CURRICULUM
Here are the assortment of classes offered.
Drop in to one weekend or spend years with us!
Introduction to Thai Massage
In this foundational workshop, students will learn a comprehensive 90-minute Thai Massage sequence practiced on a floor mat. Students will explore how to use their hands, elbows, knees, forearms, and feet while developing proper body mechanics and learning to work efficiently with their own body weight rather than muscular force. The recipient remains comfortably clothed and relaxed as the practitioner guides them through a flowing sequence of assisted yoga-like stretches, rhythmic compressions, and mindful touch along the body's major energy lines and pressure points.
Emphasis is placed on cultivating fluid movement, body awareness, and a balanced approach to touch, allowing practitioners to offer a deeply relaxing and therapeutic experience while minimizing physical strain on their own bodies.
Expanding Your Vocabulary – The INKING Analogy
This workshop is designed for students who have completed Thai Massage 1, although students with some prior experience may also begin at this level.
We will thoroughly review the Thai 1 material, strengthening our understanding of the foundational sequences while expanding our vocabulary with new techniques and movements.
Through mindful repetition and deeper exploration of body mechanics, touch, and energetic awareness, students will refine their skills and develop a more intuitive approach to the healing process.
Our intention is to move beyond simply learning the form and begin cultivating a more subtle level of awareness, presence, and sensitivity within the art of Thai Massage.
Advanced Postures – The Collage Analogy
Let's explore the amazing Seated Sequence together! Thai Massage is incomplete without the art of working in the seated position. In this workshop, students will learn the beautiful Lotus Palm tradition of seated Thai Massage, expanding their repertoire with creative transitions, advanced postures, and dynamic stretching techniques.
We will explore specialized techniques to support digestion, playful transitions and flips, and deeper backbends designed for more flexible clients. These advanced movements bring a new dimension of creativity, fluidity, and versatility to your Thai Massage practice.All levels are welcome! Don't be intimidated by the advanced techniques. Ariela offers modifications to accommodate different levels of experience, making this an accessible, inspiring, and fun weekend of learning.
Energy Lines & Ayurvedic Applications
In this workshop, we will explore the energetic foundations of Thai Massage, drawing upon the ancient healing traditions of India's Ayurveda and the meridian principles of Chinese medicine.Central to this practice is an awareness of the Sen energy lines, the subtle pathways through which energy is traditionally understood to flow. Through mindful touch, rhythmic pressure, and intentional movement, we cultivate a deeper sensitivity to these pathways and learn techniques intended to encourage balance and harmony throughout the body.Influential teachers such as Asokananda and Kam Thye Chow have helped bring this ancient wisdom into modern Thai Massage education, preserving and interpreting traditional teachings for contemporary practitioners.As we deepen our skills, we move beyond the physical techniques and begin to explore the more subtle qualities of touch, presence, and energetic awareness. In honoring the Thai Massage lineage, we also cultivate our own intuitive understanding of the body's interconnected pathways.
Throughout this workshop, students will learn a specific sequence for each of the major Sen lines, exploring their traditional significance and experiencing how working with each line brings a unique quality, rhythm, and depth to the massage.
This is an opportunity to refine not only what we do with our hands, but also how we listen, feel, and connect through the art of Thai Massage.
Thai Massage on the Table
Love Thai Massage but prefer working on a table? Have clients who may not feel comfortable getting down onto a floor mat? This workshop opens up a whole new world of possibilities!Thai Yoga Massage on the Table allows you to bring the beauty and therapeutic benefits of traditional Thai Massage into a familiar and accessible setting while supporting healthy body mechanics and reducing physical strain on the practitioner. Performed on a low massage table with the recipient fully clothed, this approach makes Thai Massage accessible to a wider range of clients, including athletes, older adults, individuals with limited mobility, and those who simply prefer receiving massage on a table.Students will learn how to adapt traditional Thai Massage techniques, including assisted yoga-like stretches, rhythmic compressions, mindful touch, and energy line work, into a flowing and effective table-based sequence.
