May 9, 2025 • 61 mins
Len Liang is a distinguished Thai massage practitioner based in Canada. With a background in hospitality and music, Len transitioned into the world of massage therapy around three years ago, studying with the ITM (International Training Massage) school and quickly establishing himself as a prominent figure in the field. His journey includes competing in various international massage competitions, where he has been recognized for his innovative approach and dedication to the craft. Len brings a unique blend of creativity and tradition to his practice, emphasizing the importance of vibrations and energy in therapeutic settings.
Follow Len here: https://www.instagram.com/waikru.massage/
Key Takeaways:
- Diverse Influence: Len Liang's transition from hospitality and music into massage therapy illustrates a multidisciplinary approach, enriching his current practice.
- International Competition Role: Engaging in global massage competitions fosters community and innovation within the therapeutic field, allowing practitioners to learn and grow beyond borders.
- Cultural Interpretations: Thai massage adapts uniquely across different cultures, integrating local customs and practices, as highlighted by Len's experiences in Japan and Thailand.
- Energy and Creativity in Massage: Len emphasizes the vital role of energy, vibrations, and creativity in massage therapy, encouraging adaptability and personalization in practice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:33):
Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast,so happy you are here. My goal
with this channel is to bringinspirational speakers to the
mic in the field of yoga,massage, body work and beyond.
Follow us at @nativeyoga andcheck us out at
nativeyogacenter.com. All right,let's begin.
(01:05):
Hello. Welcome to Native YogaToddcast. If you're first time
listener, I'm so happy you'rehere. And for those of you that
are regular supporters, yay.
Thank you very much. Today'sspecial guest, Len Liang, and
follow him on Instagram at@waikru.massage. He is a Thai
massage therapist from Canada,and I learned so much talking to
(01:26):
Len. So get ready. What more canI say? Why give you a huge intro
when you're gonna hear it? Allright? Now, all right, let's
begin. I'm so excited to haveLen Liang, here with me today.
Yeah, man, thank you so much. Iappreciate you joining me. I
(01:46):
found you via the world ofmassage therapy, and you are a
fellow Thai massage therapist,so I'm really excited to meet
other therapists and have achance to pick your brain a
little bit and find out how yougot excited about it, and what
sort of turns and twists you'vegone down to get to the point
you are now. On that note, canyou tell me a little bit about
(02:09):
how your how your day is goingso far, and what you got up to
last night?
Oh, man, oh, you're gonna bringthat up, man, possibly
miscommunication, but I wasn'tprepared for today, today last
night. I was at one of the firstof two Metallica concerts last
night, and I think that ispretty cool to talk about, even
(02:31):
because the juxtaposition of whowe are as therapists,
practitioners outside for thepeople, and who we are as
individuals, and the fact thatwe all have personal lives and
personal identities, and itcould be a complete 180 turn of
what people might think we are.
So yeah, Metallica, that'sso true. I mean, do you find
(02:52):
that's that's interesting, that,as a say, someone that's coming
to you for a time massagesession, and maybe in their
mind. They're thinking, Oh, hemust listen to Zen spa music.
And then you go, where'd you golast night? Metallica, yeah, and
people believemy hair is in a bun when I'm
working with people, so theylook at me like a hippie last
night. This was all out.
(03:16):
So, yeah, man, well, I've never,I've never seen him live before,
but I would imagine. So can youexplain a little bit then what
kind of feeling you get from it,and how you could relate that to
the energetic world of what youexperience as a body worker?
Absolutely, you know, I think asas hippie as I might seem to
(03:38):
some people, I don't like Ithink I'm a beautiful hippie,
but not like over the tophippie, whatever that means in
everybody's heads. But then Iplayed music since I was three
years old, and somewhere in theback of my head, I understand
that vibrations matter now, howanybody chooses to define
(04:03):
vibrations or energy or healingor any of that stuff. You know,
you go to a concert of like, youknow, heavy metal or thrash
metal, or however you want tocall it, because there was
Pantera as well. Oh my gosh. Youknow, there is a vibration, and
that's not just from theinstruments, it's from the
energy of the crowd, the peoplearound you, and how that kind of
(04:27):
relates to who we are in thework setting, or what people
like to say in the in thehealing community. You know,
it's it's a form of release fora lot of people. We We are the
musician, we are helping ourclients find that release
through Trust, which is the samething at a concert and
(04:48):
relaxation. So in a concert, thetrust, I wasn't in it, so don't
I would have loved to, but themosh pit, for instance, right?
Yeah, yeah. Anybody has. Avisual of what a mosh pit is,
just everybody slamming intoeach other, kind of going round
and round in a circle. Butsometimes there's punches and
kick. It kicks and it's notintentional, and the community
(05:12):
trusts itself not to purposelyinjure each other. So same with
us in our modalities that we dofor a massage, people have to
trust us, and they have to letthat emotion release could be
physical, could be mental, couldbe spiritual. How we choose to
(05:33):
find that release for that onemoment in time is how I would
completely relate it, and it hasto do with vibrations and
energy that is so cool. Lynn,what a great outlook. I mean, I
guess you're right from abodywork session and even, like
a Thai massage, I've never, Ithoroughly enjoy mosh pits,
although I don't go in thereanymore, unless it's like, like,
(05:55):
what you said, where I feel likethe energy is not one of like,
you know, real death anddestruction more, just like you
said, that kind of harmony. ButI've never thought of a Thai
massage as like a mosh pit. Butyou're right. And then
sometimes, when I look at like,say, jiu jitsu grappling and the
(06:16):
artistry of the body movementcoordination, to be able to kind
of flip and pull and moving awaylike that. Sometimes I've seen
that correlation in relation toa massage session, even though
obviously they're verydifferent. But yeah, it's cool,
cool to think of it like that,and the way that two people are
interacting and the energy.
(06:36):
It's interesting because lastnight, I bought a last minute
ticket, so I went alone, and itwas the people beside me that
were talking to me, and theywere all alone as well. And so
again, that that this is whatwe're doing right now, is like
that whole community buildingthat, you know, the guy beside
me, he said, Oh, you know, youprobably came alone. You just
don't want to talk to anybody.
You just want to listen to theconcert. I said, Well, no, I
(06:58):
mean, we are here together,sharing the same experience.
