The 📝Thai Bodywork Glossary collects the terms used when 📝Thai Bodywork, also called Thai massage, appears in a Somatic Realignment Therapy session note, defined in plain language for clients.
Glossary
A
- 📝Assisted Stretch — the practitioner moves the receiver's limb or spine into a yoga-like stretch while the receiver stays passive.
C
- 📝Cobra — a lift of the upper body into a gentle back arch while the receiver lies face down, taken only as far as comfortable.
- 📝Compression — rhythmic pressing with palms, thumbs, forearms, elbows, knees, or feet along a line.
F
- 📝Foot Pressing — the practitioner uses the feet to compress broad areas such as the backs of the thighs.
- 📝Forearm Pressing — using the forearm for wide, even pressure over large muscles.
H
- 📝Hip Opener — a positioned stretch that lets the hip rotate outward or inward.
L
- 📝Loose Clothing — worn throughout, since the work uses no oil and moves the body through space.
M
- 📝Mat Work — the whole session happens on a firm floor mat rather than a table.
- 📝Metta — loving-kindness, the intention the practitioner traditionally holds during the work.
N
- 📝Nuad Thai — the Thai name for the tradition, inscribed by UNESCO in 2019.
P
- 📝Palming — pressing with the heel of the palm along a line, the most common stroke.
- 📝Passive Yoga — another name for the assisted stretches, since the receiver is placed in yoga-like shapes without effort.
- 📝Plough — a lying stretch in which the legs are taken up and over toward the head, done only within comfort.
- 📝Positions — the four positions a session moves through: lying on the back, on the side, face down, and seated.
R
- 📝Rhythm — the steady rocking tempo that keeps the receiver from bracing against pressure.
- 📝Rocking — gentle side-to-side movement of the body to settle the nervous system.
S
- 📝Sen Lines — the ten main energy lines of Thai medicine along which pressure is applied, a line-based relative of 📝Acupressure.
- 📝Spinal Twist — a seated or lying rotation of the spine assisted by the practitioner.
- 📝Stretch Threshold — the point of a good opening, not a sharp 📝end range, where every stretch stops.
T
- 📝Thumbing — pressing with the thumbs point by point along a sen line.
- 📝Traction — gentle lengthening of a limb or the spine by a steady, light pull.
W
- 📝Wai Khru — the brief opening acknowledgment of teachers that some practitioners begin with.