Expand your skills, reach a broader clientele, and discover how beautifully Thai Massage can be integrated into your existing practice. Edit paste
Ayurveda and Thai Massage
One day, a student asked me, “Is Thai Massage simply a series of memorized sequences?” The question touched me deeply, just as I imagine it once touched my own teacher. Of course, sequences provide the foundation for our practice, but the true art of Thai Massage begins when we move beyond memorization and develop the ability to work intuitively, guided by awareness, sensitivity, and an understanding of the elemental body.This is where the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda comes alive.
In this workshop, we will explore the movement of the winds within the body, their relationship to our emotions, and how the five elements influence our physical and energetic constitution. We will learn to recognize different constitutional patterns and thoughtfully choose postures, stretches, and techniques that encourage balance and harmony. Most importantly, we will explore how to recognize and experience these elements within our own bodies, cultivating the sensitivity and wisdom needed to truly listen through our hands.
This is where we breathe life into the sequence. Where technique becomes intuition, movement becomes meditation, and Thai Massage evolves from something we do into something we deeply feel.
Hatha Yoga with Thai Massage Assists
In this inspiring weekend workshop, we will explore the classical Hatha Yoga sequence as taught to Ariela through the Sivananda School of Yoga in South India, blending this traditional practice with her many years of experience as a Thai Massage teacher.
Each asana will first be explored through personal practice, allowing students to experience the essence of the posture within their own bodies. We will then discover how to incorporate Thai Massage techniques, assisted stretching, and mindful touch to deepen each posture, open the body's energy lines, and cultivate greater awareness and ease.
Through this beautiful combination of yoga and Thai Massage, we will learn how to support one another in finding greater flexibility, balance, and connection while honoring each individual's unique abilities and limitations.
This weekend is dedicated to the art of self-care and the joy of sharing it with others. By experiencing the practice ourselves, we develop the sensitivity, compassion, and understanding needed to guide others with confidence and wisdom.
Thai Foot Reflexology
Discover the healing art of Thai Foot Reflexology in this wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating weekend workshop.Students will learn to offer a complete 60-minute foot massage sequence, exploring how focused attention on the feet can influence the entire body through the traditional stimulation of Sen energy lines and Marma points.We will explore both dry and oil-based massage techniques, incorporating the traditional Thai wooden foot stick to glide along energy lines and apply precise pressure to specific points with greater accuracy and depth.Rooted in the traditional teachings of Thai Massage and inspired by the lineage of Shivaga Komarpaj, as practiced through the Chiang Mai tradition, this beautiful approach combines rhythmic touch, mindful pressure, and flowing movements to encourage relaxation, balance, and a sense of well-being.Open to everyone, regardless of experience! This workshop is as much about receiving as it is about learning. Students will spend two luxurious days practicing, exchanging, and experiencing the profound pleasure of Thai Foot Reflexology.
Double Practitioner Thai Massage
Four handed/footed -Double Practitioner Thai Massage is founded on the same principles as Traditional Thai, but it is inspired by its Ayurvedic cousin, Abhyangha Massage, which is performed by two partitioners. It has been my experience, that when receiving Thai Massage by two practitioners at the same time there is a sense of losing control and total surrender.
In this class we will learn a sequence that was developed by Ariela. It holds the foundation of the classic sequence but is synchronized to function with duality.
Exploring Earth and Wind- An Intuative Approach
Thai Massage is an observation of the elemental body and an attempt to bring balance to the properties witnessed. In this unique class we explore the 4 directions throughout the body while offering simple stretching. We can then intuit or ask which of the directional movements would be of most benefit. This is the exploration of the Wind element. Within this presence we notice and are curious. The act of curiosity and love brings intuition. We hold space and watch.:
Advanced Side line Sequence
Join us for a weekend of Sideline Postures that was taught to Ariela by Laurino Bertelli from the Sunshine Network in Chang Mai, Thailand.
In this weekend you will be able to work more effectively on pregnant clients as well as athletes.
This modified sequence wil give us many more options to address classic Hip and Shoulder Pain in this orthodox Sideline Position and it is a dynamic style that will bring more diversity, beauty and curiosity to your work.
Thai Folk Medecine Program
The Folk Medicine program has seven classes - here are the course descriptions for the program. If there is room drop ins are welcome, other wise space is limited to those committed to the entire program.