When it comes to like, Okay,let's get away from heavy metal
here right now. But when itcomes to massage, that the
combination of peoples, and it'snot always perfect combination
of people, ideals, soul,spirits, energy, everything, I
mean, it all comes together. Andyou know, it's how we are open
(07:22):
to each other in that moment, inthat time, that really does the
healingGreat point. So if you started
playing music when you werethree, what was the trajectory
to then, at some point, land inthe world of bodywork and
healing,I think, and we'll lead into
this as well. When I wasyounger, I used to do a lot of
(07:44):
competitions for music. And oneof the things my mother, she's
90, by the way, just turned 91.
Of the things my mother alwaystold me was that I always went
to these competitions saying,Oh, what am I going to bring
home today, which is absolutelyinsane, through the other kind
(08:05):
of works that I did, through theother kind of competition that
I've done, we can talk aboutthat afterwards as well. It was
mainly hospitality for 20 years.
So I've been working inrestaurants, corporate mom and
pop shops, helping find dining,restaurants, clubs, nightclub,
General, managing all that stuffand the that experience, and
everything that I was,everything else that I've done
(08:28):
in my life, kind of led me toit. It was always helping
people. And Thai massage came tome because one of my clients,
when I was working in a cheeseshop again, a whole other world,
she ended up doing this to tohelp her sister who was having
(08:49):
cancer, and she wanted to giveher sister relief. So she ended
up leaving her industry,whatever it may be, I'm not
going to go into those details,and finding herself pretty much
in Thailand, and I think youare, ITM as well, yes. So she
ended up being in thatcommunity, finishing her
teacher's certification, andcoming back to Toronto and
(09:11):
opening up her spa, which is thewhere I work right now. Wow. But
she told me, ever since, I thinkit was like 20, oh, my god, 2010
2011 Yeah. She always said to meat the cheese shops, like, you
need to do this. This is you.
And I've already promised myselfto stay within the hospitality
industry for a while, to have afriend. But when lockdown came
(09:34):
about, when the whole world kindof just stopped, a little bit
paused, didn't stop. When wepaused, that's when I just said,
You know what, let's give this atry. And I started, and, you
know, haven't really looked backright now. So it's been five
years.
That's incredible. Did you endup getting licensed or certified
in Canada as a massagetherapist?
(09:56):
Yeah. So it's a little bit weirdhere in Ontario. I don't know
if.
(15:00):
And I seem to have this thislook to me before the
competition starts, and it'sreally pure just focus and being
there in the moment and notreally paying attention to
anything else. I didn't finishwatching the interview with
Jeppe, so I don't really knowwhat he talked about, but in the
(15:22):
competition and just evenclinical everyday practitioner
life, we are supposed to connectwith our client and the person
who's receiving and nothing elseshould really be affecting us or
disturbing us. And in acompetition sake, that is pretty
much what you have to do. So,you know, my focus was already
(15:43):
on my client. My focus was justmeditation just before we
started. But there's always,even today, there's always a
sense of, for lack of a betterwords, like nervousness. But
it's not nerves, it's I uh, it'snerves if you are trying to do a
(16:06):
program that you've rehearsed,if it's not something that you
rehearsed, and you go with theflow, or even if you've
rehearsed some things, but youstill go with the flow of the
body that you're working on,because you might not know who
it is that is that opening upmoment to your client and
(16:27):
letting your client feel youryour honesty and your truth,
right. And then it starts fromthere, so nervous, not really
nervous, I like also be in themoment that's great
insight. Do how do you answerfolks that when you bring this
concept up about, hey, guesswhat? Guys, I'm flying over to
(16:51):
Japan to the world massagechampionship. And people, you
know, when I first heard aboutit, my head did a 360 because I
was kind of like, I was like,what? And, um, so how do what
is? What is the way that you tryto cross that bridge with folks,
to get them to understand thebenefits of putting yourself
(17:11):
into that environment wheremaybe a lot of people would say,
how can you possibly compete andjudge a massage? You know, I'm
just curious what your how you,how you go about explaining,
yeah,from a from a competitor point
of view, traveling all over theworld to compete, people think I
have a lot of money. My God, Ido not. When you travel to do
(17:33):
can get very expensive, yeah,depending on the country that
you're going to. Airfare,accommodations, food is taxing
on the body, potentially,because of jet lag is taxing on
the mind, because maybe it's anew city you've never been to,
usually it is, and you have totry to figure out how to get
from point A to point B and backand back and back, like it's
(17:56):
there's a lot of things that gointo it. Accommodations, just
huge. I'm actually planning thisEuropean part of this year right
now, and it's, it's gotten meballistic right now. But there
are a lot of people, I wouldsay, the majority of therapists
and practitioners. They don'tbelieve that a competition is
(18:17):
the right way to go. Iunderstand. I'm a Virgo. I
understand all points of view,but I think one of the things
that Jeppe probably would havetalked about was the building of
community, and I do firmlybelieve that there are multiple
(18:37):
organizations out there that aredoing competitions and for
whatever the purpose is, intheir mind, it is true, it is
building community of people. Itis an opportunity to meet
others. If you travel around theworld, you can meet people from
all over the world. You get tosee the different styles in
different country. But also youget to learn. And I think
(19:00):
learning is probably the biggestthing, you know, man, if so I
competed in Thailand, yeah. And,you know, Canadian mentality of
what Thai massage is likecompared to Thailand, Thai
competition mindset is, like, islike, it's a world of a
(19:22):
difference,wow. Can you explain that a
little bit? Can you explain thedifferences? Yeah. Uh, okay.
Well, let's talk about Japan.
Because Japan, I think, is oneof the biggest outside of, I
feel outside of, outside ofThailand. Thai massage is
probably the biggest craze inJapan, and in their companies,
they have over 3000 people.
(19:43):
What we will competing? Yeah,3000 contestants
first round. Like, it's it'sridiculous. They have to get a
stadium to do this. 3000people sign up to compete in
Japan.
Whoa, finals. How do you even.
Get to, oh my god, it's insane.
Well, where did, how far in didyou make that one? Hold on. All
(20:05):
right,mine was the World Final. So it
was the champions of eachcountry that came together.
