When you first start as a Thai Massage therapist you most likely have a certain idea of the type of massage sessions you would like to give to your clients and the results you want to achieve with your work. This has much to do with the kind of person you are and with the Thai Massage lineage you’re trained in.
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You might be the type of practitioner who is more into spa and wellness, or perhaps more aligned to the spiritual side of Thai Massage, into energy work, emotional release, or maybe you focus on straightforward, down-to-earth muscle and joints manipulation, stretches, and physical rehabilitation.
Nevertheless, the type of clients you will get often have their own wishes and expectations, some of which may not be easy for you to deal with, simply because you don’t like to work that particular way or even want to offer that particular type of service. Moreover, you may not even have the experience to handle a certain type of demand.
In any case, clients come to you for different reasons. Some simply want you to “fix” their pains. Others want a relaxing spa massage, some clients rather want to talk about their emotional problems, some don’t want a painful massage, again others think that Thai Massage will help them on their spiritual path, some demand a one-hour massage because of their tight schedules and not an “endless” massage “adapted to their needs,” and there are those who are sent by their partner and actually don’t want a massage. Well, you name it.
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Each new client is different. Over time, you learn to recognize the type of client and you will be able to more or less adapt to their expectations. Nevertheless, if you want to keep doing it your way, you will need to be very explicit in the type of Thai Massage you offer.
For instance, at some point I started to tell new clients who wanted to make an appointment very clearly how I see and give Thai Massage: therapeutic work in both the physical and emotional release sphere, it may hurt, I give tough and rigorous massages, no fixed session duration, no spiritual connotations, no oils, no nude, no spa-setting.
Well, that did the job. For me. Clients who wanted or needed something else didn’t come, but on the other hand I also got more and more clients (through word-of-mouth advertising) who specifically wanted the type of massages I gave. In the end, telling my clients honestly what I wanted out of a massage session was very satisfactory for me, and, I think, also for my clients.
