Yoga Massage is a general term for massage and bodywork modalities that apply both Yoga and massage techniques in their treatment sessions. It’s an ancient practice, but in the past two decades it has seen a strong revival in the form of a broad range of new or updated treatment modalities.
Typically, the Yogic part of a treatment will consist of breathing and relaxation exercises, assisted Asanas and assisted stretches. The massage part of a session will rather focus on enhancing Asanas and stretches through softening of muscles and/or manipulating acupressure and reflex points for specific health benefits.
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Yoga and massage techniques can be applied one after the other, that is, first doing a Yoga session and then a massage session or vice versa, techniques can be combined i.e. done simultaneously, or they can be alternated during a session.
However, if you would type in the “Yoga” and “massage” keywords in an Internet search engine you’ll see that the majority of search results relate to Thai Yoga Massage, that is, Traditional Thai Massage.
In fact, Yoga Massage is very much associated with Thai Yoga Massage, being perhaps the foremost modality that integrates Yoga and massage techniques, and both labels are rather often used as synonyms.
Nonetheless, there are quite some modalities that are not related to Thai Massage, but also combine Yoga postures and massage techniques. Some examples of those are Ayurveda Yoga Massage, Acu-Yoga, Yogassage, Acrosage, Massoga, among many other treatment modalities.