So I understand, I understand,yeah, but in the open
competitions,like everybody wants to do it,
wow,it's mind boggling. Like the
whole world out there that Idon't even need I do want to go
actually, after talking to hepe,I was like, Man, I want to get
involved. He's like, Well, yougot one in Las Vegas coming up
(20:27):
in June, just and he's like,Yeah, we're
talking about that too. Yeah,that's pretty cool. But so in
Japan, you know, you think aboutThai massage, which you which
you've learned in Thailand, andwhich you have brought to the
US. And who knows what yourstyle is like. I don't know your
personal style, but your cultureand the people, the way you
(20:49):
interact with your client, willdetermine how that blends into
American style. In Japan, youbring Thai massage to Japanese
culture, and they're, you know,in religion as well. We're not
going to go too much intoreligion, but they have a
similar religion and thoughtprocess where, you know the
(21:09):
gracefulness of Japanese peopleand the flow of Japanese people,
you know the politeness of it,like it's all embedded into
their style of Thai massage, theway I feel. Yeah. And when you
come to North America, it'sdifferent. Yeah, you go to
Switzerland was different. Evenwithin Thailand was different. I
(21:29):
think, well, let's say I don'tknow what the mentality of what
Thai massage was like back whenyou first started, but you have
a lot of tourists and peoplegoing on YouTube, and they have
videos of these smaller womenjust bending people in different
into pretzels and offering thatas much pain as possible.
That's, I don't know if that'syour style. Maybe I don't know.
(21:51):
I'm notgonna I know. I've had to tailor
it big time. And after comingback from Thailand, I realized,
whoa, I gotta really getcreative here with the way that
I'll translate it into this,what, what people expect here
and can handle for sure. Andso there's even here in North
America, like there's people whobelieve in thy massage must be
painful for it to be effective.
(22:14):
And that's, I mean, good pain isgood pain. Bad pain is not good
pain. So, you know, let's, let'stry to, this is why I only do
Thai massage. Let's try to bringit back to what the purpose of
Thai massage is. And, you know,I try to kind of represent it as
the best that I can in thatrespect as well, yes, but yeah,
(22:36):
the different, the differentstyles, like even, well, I can't
speak of Denmark, because thatwas the world finals as well. So
you have people from all overthe world, but yeah, there's,
you know, competition sake.
Let's just say the Americans,you guys are all in competition
mode. It is like full blown,like, train, train, train, win,
(22:58):
win, win. And it's unbelievablethe kind of things that could
come with that mentality, likecreativity, just it's crazy.
What about the downsides,though, from your perspective,
and we can handle it. I want tohear that, because I feel like I
learned from seeing hearing fromoutside perspective. What? Okay,
(23:21):
cool, creativity might be great.
What are you seeing is like,maybe the say downside, because
there's alwaysno you can say downside, all
right, and I'll explain it asthis. It has to do with
expectations. As a competitor,when you go you know, are you
expecting to win? Are youexpecting to meet people? Are
you expecting to learn? Are youexpecting like, yeah, what is
(23:44):
your purpose of going to acompetition? Yeah, if you go
with a if you go to acompetition without the mindset
of, I would like to win atleast, then are you really
trying hard enough, or just kindof fluffing around, just being
in the atmosphere, which isfine. Are you going with the
mentality that you must win andif you don't win, then what? How
(24:05):
does your mind comprehend thatas well? Right? We can speak of
the egocentric style. We canspeak of a spiritual style. We
can speak of so many differentthings. So I think that one word
is expectation, and that reallyis defined by yourself, the the
competitor themselves, not byanything else.
(24:27):
Excellent answer. Great. Greatanswer. I love that insight.
Well, can you talk a little bitmore? Though, I've never been to
Japan. I really want to go. Ihear it's absolutely amazing.
Can you tell me a little bitabout, a little more about your
Japanese experience? TheJapanese experience was, well,
(24:47):
I've been to Japan twice, andJapan as a country, the people,
the food, everything, excellent.
There's nothing bad I couldpossibly say about that. Yeah,
the beauty of there was onecompetition there that was
Japanese only, and it was meantto be Japanese style. So only
(25:10):
Japanese kind of competed inthat one. And there was one when
I was watching everybody performand do their thing. There was
one girl that I went back toafterwards, and through Google
Translate, I told her that herflow was beautiful. Her flow
(25:32):
reminded me of a blossom fallingoff of a tree down to the
ground, resting on the ground.
Wow. And like it was, it wasbeautiful. And she didn't win
anything, but I've kept in touchwith her, and hopefully I, what
I said, made an impression onher, because she did win
(25:55):
subsequent years, and she'sdoing really well for herself
right now. So, yeah, it's, it'sbeautiful. So the kind of flow,
and the kind of, again, lack ofbetter word costume, or the way
they dress, you know, they werewearing their kimono, kimonos.
They were wearing a whole bunchof stuff that was cultural to
Japan, and applying Thai massageto that, and applying Japanese
(26:18):
culture to Thai massage. It wasgraceful, it was beautiful, it
was elegant, it was respectful,it was precise. Like, that's the
Japanese mindset. There's noroom for error, right? And then
some people want, needed to do alittle bit more kind of fancier
stuff, so they bring tools, andit was more of a dance for them
(26:39):
more of a real performance, notnecessarily my style, but it was
still beautiful in that regard.
So that's, that's the Japaneseway, man, they like a lot of
stretching as well. So amazing,amazing, beautiful. And it's
huge in in in Japan, like inrelation to, how does Thai
massage and shiatsu compare inrelation? No,
(27:05):
yeah, I can't tell you, becauseI've never studied shiatsu. Many
people say that? Well, I won'tsay many, because you're going
to ask, who's the many peopleyou and I are, like, very few
that are, like, geeking, geekingout on, like, all the details
of, well,it's precision, right? It's, I
definitely don't want tomisrepresent what either are, of
course, but I have heard that itis very similar, but you know
(27:30):
it, right? Same, same, butdifferent. Like it? Yes, yes,
yes. So even when you speakabout, like Chinese medicine and
stuff. I have a student of minethat does that, have two
students minded to do it, andthey were saying that it's very
similar. And you know, it has tobe, because we're all it doesn't
(27:51):
have to be, but we're all Asian,right? I'm Asian, if you didn't
know. And yeah, there's, there'sinfluence from all over the
place, all of Asia. And if youwere to say that Thai massage is
the culmination of all of those,like acupressure, stretching,
you know, all that massage like,then, yeah, maybe Thailand is
where I can say the best. Ican't, I can't say that, where I
(28:15):
find the most influence. Nice,yeah. Well said. So then you
were able to take part in Thaimassage competition in Thailand.
How nerve wracking is that? Thatwas one of my most proudest
moments, one of probably my mostnervous moments as well for
(28:37):
competition, because for me ason the competitor side of my of
my brain, how wonderful would itbe to reach the podium as a
foreigner in Thai massage inThailand against Thai people?
