change.
I would much rather work with where your body actually is than where either of us thinks it should be.
Can Thai Massage Improve My Yoga Practice?
I am careful with this question because I don’t want to promise that receiving a massage will suddenly make someone perform a deeper forward bend or achieve a particular yoga posture.
That’s not the purpose.
What Thai massage can offer is an experience of assisted movement and stretching in which you aren’t responsible for performing the movement yourself.
Sometimes experiencing movement from that different perspective can simply make you more aware of your body.
You may notice areas that feel easy to move and others that feel more restricted.
That awareness can be interesting when you return to your own yoga practice.
You Don’t Have to Be a Yogi
Despite the similarities people sometimes notice between Thai massage and yoga, you do not need any yoga experience whatsoever to receive Thai massage.
I don’t expect you to know Sanskrit names for poses.
I don’t expect you to know how to breathe in a particular way.
And I certainly don’t expect you to be able to put your foot behind your head.
You can know absolutely nothing about yoga and still enjoy Thai massage.
You Remain Fully Clothed
Thai massage is traditionally performed while the client is fully clothed.
Wear something comfortable that allows your body to move freely—yoga clothing, loose exercise clothing, or another comfortable outfit works well.
For people who already practice yoga, this can make the experience feel particularly approachable.
You arrive dressed comfortably, and you remain that way throughout the session.
Sometimes the Reset Is Mental Too
A yoga practice can become very goal-oriented without us realizing it.
We remember what we used to be able to do.
We compare today’s practice with yesterday’s.
We want the hamstrings to open more, the balance to improve, or the pose to look a particular way.
Receiving Thai massage offers an opportunity to temporarily put those goals aside.
There is nothing you need to achieve during the session.
You can simply experience movement.
And perhaps that is part of what a reset can mean.
Not forcing the body back into where it used to be.
Just becoming curious about where it is now.
— Tone D. Jackson, LMT
Thai Massage Albuquerque
Albuquerque, New Mexico