Making Bundles, Marma Points & Gua-Sha
This is the first weekend of our seven month master training. In this first weekend we will get to know each other and talk about some of our goals as advanced therapists. We will also spend the day studying the use of plant medicine, creating an herbal compress, and understand how to give a specific pampering and Vata and reducing session. ( Vata means to much wind ).Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
What makes this class and advanced class is we will take time to learn the Marma points of Ayurveda and Review for energy lines needed to create a multi dimensional treatment.
This is the first class of seven. We will spend quality time sharing food and song and getting to know each other.
* Ask Ariela what Materials are needed for this class.
Thai Massage for Headache and for Neck Pain
The Headache and Neck pain class was developed by Ariela with the attempt to share a very specific Thai-Massage treatment plan. The way she put these sequences together was by studying the marma points of Ayurveda. She learned which marma points are relative to headache and also applied the Ayurvedic understanding of the winds. (for example if one has a headache due to too much expansion of one's energy Thai-Massage will bring the movements inward and if someone has a headache due to lack of movement lack and lack of outward energy then the Thai-Massage sequence will help with expansion and postures will help increase energy )
* in this class we will learn to make a sandalwood pest to help alleviate headache.
Thai Massage for Digestion
In this class we will learn different treatments to help heal stomach pain. We will learn the, use of MOXA ( Mugwort ) and drink herbal teas! ( Mint, catnip, fennel, Anise ) ariela will also introduce how to use fire cupping which can tone and balance belly pain,
We as massage therapists can offer a wonderful treatment plan that allows the digestive track to relax and realign and become more balanced. We will also discuss some lifestyle changes that may have triggered an excess of heat or a deficiency of heat in one's digestive fire. In India there is a belief that one must keep the Agni in check. Agni is our digestive fire
* we will learn to use fire cupping as an aid for digestive disorders..
Thai Massage for Hip Pain and Sciatica
n this class we will learn various reasons why we have hip and leg pain and how to offer a Thai Massage session specializing in these areas including Sciatica.
We will learn to determine the reasons for various hip pain by beginning by assessment of the imbalances that may occur in the left and right side of the body and we will try to muscularly bring some balance with subtle stretching and massage.
We will also learn the major marma points or acupressure points on the body relative to specific hip pain. The goal of our weekend workshop will be to help determine the root cause of why the hip is hurting and to choose accordingly. Thai Massage postures, marma point therapy and quality of touch can help us as practitioners bring relief to someone suffering with hip pain and even Sciatica
*Moxa and Fire cupping will be applied
Thai Massage for Shoulder & Neck Pain
And this weekend workshop we will learn to understand the various reasons of why shoulder pain may present itself. By learning the individual acupressure points and by understanding the cause of the injury we can pick particular time massage moves that will help bring balance to the injury from the more severe icase to simple hypertonicity. We will learn to give an extensive session depending on the clients individual needs.
There are various tools that may be implemented in our session such as a Guasha tool, a bread roller, the use of cupping and the use of heat and cold. We will learn how to incorporate some tools to maximize our session.
* they use of a bread roller and a Gua sha tool will be applied
Thai Massage for Pregnancy and Postpartum
We will learn to understand how to massage a pregnant mother differently depending on which stage of pregnancy she is in. We will learn the contraindications and how to perform a safe Thai-Massage to support a woman in this amazing chapter of her life.
We will explore the use of good propping of pillows for the sideline position and we will even learn how to utilize a back jack to prop up a mother in a supine posture so that we can work on her legs neck and face while she is comfortable and supported by pillows which allows for her to be safe and not put too much pressure on the kidney area.
* students will review how to make an herbal compress on their own to bring to class for this treatment plan.
And this weekend workshop we will focus on pain in the knee. Pain in the knee can have a debilitating affect and as long as it's not severe arthritis, massage therapy can help ease pain and even bring forth full recovery.
The mama points of Ayurveda are the base of all of Ariela's protocol classes. We will learn the major Marma points that are relative to knee pain. We will also learn the energy lines that go through the knees and learn to really feel and assess where there might be an imbalance. An awareness of the winds may help us figure out the root cause of the knee pain and with that awareness we can choose particular Thai Massage moves to bring balance.
Join us this weekend for a self-care journey and an educational experience in the wellness of treating knee pain.
Sunday we will learn how to give a basti Eye treatment as a special graduation gift to see the world with clean eyes and an open heart!!
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