And I was happy enough for thetraditional Thai category, I
(29:00):
got, I got third place. Wow, ohmy god.
How many people signed up forthat? How many people at their
preliminaries?
Okay, so I'll, I'll say thismuch as well. In my category, I
think there were maybe aboutlike nine or 10 people somewhere
around there, cool. But majorityof everybody in my category,
(29:24):
who, who competed, competed insix categories, like you guys
are nuts, like they didn't haveany breaks. One competition,
finish. Change, reset, up,compete. Change, reset, compete
six times, back to back to backto back to back. I think these
guys are crazy. I only did twocompetitions, two categories
(29:46):
rather. The other one I did wasAsian freestyle or Eastern
freestyle. And so man like Iwonder though, if they would
have just focused and honed inon maybe even. Three, maybe I
would be off the podium. Butthis is all subjective as well,
(30:06):
right? Because the judges So,yeah, yeah, how do
you I hear you, what, uh, interms of judging, have you ever
do you? I mean, hip isincredible. I mean, he, you can
just tell, yeah,he's a character, too, and
so to come up with this, andthen to design the judging
(30:29):
criteria. And did any of theseThai massage competitions in
Thailand happen before he pickgot this started? Wasn't he kind
of like the Pioneer here, or isthere somebody before him that
was getting this going, and thenhe
I, man, I feel like I'm steppingon broken glass when I talk
about we should be careful.
Yeah, yeah. Quite honestly,because there are multiple
(30:50):
organizations out there, okay,and I don't know who started it
all. I don't know how longeither they've been in planning
or preparation, but there are somany out there that, you know, I
think going to Denmark would bethe eighth year right for the
IMA. The one in, the one that Itook part in in Shangri was with
(31:13):
the universal massagechampionship, and they're under
the umbrella of the worldmassage Federation. I think
they're based in Greece. Andthen there are, you know, the
world, world massageAssociation, so the World
Association of NOAA Titan spa,based in Switzerland. And
there's, like, there's based inJapan, there's based in Canada,
(31:36):
there's in the US. You know,you're the AMC, the American
Massage championship, and youguys do state championships. So
like, how long has that beengoing on for? Like, I don't even
know the history behind that,because I know the massage
festival has been going on for avery long time. So, you know, I
think the beauty of thecompetitions in the organizers
(32:00):
is refining what the judges arelooking at, rather than just
saying, Does this appeal to you?
Does that appeal to you? Who doyou think is better? You know,
categorizing what they are tojudge upon makes it a lot more
clinical, clinical, that's notthe right word, but more
(32:22):
focused, yeah, into who kind of,quote, unquote, deserves to win
and who doesn't? But yeah, Ithink judges have a tough
choice. Man. Judges have theygot a it's a tough job. I
describe it to people likeballroom dancing competitions or
even figure skating ballroomdancing, because in couples
(32:44):
ballroom dancing, they're allcompeting at the same time.
They're all dancing on the samefloor, so the judges have to
just watch, but you can't, ifyou're worth if you're watching
someone on this end, you can'tsee the other person on that
end. It's the same with massage.
So where we are static and thejudges are walking around. You
know, how are they going tocatch your whole performance, or
your whole demonstration? Theycan't. It's impossible. So, you
(33:06):
know, it's a tough job. It's ait's a really tough job.
I was under the impression thatsome of the judging is actually
the receiver, the they go on thereceiving end. Is that true, or
am I wrong? It's more judgein Japan, in the world finals,
all the judges had a chance tobe a receiver. That was for the
World Association for ima, thejudges were in the grand finals
(33:33):
as receivers. So the grandfinal, I don't know if did he?
Did he talk about that or Well,I mean, you're blowing my mind,
Lynn, because I, first of all, Ididn't know there was multiple
organizations doing this. I'mlearning that now. I didn't even
know the United States hadcompetitions in each state.
(33:54):
That's new news to me. Yeah, I,I didn't talk about this
afterwards, when we're notrecording.
Oh, gosh, what the the behindthe scenes? Politics, I can only
No, no, not politics.
I'll be just telling you what isavailable. Like, Utah is coming
up right now as well. Okay,like, there's, there's, you guys
(34:15):
have them all over the place.
It's, it's crazy, dude, thisFlorida too. How do you not
know? Idon't know. I mean, that's why
I'm so glad I'm talking to you,and why that's why I appreciate
podcasting, because I get to getin the loop now I've been
circulating outside this loop.
So how has your practice ofmassage improved and or changed
(34:41):
based off of your experiencethat you have gone through in
these multiple competitions.
Just before I answerthat, going one question back,
the judge the grand finals forthe IMA World Finals is the gold
medal winner from each categoryand. Uh against each other. And
then there are the body modelsfor that round. The final,
(35:05):
final, grand final round, therewill be judges as the body
models, and they are allowed toaward points. So that's got it.
Just connect what you weretalking about.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'mtrying to figure all the details
out. Yeah.
Oh, you need uh Episode Two withuh, Jeppe. I
know. I know. I know. Man, I'vebeen watching the videos and and
(35:27):
since I started following onInstagram and seeing where he's
at in all these differentlocations, all the different
competitions happening. I mean,personally, just watching the
videos from the competition hasgiven me so many new ideas,
yeah, and and technique andstuff I never even dreamed of.
(35:49):
Like I saw one the other daywhere the woman was doing a Thai
massage on the person she had,like a an or like a, like an or
a canoe or something that was inHong Kong, and she's pressing in
on the erector spinae whileshe's pulling and so, like, and
I it was just incredible towatch. And though, and like you
said, the elegance of thechoreography is just next level.
(36:12):
You're like, wow. So I this ishere's what it
kind of all ties into thequestion that you were asking
for. Because how has it changedme? And that is the exciting
part for me, because my brain, Ineed, I need, I need to work. My
brain is working like overdrivefaster than my body or my mouth
(36:34):
can speak, my body can move. Andone of the things that kind of
draws me to time massage more sothan anything else is the
ability to create and the factthat I don't I'm not opposed to
it, so people want to hate on mefor this. I love working on the
floor. I feel like a child onthe floor. I feel like I'm
(36:58):
playing in sand or gardening orwhatever as an adult, and I feel
like the creativity that I cando with that surface area, with
that much space, is justimmeasurable. When we work on
people, we know that we have tomodify techniques that we do.
