I have survived the first week of my Thai massage course. It’s been intense – 9am – 4pm every day with an hour for lunch. There’s eight of us students and we’re taught by Dot Po. Think small and quirky Thai lady in her late 40’s (or early 50’s). She talks slowly and quietly and says things like, “if patient has belly like mountain…” and, “you have beautiful hair but it messy”. When we come back from lunch we find her curled up asleep in the middle of the room – it’s not surprising seeing as she spends her evenings studying for a degree in Thai medicine.
Yesterday she told us that she used to be a Thai dancer. It took no encouragement for her to be up, curling her hands and fluttering her eyelashes whilst singing a funny little song about the energy lines.
I feel like I’ve been pulled in all directions this week and that’s probably because I have. We watch her expertly massage one of us and she talks us through it. We frantically scribble notes and then have a go on each other. “Na-ah-ah-ah!” Dot attempts to shout across the room “What are you doing to her?!”
We have to commit to memory a sequence for the whole body and we’ll be examined next Friday. It’ll take about two and a half hours to perform the entire thing. It’s going to take a small miracle for me to pull this off.
In the meantime, here’s a clip of Dot performing ‘the pike’ on yours truly.