I’m sorry, because unless I take some pictures today and pretend they are from yesterday (which is fine) before I post this (could happen), then there will be no photos today.

I had THE BEST massage yesterday after class. Over lunch I rushed over to Lek Chaiya massage school and made an appointment for 16:00, the latest they would take. We finished class at 15:45 and I scooted over there.

It was a little old lady who massaged me (not Mama Lek, who passed away some time ago), and at first I thought she was going soft on the farang. Nerve Touch massage is known as a sort of acupressure massage, using Northern style techniques. I expected something like Wat Pho style, quite hard. Instead, it was more like she was warming me up. She went over and over the same lines, first soft then harder until quite hard. And pretty fast.

Her technique was double thumb press, mostly, like Wat Pho, but with a rocking motion, like what I’m learning with Coocky this week. Mama Lek was Coocky’s first teacher, so there may be a connection.

She went through all 5 positions, and included stretching and hot compress. I think we went over the hour that I paid for. I’m not sure. I was in heaven when I left.

This is the most expensive Thai massage (not including Chi Nei Tsang, which isn’t the same) I’ve had here, but well worth it. If I can think of a way to fit in another before I go, I will!

Two interesting techniques I’ve learned from receiving massages while here:

Super slow but extreme pressure, using full full body weight at the blind.
Super fast with rocking and repetition until intense at Lek Chaiya.

Wow. Plus some elbow, feet and knee alternatives that will come in handy with a couple of people I can think of.

After that, I had some food then haggled with a tuktuk driver to take me home.

My brain might just explode. We started class today, and thank goodness I have massage experience, not just Thai, but also some Swedish and Ayurvedic. It helps!

I did very well in the first half today, because it wasn’t very complicated and I took copious notes while our teacher, Coockie, who is also the boss lady at Loi Kroh school, explained. But in the afternoon, I was the model, so when it came time to practice, I had almost no idea! I had been busy hoping, “ahhh…” the whole time.

My classmates are 4 Japanese women, two very young, a third my age, and the last in her 60’s, a monk. I’m now confused about Japanese women monks. Keiko has had 3 children. Perhaps before she became a monk? Her English is almost non-existent, and it’s very difficult for the other 3 to translate. Theirs is at varying levels.

We went to lunch together, at the Japanese-run guesthouse across their street. I had Japanese food and my classmates all had western food. 🙂 They were impressed by how well I handled my chopsticks, and thought it was funny when I made a mess because the rolls fell apart. It was funny.

Matt wants to understand this massage better. He wants to know, other than constipation, what it helps with. So I will begin to explain (and I will continue to learn).

It is a massage of the internal organs. Today, we worked on the small and large intestines, the liver, the pancreas, the gall bladder, the gall duct, the pericardium (never heard of this before), reflex points for the heart and lungs, as well as the psoas muscles, the lumbar sacral plexus, the pelvic tendon, and the iliacus muscle.

In practice we are stimulating circulation in these areas. We are also stimulating the growth of good bacteria. We are seeking blockages (poop, energy, trigger points, what-have-you) and encouraging them out.

From a philosophical perspective, all Sen lines originate in the navel and extend to all the natural holes in the body. So working on the navel and abdominal cavity addresses the source of problems in the rest of the line.

This massage is quite different from others I do (and yes, there is oiled stomach massage in Swedish, but it is very different). It uses oils on the belly, and as a result the client must be exposed from lower rib cage to pelvic bone, not just the hip bones, but the full round hollow. Or not hollow, as the case may be. When Pare performed it on me last weekend, she gave me a loose tank top to wear, no bra, and used the elastic of my panties to hold a sheet over my lower body, which she positioned quite low. During some parts, pressure is given on the upper chest, or on the sternum, and having salon-supplied clothing protects the client’s clothing from oil stains.

This picture does not show the hips as exposed as they should be. Let me put it this way: the Japanese girls don’t wax. It also doesn’t show just how deep we are pushing. No eating before!!

I think I will need to feel this on many people (like with anything) to really get it right. But that’s true of everything. It’s not very protocol-based, though. You need to know what techniques can be used and where, but you have to be able to feel the things there that need to be loosened.

Anyway, after class I went back home, picked up my clean laundry, and took a shower. Then I took a tuk tuk back to Tha Pae gate. I wanted to try a Nerve Touch massage from Mama Lek’s protégés.

