30/01/2025
Why Thai massage jam®?
Over the years I've had many friends and colleagues tell me that I should just drop the jam all together. It's too much work it's not something massage therapists really support and frankly it's not giving a huge boost to your practice in terms of clients.
Mostly that's true.
I take all advice with a grain of salt and it's challenging to explain where you are in the midst of life. No one really understands all the nuance the way you do.
The jam for it's first 8 or so years was once a week. I totaled out the number of hours I must have put in at some point but let's just say it was extreme and herculean in scope.
Covid was the only thing that stopped us and even then I moved what we could online.
We're back now and much like a pruned tree the jams are growing and I'm trying to "manage" a new website and hosting events on facebook. We've multiple jams in Austin, one in San Antonio and others threatening to spring up elsewhere. I'm just trying to get to a few last layers so I can work on supporting colleagues in what they need so we can expand.
But why? Why Thai massage jam® to begin with?
The jams do function as a sort of community base of support and in a table based massage culture the jams bring attention to mat based work. In addition, there's so much paperwork, business, contracts, formality and licenses to teaching that if I'm being fair, it starts to take away the joy of what I was teaching to begin with.
All I ever wanted to do was share.
The massage world as an industry is full of credentials, business stuff and students looking for CE credit so it's this regulatory hassle and just not very fun at times. Why can't we just work on each other and share?
The jam worked. It worked for business and I maintained it for various reasons telling people that it was, "my gift to the Austin community." There's something about the jams and the structure that changes how bodywork is perceived and dealt with. I don't believe jams are for everyone but we run a partner massage class for a reason.
All I could see once it was done, once we were all having fun, it felt like we all had a secret. There was great joy in getting kicked out of facilities, banned by businesses who frankly couldn't or didn't care to have my vision. It was like your favorite punk rock band came to town and no one expected what we did.
I took great joy in someone asking me, "hey you run this right?" I'd shrug my shoulders and say, "eh" to looks of confusion. "No but you host this thing correct?" I'd laugh and say, "I'm not sure who runs this anymore" and keep working.
People Wanted structure. I only gave them enough so that the jams could continue. Frankly those Wanting this is the teacher, this is the student, this person is licensed, this person is not..weren't likely going to fare well in our group. It just wasn't the point.
Licensed therapists would lament that, "I just got off of work. I don't want to go to that jam thing and work all night." I'd say, "if the jam is 3 hours and you're tired just come tell everyone you're tired then point at 6 people and say, I want each of you to work on me for 30 minutes. I'm toast, I worked all day."
"Wait what? You mean I don't have to work on people?" Well, if you Never worked on people in trade that'd be a challenge but for a night? Yes. It's a Jam! It's not a class. It's not a trade. It's not formal. It's designed to help you and support you not wear you out.
One of my fondest memories is the amount of angst I'd get into setting up. Every time I went to the jam I had to take out mats, take out blankets, load them in, place them down etc and at the end do the reverse.
One day I saw at least 6 hours of clients then went to a jam that was going to last 5 hours. Yes kids! I know you think 3 is long but we went from like 9pm to 2am at one point. After I loaded everything in I laid down on a mat waiting for folks to show and fell asleep.
I was likely snoring.
I woke up 45 minutes or an hour into the jam and when I woke up I looked around and everyone was working around me. No leader. No boss. The attendees were the event. That massage jam® was where I got to take a nap.
There was great pride in seeing an attendee teach someone else the thing I'd taught them the week prior. :) I always knew if they kept attending they'd get it and be just fine.
If you want to run a Thai massage jam® in your area please reach out to me. I'm working to build clear concise infrastructure to make your hosting experience as easy as possible.
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