So in addition to two weekend trainings, Mardi Gras weekend, 20 blog posts in February, a part-time job that pays the mortgage, a full load of clients, managing the AMTA-AL website and developing the retention plans for the membership committee, I decided the first weekend following the February madness absolutely had to be filled with more Thai training.
How could I pass it up? Mukti was coming to Birmingham. I had to go.
After Rossiter training last weekend, I’m exhausted and excited, but mostly exhausted. I’ve arranged to buy a set of stands so that I can begin offering Rossiter ASAP. Hopefully I’ll be picking those up in the next couple of weeks. The good news is the stands are really the only equipment needed for the level of training I have. I’ll be writing more on Rossiter and how I think it can help my clients in the very near future.
But back to the Thai training. You may remember that I’ve been working on making a Thai mat. The hurry was ultimately for this class. I wanted to use it for the Rossiter, but that class was so crowded they asked for a regular yoga mat instead. So the new mat will be getting a workout this weekend. I hope it goes well. It has to be better than the “thick blanket” that was requested as equipment for the class. I can’t imagine crawling around on my knees all weekend on no padding.
I am excited for the new knowledge and getting to practice and reinforce the techniques I learned back in December. And also to see Mukti again. I also understand there are going to be a few people in the training I know so it will be good to see friends and make a few new ones. And I’ll be staying with my cousin who I don’t get to see often enough.
There are so many positives to this whole weekend plan that I hate to even think about how tired I’m going to be when it’s all over. It will all be worth it, but I can tell you now that the plan for the next weekend is to lie about on the couch. And maybe eat a bon-bon.
♥
Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Newest Provider of Thai-Yoga Bodywork
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? It’s taken long enough to get this Thai mat done anyway. I took my first Thai mat class back in late November. Then December happened which is always a very busy month between all the stressed out clients wanting last minute appointments before the holidays and then the holidays. Then there was January with everyone trying to recover from the holidays and all those resolutions. I don’t remember exactly when I made the first phone call to kick this project off, but I thought it might be something interesting to do a little tutorial on because it was easy and kind of cheap if you have the skills and hardware.
So for you interested folks, here is how I made my very first homemade Thai mat. Before you begin thinking I’m a genius for dreaming this up, I was inspired by a certain someone who I met during my Fijian Barefoot massage class in Nashville.
How to Make a (Stripped Down on the Cheap) Thai Mat
Step 1: Call a carpet store. You are looking for the padding that goes underneath carpet. My local store didn’t have any scraps that would work, so I ended up purchasing two pieces each 76″ wide by 45″ long. Cost: $15.87
Step 2: Stack the two pieces of padding on top of each other and make sure they are squared up. Mine weren’t so I trimmed it to be approximately equal.
Pardon the messiness in the background. Our rec room is a “wreck”!
Step 3: Go to a thrift store and buy a king size sheet. Cost: $4
Step 4: Sew the sheet into a giant pillowcase. You may need a ruler, tape measure, calculator and knee pads for this step. You’ll definitely want a sewing machine unless you’re just an animal and have a lot of time on your hands. The sheet I bought fit perfectly when I folded it in half lengthwise and sewed the bottom and sides up. At this point you’ll want to start thinking about how to close the top of the giant pillowcase. I chose to use Velcro, but snaps or ties would work. Or you could just sew it closed. I chose not to because I wanted to be able to remove the giant pillowcase and wash it occasionally.
Step 5: Go to the sewing store and buy something to close the top of your giant pillowcase (buy 2 times the amount you need if you’re making an outer cover).
While you’re at the store you may also want to buy some cotton duck fabric to make a more durable outer covering for your do-it-yourself Thai mat. I think I bought about 6.5 yards, but I don’t remember exactly and you’ll need to do math for the size of your mat. Oh and if you’re a math major (like me) and can no longer add without an Excel spreadsheet then the nice folks at the sewing store can help you figure out how much fabric you need to do the job. Very nice people in sewing stores usually. Cost: Velcro (free-I already had it from another project), Cotton duck – ~$40 on sale at Hancock Fabrics
This is looking great mommy! When do I get my Thai massage?