And you know from all the timemassage training that you've
(37:21):
done and for as long as you'vebeen doing, you know you have to
modify for someone's physicalsize, their flexibility, range
of motion, their age,everything. And that, to me, is
the beauty of competing, becauseit forces you to create. And you
(37:42):
know, it's for me, it's anextension what I've do every
day. So it's not, it's not likesomething I need to over prepare
for. It's just, you know,finding that point that you want
to work on. And how many wayscan you do it? And maybe someone
has done it before, maybesomeone hasn't, maybe requires a
(38:02):
tool like an or, or maybe itdoesn't like that is what
competition breeds in my soul.
Is that that that innate natureof mind to to do something
different and to create? Yeah,wow. Well, currently, what is
your schedule look like? I wouldimagine that you're sought after
(38:26):
because you're so passionate andyou're you're exposing yourself
to learning like this and beingcreative. So I would imagine you
potentially could be as busy asdoing six to eight sessions a
day, if you physically couldhandle it, or would even want to
handle that. So what do you? Howdo you, how do you structure
(38:49):
your kind of taking care of yourbody and and your work life and
your the workload? And can youexplain a little bit about,
maybe even also like, whatcompeting has done to your
professional life in relation tohow busy you can be, if you
wanted to besure, I think I'm in a really
weird place. This is going tosound kind of well, it's kind of
(39:13):
sad to me, because I have a hardtime defining who I am. I've
I've I've only been doing thisprofessionally for just under
three years. And you know, my myknowledge of the people in the
industry or all around the worldis very little compared to
someone like you. And even then,I find that my family of massage
(39:34):
extends outside more so outsideof Canada, more so than within
Canada, which is weird initself. Yeah. I mean, I feel
like I have a lot to offerpeople, but I also I feel like
I'm just another guy, right?
Like there's no there's nothingreally special about what I do.
(39:58):
It maybe. Mindset, which isspecial, and if people can feed
from that, that is, that is whatI would like people to to feed,
to eat, right, like, but how doyou, how do you teach people to
be passionate? How do you, yeah,how do you teach people to want
to you know, my my direction ofwanting to be as traditional
(40:24):
Thai massage as possible, butstill be part of the family of
innovation and evolution. It's Ifind that a little tough, right?
That's a great point. So if Ican try to get that in my head
the way that I think Iunderstood it so like, if you if
(40:46):
you did a little bit more of atoned down, kind of simple,
repetitive routine over andover, without the creativity,
you think that maybe that mightbe more of an in demand way of
approach, versus you're wantingto be so creative that sometimes
people maybe aren't ready forthe creativity. Does that? Did
that sound right? Sure.
(41:08):
So my my mission. When I teachITM levels one and two. I teach
The Book, yeah, after theclasses and even during the
class once in a while, oh mygoodness, if, if it was watching
this, I'm going by the book.
(41:28):
I go by the book too. I mean,it's way, it's way easier to go
by the book when you have abrand new crew, because somebody
goes, well, what can I do overhere? And they're like, Well,
you could do this, you could dothis, you could do this, you
could do this. And they're justlike, going, Whoa. I just wanted
to know.
What I wanted to bring up is themodification for the again,
creativity. You can be overcreative, but modification is
(41:50):
the key. And when we're teachingif our the student has less
flexibility or has less mobilityor has a problem with their
elbow or their knee, you know,then we have to teach the
modifications. So we do teachthe book, but we also teach
modifications to it. And that isthe source of the creativity.
(42:10):
That is the source of whether ornot you know your students, you
know other students will look atit and say, oh, I want to try
that too. Some students will belike, Oh, whatever. That's just
for them. But it's the studentsthat say, like, Oh, let me try
that, or let me try what you aredoing. And that is what, that is
the breeding ground for thatcreativity, right? That is a
(42:30):
breeding ground for, let's trysomething different. That is
what I consider beyond thebooks.
You know, I'm so glad you'rebringing that up, Lynn, because
are you familiar with style ofyoga called Ashtanga Yoga?
I've heard of it. I don't, Idon't if, if I stood up and you
saw my belly, you'd know that Idon't do yoga. But I've heard of
(42:53):
it. I don't know what it is,though.
Long story short, there's aroutine of movement that is done
exactly the same way every day.
And there's a first series,second series, and then a few
extremely advanced folk get upin the third and fourth. And
it's taught, if people areteaching it the way that it had
been held down for a long timein India, it had to be, it had
(43:14):
to be exactly like this, right?
Yeah. And so then, you know,somebody's able to do this
really deep back bend, and thenthe next person comes in and
they're not able to do thereally deep back bend, so that
person that wasn't able isn'tallowed to go into any of the
other poses until they're ableto do that really, really deep
back bend, which forces peopleto hurt themselves. I mean, long
(43:39):
story short. So in my in myexperience of teaching it over
the years, I've just had tomodify, modify, modify, modify,
and from like that old schooltradition side, no, no, no, you
don't let them do that. Youknow, it's got to be like this.
And so I can relate. It's funny,because ever since I left after
studying in my second trip inThailand, I've just kind of been
(44:02):
just working and just doing itand not really worrying about
that's one thing I loved aboutThai massage, is that I didn't
have anyone breathing down myneck kind of saying, No, Todd,
you have to do it like this. SoI love that I'm even hearing
from you that there is this sortof criteria now and again. I
love ITM so I'm not I understandwhat you're saying. Like, no, I
(44:23):
do it by the book. I But it'sinteresting that there, there is
that, and you kind of need tohave that if you're continuing a
lineage, or you're continuing astructure system. So I see the
value in it and I understand it.
But I and I also reallyunderstand what you're saying
too about we got to be veryadaptable in the moment exactly
(44:43):
to what's needed according towhat the client in front of me
is requiring.
You know, the evolution ofourselves as students and
learners to become teachers isalso important. You know, I love
teaching levels one and two.
Yeah, and I'm, I'm actually verysure that you do as well. I can
kind of see your your passionhere I do because it is
(45:04):
Foundation, right? Everythingthat we do in terms of
modification comes fromfoundation. So when you're
talking, even when you'retalking about the yoga Ashtanga,
like that, foundation is whatholds us together. When I first
started learning, like I said,my flexibility is not that
(45:24):
great, but I look back everytime I teach one and two, I find
myself being more able to do thethings that I wasn't able to do
before. So it's not a matter ofmodifying and keep the
modification. It's modifying.
And now let's go backwards, seeif we can do the original move
(45:47):
forward again and then gobackward again, you know. So
it's an evolution, not of ourmind, but it's an evolution of
our body, that we can kind ofconnect the Lin, like you said,
the lineage and the history andthe the the art, the culture,
the traditional Thai massage.