Unfortunately, Lek Chaiya massage closes at 17:00, and it was 18:30, so I went next door and had a one-hour massage.

My masseuse was Daan (or it could have been Taan, hard to tell), and she has been massaging for 2 years. She is recently out of prison, which is where she learned. She was very curious about me. I was the first farang she had massaged who liked hard pressure. Actually, she couldn’t massage me as hard as I would have liked. She needs to work on her body mechanics a bit more. She is using too much muscle strength and not enough body weight, but she did very well. It will come. I have had many far worse massages than what she did, and it was the first textbook massage I’ve had this trip. Really, it was straight out of the ITM level 1 text, with maybe 3 moves from level 2 and 1 from level 3. I was familiar with every thing she did to me, and could feel which ones she got a little wrong (always body mechanics). I didn’t tell her. We had a fun chat.

She was a dealer and addict before she went to prison. Maybe because of the addiction, she was first in a treatment program for a few months, meditating silently with the monks. Then later, 3 days a week massage courses then work, 2 days English, 2 days helping with cooking and cafe. The money they earn they keep for their release, and they have a new career possibility, in massage or restaurant.

Since leaving prison, she is also learning about cosmetics and herbal facial remedies. She very earnestly told me several tricks I tell my own skincare clients. She is very excited about her new life. It was nice to meet her. I wish her success and happiness.

After that, I had a yummy dinner at 3 Sis, on the way home and unchallenging. And now I’m lying in bed. Goodnight! Sorry no pics today!

Everyone is tired today. The class isn’t making any jokes. Everyone is just staring drowsily at Alain, our teacher.

For most, it’s for a similar reason as for me: noisy noisy co-inhabitants in our guesthouses. For some, it’s jetlag, homesickness, up too late, or a combination. Anyway. I have a killer headache. After class, if I haven’t heard back from Loi Kroh School by email, I will need to go there and ask about the class next week. Otherwise I have to call Pichet tomorrow to make arrangements for next week there. Either way, I have to know tonight. After that, I’ll go for a massage and dinner then bed.

I can’t wait.

Later.
I skipped the practice this afternoon. I went one time through all the oldest stuff & the newest stuff with my lovely partner from South Africa, who was very easy to work with. I feel not perfect, but adequate. It will do for the test. I will do my homework tonight and relax. Good energy and well-rested is a better way to prepare.

So I walked a different route around the city to Loi Kroh School. I always get lucky with walk up food. Best coffee shack yet. Awesome. Best prices, too.

I shelled out 15,000 baht (3x the cost of most massage courses) for the Abdominal Detox massage course. I’m super excited. This week, working the Sen lines at ITM just made me want even more abdominal skills. Most of my classmates complained about abdomen work, but I love it. I’ve been using it more and more frequently with my clients in the past months and have had very positive responses.

So the upcoming weeks’ schedule is as follows:

Tomorrow (Friday): exam Advanced Sen Lines at ITM
Sat/Sun: finish Ruesri Datton at Loi Kroh
Mon-thurs: Abdominal Detox at Loi Kroh
Thursday afternoon: rent motorcycle for rest of trip
Friday: drive to Pichet’s to observe/ ask permission to join next week
sat/sun: Pregnancy Massage at ITM
Monday-Friday: Pichet or if I can’t, then Advanced Elbows & Knees at ITM
Saturday: fly to Bangkok, meet up with Matt at gorgeous-looking, highly reviewed historic Chinese mansion
Monday: go to Koh Chang for one week
Monday following: return to Bangkok
Wednesday: fly home.

You see that Monday to Monday stretch on Koh Chang? That’s my vacation.

Here are some pictures to amuse you. I’m sorry for the quality of visual content this week. I’ve just mostly been sitting in a classroom.

That’s my bedroom. The rug is the entrance to my WC. The window opens onto the kitchen. But I’m only paying 450 baht per night.

Here’s a delicious snack, seaweed sesame crackers:

And here’s a store made for Dick Willems:

All helmets and guitars. 🙂

I’m writing this the next morning. I was too tired last night. So let’s see. It was a pretty good day yesterday. I woke up and walked to school, stopping for steamed bun and coffee on the way.

I worked with a woman from Montenegro. We didn’t talk much. At lunch a couple more joined our lunch group. During afternoon free practice I worked with the Irish girl, Emma, from level 1. I ripped my hippy pants, though, so we stopped early.