Step 6: Hem the top of the giant pillowcase and install your closures.
Step 7: Put the giant pillowcase on the carpet padding mats. Good luck and get ready to crawl around on the floor and sweat.
Step 8: So now it’s time to figure out how to form all that cotton duck fabric into another giant pillowcase. Hopefully you kept notes from when you talked to the nice lady at the fabric store so you know how to put this thing together. I had to take two pieces of fabric and run it cross ways to the mat to make a pillowcase large enough. Since I didn’t take pictures during this step if you need better descriptors, just ask and I’ll be glad to help you.
Step 9: Hem and install the closures for the cotton duck pillowcase.
Step 10: Wrestle the cotton duck pillowcase onto the mat and Viola! You are done! And sweaty! But you have a nice soft place to lay down and take a nap 🙂
I will probably make some “pillows” using this method, but for now I’m just going to try to get through the rest of February before taking on any more projects.
So here for your convenience is a supply list: 2 sections of carpet padding cut to the size of your mat, one thrift store sheet sized appropriately, cotton duck fabric to cover your mat sized appropriately, closure notions (Velcro, snaps, or extra fabric to make ties), scissors, measuring tape and/or a hardware tape measure, coordinating thread, sewing machine, carpet cutting blade and maybe some other stuff I’ve forgotten about. And you’ll definitely want to think about a beer after you’re done, but only if you don’t have clients lining up already.
And if you’re keeping track of the budget this whole project cost around $60 which is about half the cost of the cheapest Thai mats I was looking at online.
I’ll have to let you know how it compares to the mats I learned on. Already it performed quite well on the hardwood floor in the house. I’ll be taking it to a Rossiter training and another Thai-Yoga training in the next few weeks so I’ll do a review on my own “product” as soon as I have some results to report.
If you decide to make your own, let me know how it turns out!
A finished Thai Mat!
♥
Harvest Moon Massage is Decatur, Alabama’s Newest Provider of Thai-Yoga Massage
When I wrote back in January about the Thai Yoga Bodywork class I took, Lauren asked about it. She was baffled and had not heard of it so I promised her a more in-depth discussion. I should probably say here that I don’t yet feel qualified to even begin to define what it is.
I can tell you my experience with Thai massage, but I am a novice. Think kindergarten. My sum total of Thai experience is the 24 hours I took with Mukti, described in the link above and the 17 hours of Ashi-Thai I took with Jeni Spring.
Ashi-Thai is a westernized interpretation of Thai massage that is performed on a table with overhead bars for balance, support and stabilization for the therapist as they use their feet and legs to move the client through a series of yoga-like stretches (assisted asanas). There is also an element of compression massage involved with Ashi-Thai.
Thai massage is different and more. Traditional Thai is performed on a floor mat. Like Ashi-Thai the client is moved through a series of yoga-like asanas except the therapist is now using hands, arms, body, legs and feet to accomplish the stretches and compressions. That’s pretty much where the similarities end. There is a spiritual element of traditional Thai that is best captured by the beginning of a Thai Yoga Massage, called Puja Position. Puja Position allows the therapist to ground and open themselves while the client relaxes thus opening a line of communication. It’s all very esoteric and visceral and somewhat unbelievable until you feel it happen. So traditional Thai is about physical healing (the massage part), spiritual connection (for therapist and client, with each other, but perhaps also with their higher power or the universe in general), and the aesthetic of yoga. It should be beautiful when “performed”.
So what does it buy you? Looser muscles, decompressed joints, better localized blood flow in the areas being worked, relaxation, spiritual rejuvenation, etc. I think every Thai session is different and I think every person walks away with a different experience. It’s sorta like yoga in that respect.
I suppose I could go on and on and on, but that won’t give you any better sense of what I’m talking about so in the spirit of a picture is worth a thousand words I’ve embedded a video for you. I’ve chosen this one because the ladies in the video are two of my lovely Gray Bear sisters who I began my Thai Yoga Bodywork odyssey with. Charlene Gaffney (the therapist) is quite a bit more experienced at Thai Yoga Massage than I am. Stephany Fair (the receiver) is a yoga whiz and Thai practitioner as well. And when you get to the acrobatic part of this video just remember that I said they’re more experienced than I am and that I’m still in kindergarten (so I don’t know how to do nor will I attempt any of that fancy break your head stuff).