I am so stoked to meet Elaine.
This is so cool. You know,before, before we did this
(46:12):
interview, my wife is awesomeand funny. And I said to her, I
said, Yeah, I'm getting ready tointerview this, this man, Len,
who's up in Canada. And shesaid, Oh, are you sure that he's
going to want to talk to you bean American? And I kind of
cracked up. Like, there's thislike feeling just in terms of,
like, I'm sure people are kindof like, going like, whoa. How
(46:35):
does Canada feel about theStates right now, and how and
what is this going to mean? AndI've had people kind of say,
like all these, we have a ton ofCanadians that live here in
Florida, and I've heard peoplecome in and say, oh, man,
they're selling their condos,and they're not coming back
because they're so, you know,riled up about this and that and
the other can you just, fromyour perspective, and you were,
(46:55):
what are your thoughts there onthat is, There's no way I'm
just, I just got to guess, yeah,I love Canadians. There's no way
that all the Canadians thinkthat all Americans are just kind
of kind of wild and crazy or, orare we, I don't know, like,
well, Florida,all right, all right. Fair
(47:17):
enough.
That's good. It's good, justlike anything else that we do in
life, when we have a whenthere's a worldwide community of
something, politics and borders,they are erased. Let's be honest
right now we speak aboutAmericans and Canadians as a
whole other that's allunderstood when it comes to us,
(47:38):
as you know, for myself, atleast the Thai massage or
massage practitioner community,or that wellness community, you
know, I, I was happy to havegone down to North Carolina last
year before the hurricane sweptthrough Asheville to do the Thai
(48:00):
massage Summit. I don't know ifyou're aware of
that, either. No, you're again.
No, you're educating me. You'reeducating me. I don't know.
Thank you. I'm glad I I'm goingto stay in touch with you, and
I'm just going to keep askingyou, like, what do I need to
know?
Hey, man, you know what? We'lltalk about this. Well, I'll give
(48:20):
you all those details of thingsto look at, all right, when we
finish, and then, yeah,obviously you can, you can post
it to other people. You can putlinks and stuff. Thank you. What
I was getting at for there wasthat there was this community of
of practitioners who cometogether once a year, and it's
(48:41):
growing, again, buildingcommunity, and that growth
allows for anybody from aroundthe world, really, to join in.
And I was, yeah, I was, I was anoutsider. I was, like, the only
Canadian there, and that's okay,because we are all here for that
one purpose, and because, youknow, majority of everybody else
(49:03):
is American, you know, you getpeople from the East Coast and
the West Coast, and we're allsharing ideas, we're all sharing
technique, and we're buildingcommunity. We're building this
network of people that we canalways turn to for support. And,
well, okay, now we're gonna geta little political Jeopardy. Was
(49:23):
telling you about Las Vegas, andthat is the location this year
for the American NationalFinals. So AMC for the American
Massage championship. I wasthere last year. Also in North
Carolina, they were, like, abouta month apart, and it was, it
was crazy, because, again, youstill have people from all
(49:45):
around the world coming tocompete. So it's not just
Americans. This year I would Iwas supposed to go. I'm still on
the fence of going or not,because again, now this the
politics. Part of it. I just, Idon't want to risk anything. I
don't know what you guys haveheard. So
(50:06):
I don't, I don't again, Len,you're I'm learning what, what?
What do you mean risking? Whatdo you mean risking? I
Are we not being let in orsomething that I did, whatever?
I have a little fear of that,and if there's a chance of it, I
don't want to takeany chances. I understood
(50:27):
good. But I'm disappointed,because I want to go support the
organizer, who's who's organizedthe event. I think it's her
first and second time owning it.
I'll link you to her afterwardsas well. And also, I have two
friends of mine who are beinginducted into the Hall of Fame.
Wow, wow. Did you know The Hallof Fame? No, you didn't. No, I
(50:47):
do.
I knew about Metallica, atleast. I really
wanted to be there to supportthem. One is from Boston, and
the other one is from SanFrancisco. Both great in their
own right. And, you know, Ithink Las Vegas is a great I
(51:09):
think it's a great location forsomething like this, because
everything I've never been toVegas either. So I haven't
either everything never beenanything that happens in Vegas
can really get blown a littlethe doors can be blown a little
bit more wide open. So if peopleare aware of massage
competitions, maybe Las Vegas isthat place, at least within the
(51:32):
US community, to kind of breakdown those barriers and and the
mentality of the negatives ofwhat a competition is and really
bring about the the openness andthe positives of what a
competition can be for theindividual if they choose to
intention. We all know that. So,yeah, it's so I don't I don't
(51:57):
know if I'm going to go to theUS, but understood to head over
to Paris in a couple, oh, myGod, about a month, Istanbul,
Copenhagen, and then another onein Canada, and then maybe go
down to the US. But it's a lot,man, it's Wow.
(52:17):
I just didn't, I mean, oh man,I'm so grateful that Rihanna
connected me with you. I'vereally excited to hear all this,
and I just appreciate you beingso open and honest. I love your
enthusiasm. I can't even believeyou've been like, like you said,
three years, like you've doneall that within a three year
window, like your learn timemassage and then going
(52:41):
internationally to learn andstudy in all these different
countries, because that's whatthis is ultimately like. I know
I said, I know I can, you know,you like to compete, but you're
learning so much. Andyou know, winning, winning is
one thing. I think the thewinners, let's focus on that the
real winners are the people wework on, right? Because the more
(53:03):
education I get, the morecreative I get, the more I'm
able to modify myself to theclient's needs, right, and how
I'm able to apply new techniqueto it. So they're the winners.
We get a little trophy, we get amedal. We get, you know, we can,
(53:24):
we can post it online, we cantake photos and stuff. But, man,
we are. We're the conduit justfor people's health, right? Yes,
yes, we are. You know, you talkabout how, how short of a time
during lockdown, which was abouttwo years here in Canada, all I
was doing was just practicinglevels one and two. So by the
(53:44):
time I got to be able toactually put this into practice
in the real world, you know, mylove for it really, I wanted, I
wanted to do Swedish massage wayback in the day, back in early
2000s but I just didn't want totouch naked bodies, right? I
didn't want to do it. It just itkind of turned me off. Thai
(54:06):
massage. Clothes on. Bring iton.