After, we went for some food. Then I went walking for clothes. I bought 2 new fisherman pants, a T-shirt, a jacket, a blouse, and a dress. I needed the fisherman pants & T-shirt for class. I packed almost nothing, since I have very little for warm weather & it’s cheap here.

Then I rewarded myself for successful errand with a lime icee and a tiny mango ice cream on the wonderful terrace of 3 Sis B&B. I’m totally staying there next time. They have lettuce for beautiful plants.

After some hotel planning (bangkok & koh Chang), I wandered south to Chiang Mai Gate to pick up bamboo sticky rice for breakfast. I think that’s the best place for street food in town. If it weren’t so inconvenient, I’d eat there every day.

Here are some maps. First, my route to Loi Kroh School.

Then, a route, which I will try today, to ITM.

Then, a map of the old center of Chiang Mai. The blue dot is where my guesthouse is.

Actually, that’s a bit of a misnomer. Today I didn’t feel like I was learning the ropes so much as settling in, but that doesn’t have quite so nice a ring to it.

At my guesthouse, what would normally be a nuisance is turning out to be a boon. That is, the fact of my window being open onto the kitchen is becoming useful. My mornings are, by necessity, quite early. My alarm goes off at 06:30. I can take it easy until about 07:00, though, which might lead to falling back asleep. However, the kitchen starts getting noisy at 07:15 at the latest, leaving my best option to get moving and get out.

This morning I changed route to ITM just slightly, and found a lovely steamed bun place open on the way. This took so long, however, that I didn’t have time to eat it there, so I figured I would eat it when I got to school.

Then I passed a Wawee Coffee (Thai Starbucks), so picked up a small one, also to go. I was so happy to have discovered these options, however, that I made a slight error, failing to cross the road and the moat across from Wawee. Had I done so, I would have been right on track for ITM, but the way I went, I ended up circling all the way around to the first northern gate then doubling back to the corner to go north on the street I needed.

I was on time, but barely. No breakfast, then, until after morning mantra and warmup exercises. Oh well.

During our free practice hour, after the break, I discovered that I can remember the entire sequence without error. While the teachers corrected many others, who also needed their books, they merely nodded at me. Yay me. But to be fair, I’m the only one who has been practicing professionally already for a while. Everyone else is either a) learning it all in one big go now (doing class after class in one trip, so has only just begun), b) did it years ago but hasn’t used since, or c) did it years ago, but has only used it for friends, occasionally, and is now thinking of maybe more.

This was important for me to realize because yesterday, due to 2 strange factors, first that I speak Dutch and made the acquaintance of 2 Dutch artists who live in Antwerp (group C of list above), and second that I have a doppelganger, I ended up working with an obnoxious know-it-all Belgian guy of group A. When you are new but serious, you tend to learn everything as gospel. You don’t know that there are many ways to do the same thing (“same, same, different”). This guy is learning that now, in his first class with people who have longer-term experience. Although I’m the only one in class that has practiced Thai massage professionally for some time, there are several people in group C, and they, like I, learned from other teachers. Further, we learned from a different version of this school’s textbook. So yesterday, the teacher would say something like, “do level 1 stomach,” and I would do it. Belgian guy would get agitated and insist it was wrong. I would ask how he learned. He would explain, and I would say that I preferred my way (mine was more efficient, less moving around). He would become angry, call the teacher over. Teacher would see my method, say, “yes, that is another way, but too complicated for beginners, so you learned easier way,” which made Belgian guy angry. Then he would start expounding that he learned his way and this was the test way. Teacher would overhear, and say “no, both OK for test!”

The point is, yesterday made me feel constantly under attack. It happened over and over.

Today, I worked with a lovely young woman from Bermuda. Did you know that Bermuda is nowhere near the Caribbean, but actually much further north, basically on a level with South Carolina? Apparently its a very common misconception. This young woman is a professional masseuse and beautician, but otherwise falls into group A. She has previously only a beautician’s massage training, and is learning Thai massage for the first time, a whole bunch all in one go.

She was willing to learn and willing to let me practice, and that was just fine.

For lunch I joined my usual lunch group at the little family-run stand around the corner. Usual! Only the 2nd day! Anyway, it’s the Dutch artists, an Irish girl (also beautician/massage therapist) in level 1, and a Thai girl from Phuket, also level 1. Nice group, nice place. Super cheap: plate of food with rice and choice of 2 things from the daily selection, free water, plate of fruit, and cup of soup= 35 baht, or about 50 cents. Yesterday it was 42 baht.