Earlier this year a friend said to me, “I haven’t heard you talking about any new classes lately. What’s up with that?” To which I responded that I just hadn’t seen anything I wanted to take. Apparently I should have taken that question as an indicator that I needed to start saving up a lot of money. My educational plan for this year was to go very light on the CEUs because I spent more than I had planned on the Bamboo-Fusion class back in March.
But then the part of me that is a junkie for learning new things bit hard and  I now have more CEUs scheduled between now and January than you can shake a monkey at.
I was trying to be fiscally responsible when I signed up for three, 2-hour educational opportunities at a local Pilates studio. They were relatively inexpensive and local (score!) The first of those three start the end of October with the first installment of a two-part Hamstring class.
Then, and I don’t even remember how it happened, I found a 5-day Thai Yoga Massage class happening in Hohenwald, TN at Gray Bear Lodge. The time frame worked. It was within driving distance and lodging and food was included in the cost. But oh, the cost… I agonized over whether I should do it or not. After consulting with said friend from above, I finally decided that the opportunity probably would not present itself again and that I should just tap the savings account to do it so I signed up.
Then the announcement for the AMTA-Alabama Chapter Fall Meeting and CEU came out. Originally the CEU was for Cold Stone and Migraine Therapy. I was seriously on the fence about that and when I made the decision to do the Gray Bear Lodge/Thai Yoga Massage class I decided not to do the Cold Stone. Then the Cold Stone fell through and they announced Hal Richardson would be doing 3-D Manual Therapy for Legs, Ankles, and Feet and well, I just couldn’t resist. Being a member, I get the discounted rate for 6 hours of CEUs and who could turn that down. And since there’s only three days between the Hamstring I class and the 3-D Manual Therapy class I should get even more bang for my buck in the retention and integration department.
I called it done. No more CEUs this year. This is it. Yeah, right… then I read on Facebook that an Ashi-acquaintance had taken the Fijian Barefoot class and I just sort of melted. I emailed her and she asked if I’d like to come take the Fijian Barefoot with Oil class in New Orleans. I said I’d think about it because, again, I was trying hard to be fiscally responsible while at the same time trying to figure out if skipping this opportunity would mean that to get it I would have to travel to Illinois at a later date.
Then I got to wondering about the schedule for Fijian in general, hit the website and SHAZAM! Lolita Knight is teaching Fijian Island Barefoot Massage and  Soft Touch Island Massage in Nashville in the middle of November. Actually she is teaching about 4-days worth of all kinds of interesting things that I would love to take, but, alas, money.
I’ve been wanting to take the Fijian class for a couple of years. Once I finally felt like I was proficient in Ashi I started craving knowledge for different barefoot systems and this one seems to be a pretty well-developed course. Anyway, Lolita Knight developed the Fijian massage for the U.S. and she is planning on retiring next year. Who knows when I’d have the opportunity to take it this close to home and from the creator, herself. So I signed up. Sigh…
So, here’s how the next couple of months are going to shake out CEU-wise for me:
October 29 – Hamstring I
November 2 – 3 – AMTA – AL Fall Massage Mingle, Meeting & 3-D Manual Therapy: Legs, Ankles and Feet
November 16 – Fijian Island Barefoot Massage & Soft Touch Island Massage
November 28 – December 2 – Thai Yoga Massage
December 3 – Hamstring II
January 7 – Lordosis/Kyphosis Class
I’m tired just looking at this list, but on the upside I won’t need anymore CEUs for a long, long time and I won’t be able to afford them either.
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So in addition to two weekend trainings, Mardi Gras weekend, 20 blog posts in February, a part-time job that pays the mortgage, a full load of clients, managing the AMTA-AL website and developing the retention plans for the membership committee, I decided the first weekend following the February madness absolutely had to be filled with more Thai training.