I know it really mylove was already there, but the
trajectory was spiked, because Iwas able to be creative in a in
a modality that allows forcreativity and fun. It's just, I
think it's fun. I think beingable to help people get that
(54:31):
release we're talking about inthe beginning of the interview.
I think it's fun. You know,there was a client of mine that
I wrote in the notes before shecame back the next time, just in
case she didn't come with me, Isaid, make sure there's a full
box of tissues ready for her,because she used more than half
the box in her first sessionwith me. Of just crying, wow,
(54:52):
like I was like, I'm so happy tobe able to be able to.
Facilitate that for someone.
Yeah, and I'm so happy that theytrusted me enough to keep crying
while I still continue doingwhat I was doing. Yeah, yes. You
know, like, I don't thinkthere's any bigger joy in terms
of helping people than that,because I wanted to be a
(55:15):
psychologist too once in mylife, too many things, I'm sure,
I'm sure you are working as apsychologist as well, because
you hear, you hear everythingwhen you're when you're working,
you know, and sometimes, I mean,it's one thing I always
appreciated about the ITM methodof no music, or try to keep the
music element out and try toencourage the client not to go
(55:39):
into a big, lengthyconversation, and just let the
silence of the moment to be ableto feel what's happening and
have enough meditative awarenessto kind of process it. So I hear
you. It's one last question, Lenbefore, before we go. That was
actually episode two. Yeah,exactly. I know. I like to try
(56:01):
to keep them around the hourmarks, that when people see the
length of the conversation, theydon't go, how am I going to do
this? Man, I got, I got so muchgoing on. You know, actually you
did. You did answer my question.
Because my final question is,was going to be is, can you tell
me an example of recently thatwhat you experienced working on
(56:23):
someone in relation to theenergetic component, but I feel
like you just did do that, andthe fact that you had an
experience with someone wherethey felt comfortable enough
with you to release emotion andand that is powerful. So I guess
I'd come up with one more lastquestion before we go. Is there
(56:44):
any final tidbit of informationand or final last words before
our second episode that you'dlike to share with us as we sign
off? Yeah,I think you know, just because
you were talking about that,that emotional side for the
client, my my mode of oftreatment usually gravitates no
(57:11):
matter what, gravitates totherapeutic. Because I feel like
here in the North Americanspace, you know, people are
working in front of computers,you know, not exercise and doing
all that stuff. I feel liketherapy is more important, but
I'll bring it back to thatspiritual part where I was I
only teach small classes, likeno, no more than a six people.
(57:34):
And I always go around, and wealways do ask, you know, what's
your name, I always ask like,why are you here? Why do you
want to take this? Why do youwant to learn? And usually,
people want to take it todevelop a different modality
from something they've alreadydone. Maybe just for funsies.
Maybe they want to do a career.
(57:56):
There was one class thatsurprised the hell out of me,
and majority of them were allout of towners. They all came
and they said the same thing,and it was spirituality. I'm
like, Whoa. Okay, I've taughtmany classes, well, not that
many. I've taught classes, andall based on technique, based on
(58:18):
this movement. This is the firstclass that everybody unanimously
said spiritual. So then I bringthat to you as a, as a, as
something to think about, like,how would you teach ITM in a
spiritual sense? Is it actually?
Like, yeah, we have to sit downand do the mantra. Is it we come
together and do the mantra atthe end of class, beginning in
class. Is it the exercise thatwe do? Is the meditation, or is
(58:41):
it something that you continueteaching the way you're
teaching, but you relate it backto something that they need in
their lives to ground themselvesand to to bring them to another
level of awareness. That's myquestion to you, how would you
approach that, as as a closingyou don't have to answer that,
(59:03):
but how would you approach that,rather than a technical side,
textbook side?
Yeah, right, yes, I'm gonna,I'll answer it the next time we
get together. I'm gonna have tothink on that, because that's a
great question.
Episode Two, wait for it, it'sgonna come.
(59:24):
It is my friend. Well, man,thank you. Lynn, I really and I
wish you the best.
Thank you, cool. It's a wildride right now. So yes, let's
keep riding it. Thank you. Todd,thank you. Lynn
(59:45):
native yoga Todd. Cast isproduced by myself. The theme
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(01:00:06):
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Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast,so happy you are here. My goal
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mic in the field of yoga,massage, body work and beyond.
Follow us at @nativeyoga andcheck us out at
nativeyogacenter.com. All right,let's begin.
(01:05):
Hello. Welcome to Native YogaToddcast. If you're first time
listener, I'm so happy you'rehere. And for those of you that
are regular supporters, yay.
Thank you very much. Today'sspecial guest, Len Liang, and
follow him on Instagram at@waikru.massage. He is a Thai
massage therapist from Canada,and I learned so much talking to
(01:26):
Len. So get ready. What more canI say? Why give you a huge intro
when you're gonna hear it? Allright? Now, all right, let's
begin. I'm so excited to haveLen Liang, here with me today.
Yeah, man, thank you so much. Iappreciate you joining me. I
(01:46):
found you via the world ofmassage therapy, and you are a
fellow Thai massage therapist,so I'm really excited to meet
other therapists and have achance to pick your brain a
little bit and find out how yougot excited about it, and what
sort of turns and twists you'vegone down to get to the point
you are now. On that note, canyou tell me a little bit about
(02:09):
how your how your day is goingso far, and what you got up to
last night?
Oh, man, oh, you're gonna bringthat up, man, possibly
miscommunication, but I wasn'tprepared for today, today last
night. I was at one of the firstof two Metallica concerts last
night, and I think that ispretty cool to talk about, even
(02:31):
because the juxtaposition of whowe are as therapists,
practitioners outside for thepeople, and who we are as
individuals, and the fact thatwe all have personal lives and
personal identities, and itcould be a complete 180 turn of
what people might think we are.
So yeah, Metallica, that'sso true. I mean, do you find
(02:52):
that's that's interesting, that,as a say, someone that's coming
to you for a time massagesession, and maybe in their
mind. They're thinking, Oh, hemust listen to Zen spa music.
And then you go, where'd you golast night? Metallica, yeah, and
people believemy hair is in a bun when I'm
working with people, so theylook at me like a hippie last
night. This was all out.
(03:16):
So, yeah, man, well, I've never,I've never seen him live before,
but I would imagine. So can youexplain a little bit then what
kind of feeling you get from it,and how you could relate that to
the energetic world of what youexperience as a body worker?