After lunch I did my coloring homework in the school garden, where these are:

Side note: I’m confused. Where I’m sitting now, there are 2 separate tables of elderly tourists, on one either side. Both groups keep switching back and forth between Dutch and English. Weird.

Lessons end at 15:00 with student-led mantra then announcements. However, after that is more free practice time until 17:00. I made plans with the Irish girl to leave together after for dinner and more practice, but the practice room was full, so I ended up practicing upstairs with a level 1 Brazilian who lives in Australia, and I think the Irish didn’t know I was up there. She probably thought I ditched her, because I had just missed her when I came down to go. Oops.

Anyway, I walked back to the guest house, dropped my things off, and am now sitting in my 2nd cafe. At the first, I had a delicious pad siew, Matt’s favorite, although it had been made tourist-mild, so I had to add lots of chilies in vinegar, but I love chilies in vinegar, so that’s just fine.

Statues on a wat wall:

A man on the street stopped me to ask if I knew about the parade and fireworks tonight. Apparently it’s a two-in-one, a celebration for the boys being initiated as full monks, and the 350-year anniversary of Chiang Mai. Thai people are starting to crowd the street where I’m sitting, with cameras, so perhaps I’ve chanced upon just the right spot! I just have to wait another 45 minutes. That’s going to be the challenge. I’m sleepy!

Later:
Nope, it wasn’t tonight, but will be on the 14th. Good to know. I will plan on it. I had a nice walk instead. The city is so busy at night! I walked for as while with a québécoise man whose eye has been blackened during a scuffle in Bangkok. Nice guy, I think he would have liked to have as drink, but I wanted to head home for a little Ruesri Datton practice before bed.

On the subject of men, actually, an observation: I see a lot of foreign men with Thai partners, male or female, but very very few foreign women with Thai partners. Why is that? Many Thai men are quite good-looking, and many are tall. Many are tall AND good-looking. I spoke to a fine example of one of those this evening, in fact, which is why I started wondering. (Intelligence and good personality aren’t as visually apparent, but I’m sure they’re just as represented as in any other population.)

When we took our cooking lessons 3 years ago, the teacher’s ex-wife was English and current wife Chinese. So i know these matches also happen, but I’m just not seeing as much of it. Food for thought, as it were… Food. Hahaha. Bad joke. Sorry. Goodnight!

It’s very very lucky that I woke up before my alarm again this morning, because THIS morning it didn’t go off. Or rather, it did, but silently. I needed to leave by 7:30 this morning because registration was at 8:30. I wasn’t sure how long the walk would take. It took 40 minutes. Honestly, I can’t decide if I should keep walking, because the exercise is good for me, rent something for transport, or take a truck or tuk tuk, at least 1 direction. I think that last option sounds best.

So. Today was my first day at the original ITM, which is the school through which I’m certified, via their Amsterdam affiliate, Thai Hand. It’s a very nice building, but really far from me. Crossing morning traffic out of the center was insane. Here are a couple of pictures from the way home, and it was lighter then. No crosswalks, very scary.

None of those vehicles are stopped, or even slow. Just for your better comprehension.

So, class. Well, truthfully, my head is a bit full, so I’m not sure I’m up for full descriptions today. It was good. I’ll explain better next time.

After class, so after 17:00, I wanted to be massaged at the women’s prison, but it was closed. So instead I found a patio and had a light meal. I wandered into a way and photographed some Buddhas.

Then I went to the blind massage place again, but had to wait 30 minutes, just enough time to drop my stuff off at home and come back.

This masseur wasn’t quite as awesome as the one the other day, but I was also his last client for the day, so perhaps that’s it. It was still very good, and I came home after instead of going out to sit somewhere and color my textbook, which is homework.

My grandiose plan for this evening was:
2 hour massage
Pick up bamboo sticky rice for tomorrow morning
1 hour coloring and blogging while sitting in a cafe
1 hour practice Ruesri Datton
Shower and bed

In actuality, I decided my hair also needed washing and my nails were too long, so this is what happened:
2 hour massage
Long shower and hair washing
Nail filing
Facebook reading
This sub-par blog entry
Bed.

I’m exhausted. I’ll try to do the blogging right after class tomorrow, so that I have energy to write it!