3 Powerful Ways That Thai Yoga Massage Can Grow Your Yoga Business

Thai Yoga Massage combines the best of yoga and massage into a heavenly form of bodywork, for both the giver and receiver. This is a heart-centered practice that's shared from a place of presence and loving-kindness (metta).

When you give a Thai Yoga Massage, typically you will put clients into supportive asanas and use a variety of touch techniques to ease tension, promote relaxation, encourage flexibility, and renew vitality. The giver will use all parts of their body when giving, including elbows, forearms, feet, and knees, thereby reducing reliance on hands or thumbs. That helps to make the physical benefits for the giver tangible, while they experience all the deeper benefits of a meditation practice that has amazing abilities to help those you serve. 

That, in and of itself, has a lot of appeal for many yoga teachers who are looking for ways to expand their repertoire and build deeper relationships with their students. In my career, I’ve taught thousands of teachers who have seen their careers take a huge leap forward when they add Thai Yoga Massage to their knowledge base.

Here are three of the ways in which Thai Yoga Massage helps you to grow your business.

A New Way to Work with Private Clients

In one four-day course, you can learn how to give a complete 90-minute massage that addresses shoulders, back, head, neck, legs, feet, and abdomen. It’s a massage that produces feedback from clients such as, “You helped get rid of tension I didn’t even know I had” and “I feel two inches taller” and “I haven’t felt this good in years.”

The massage becomes a powerful new offering to help build your private clientele, charge a premium for, and then have more ways to work with them. What’s more, as a yoga teacher, you have an eager audience from which to build that clientele.

Increased Confidence for Giving Adjustments in Class

The majority of yoga teachers who come to learn Thai Yoga Massage typically cite this as the primary reason they were attracted to learning this modality. Many teachers report a lack of confidence when it comes to knowing how to adjust their students safely, so they simply stop doing it out of fear of injuring their students. And they know that this affects the quality of their teaching.

In a Thai Yoga Massage, you are constantly putting your clients into stretches and learning the secrets of how to customize the form. You can work with the very stiff to the very flexible, and everyone in between.

That skill then becomes easily transferrable into the classroom, giving teachers the confidence to help their students in a whole new way. That supports a strong relationship with students as you are able to take them to a whole new level on the mat.

What’s more, by giving those great hands-on adjustments, as well as incorporating some aspects of Thai Massage into your yoga classes—such as a head or foot massage in Savasana—you can plant those potent seeds for future one-on-one sessions.

New Course Offerings on Thai Massage and Restorative Yoga

Thai Yoga Massage is not just for one-on-one sessions. From coast to coast, I have seen teachers and yoga studios offering restorative or yin classes combined with Thai Yoga Massage. They often become the most popular classes offered at the studios, with waiting lists of students. What’s more, because it is a specialized offering, studios can charge more, teachers make more, and students are happy to pay for this rejuvenating and relaxing experience that also costs less than a one-on-one session. Call it a win-win-win!

What’s more, the focus on metta can radically transform how you teach yoga and pay attention in life.

Think of this as the added bonus of learning Thai Yoga Massage: cultivating a metta-filled practice that brings the benefits of meditation and kindness into every cell of your body. That kind of energy will be noticed by you and by your students. Students experience you as even more present and filled with love, care, and appreciation for what they do and the ways they help. It makes you even more attractive as a teacher, and more able to share that which you love most.

Train in Thai Yoga Massage and Couples Thai Yoga Massage with Shai Plonski at Kripalu.