Absolutely, you know, I think asas hippie as I might seem to
(03:38):
some people, I don't like Ithink I'm a beautiful hippie,
but not like over the tophippie, whatever that means in
everybody's heads. But then Iplayed music since I was three
years old, and somewhere in theback of my head, I understand
that vibrations matter now, howanybody chooses to define
(04:03):
vibrations or energy or healingor any of that stuff. You know,
you go to a concert of like, youknow, heavy metal or thrash
metal, or however you want tocall it, because there was
Pantera as well. Oh my gosh. Youknow, there is a vibration, and
that's not just from theinstruments, it's from the
energy of the crowd, the peoplearound you, and how that kind of
(04:27):
relates to who we are in thework setting, or what people
like to say in the in thehealing community. You know,
it's it's a form of release fora lot of people. We We are the
musician, we are helping ourclients find that release
through Trust, which is the samething at a concert and
(04:48):
relaxation. So in a concert, thetrust, I wasn't in it, so don't
I would have loved to, but themosh pit, for instance, right?
Yeah, yeah. Anybody has. Avisual of what a mosh pit is,
just everybody slamming intoeach other, kind of going round
and round in a circle. Butsometimes there's punches and
kick. It kicks and it's notintentional, and the community
(05:12):
trusts itself not to purposelyinjure each other. So same with
us in our modalities that we dofor a massage, people have to
trust us, and they have to letthat emotion release could be
physical, could be mental, couldbe spiritual. How we choose to
(05:33):
find that release for that onemoment in time is how I would
completely relate it, and it hasto do with vibrations and
energy that is so cool. Lynn,what a great outlook. I mean, I
guess you're right from abodywork session and even, like
a Thai massage, I've never, Ithoroughly enjoy mosh pits,
although I don't go in thereanymore, unless it's like, like,
(05:55):
what you said, where I feel likethe energy is not one of like,
you know, real death anddestruction more, just like you
said, that kind of harmony. ButI've never thought of a Thai
massage as like a mosh pit. Butyou're right. And then
sometimes, when I look at like,say, jiu jitsu grappling and the
(06:16):
artistry of the body movementcoordination, to be able to kind
of flip and pull and moving awaylike that. Sometimes I've seen
that correlation in relation toa massage session, even though
obviously they're verydifferent. But yeah, it's cool,
cool to think of it like that,and the way that two people are
interacting and the energy.
(06:36):
It's interesting because lastnight, I bought a last minute
ticket, so I went alone, and itwas the people beside me that
were talking to me, and theywere all alone as well. And so
again, that that this is whatwe're doing right now, is like
that whole community buildingthat, you know, the guy beside
me, he said, Oh, you know, youprobably came alone. You just
don't want to talk to anybody.
You just want to listen to theconcert. I said, Well, no, I
(06:58):
mean, we are here together,sharing the same experience.
When it comes to like, Okay,let's get away from heavy metal
here right now. But when itcomes to massage, that the
combination of peoples, and it'snot always perfect combination
of people, ideals, soul,spirits, energy, everything, I
mean, it all comes together. Andyou know, it's how we are open
(07:22):
to each other in that moment, inthat time, that really does the
healingGreat point. So if you started
playing music when you werethree, what was the trajectory
to then, at some point, land inthe world of bodywork and
healing,I think, and we'll lead into
this as well. When I wasyounger, I used to do a lot of
(07:44):
competitions for music. And oneof the things my mother, she's
90, by the way, just turned 91.
Of the things my mother alwaystold me was that I always went
to these competitions saying,Oh, what am I going to bring
home today, which is absolutelyinsane, through the other kind
(08:05):
of works that I did, through theother kind of competition that
I've done, we can talk aboutthat afterwards as well. It was
mainly hospitality for 20 years.
So I've been working inrestaurants, corporate mom and
pop shops, helping find dining,restaurants, clubs, nightclub,
General, managing all that stuffand the that experience, and
everything that I was,everything else that I've done
(08:28):
in my life, kind of led me toit. It was always helping
people. And Thai massage came tome because one of my clients,
when I was working in a cheeseshop again, a whole other world,
she ended up doing this to tohelp her sister who was having
(08:49):
cancer, and she wanted to giveher sister relief. So she ended
up leaving her industry,whatever it may be, I'm not
going to go into those details,and finding herself pretty much
in Thailand, and I think youare, ITM as well, yes. So she
ended up being in thatcommunity, finishing her
teacher's certification, andcoming back to Toronto and
(09:11):
opening up her spa, which is thewhere I work right now. Wow. But
she told me, ever since, I thinkit was like 20, oh, my god, 2010
2011 Yeah. She always said to meat the cheese shops, like, you
need to do this. This is you.
And I've already promised myselfto stay within the hospitality
industry for a while, to have afriend. But when lockdown came
(09:34):
about, when the whole world kindof just stopped, a little bit
paused, didn't stop. When wepaused, that's when I just said,
You know what, let's give this atry. And I started, and, you
know, haven't really looked backright now. So it's been five
years.
That's incredible. Did you endup getting licensed or certified
in Canada as a massagetherapist?
(09:56):
Yeah. So it's a little bit weirdhere in Ontario. I don't know
if.
(15:00):
And I seem to have this thislook to me before the
competition starts, and it'sreally pure just focus and being
there in the moment and notreally paying attention to
anything else. I didn't finishwatching the interview with
Jeppe, so I don't really knowwhat he talked about, but in the
(15:22):
competition and just evenclinical everyday practitioner
life, we are supposed to connectwith our client and the person
who's receiving and nothing elseshould really be affecting us or
disturbing us. And in acompetition sake, that is pretty
much what you have to do. So,you know, my focus was already
(15:43):
on my client. My focus was justmeditation just before we
started. But there's always,even today, there's always a
sense of, for lack of a betterwords, like nervousness. But
it's not nerves, it's I uh, it'snerves if you are trying to do a
(16:06):
program that you've rehearsed,if it's not something that you
rehearsed, and you go with theflow, or even if you've
rehearsed some things, but youstill go with the flow of the
body that you're working on,because you might not know who
it is that is that opening upmoment to your client and
(16:27):
letting your client feel youryour honesty and your truth,
right. And then it starts fromthere, so nervous, not really
nervous, I like also be in themoment that's great
insight. Do how do you answerfolks that when you bring this
concept up about, hey, guesswhat? Guys, I'm flying over to
(16:51):
Japan to the world massagechampionship. And people, you
know, when I first heard aboutit, my head did a 360 because I
was kind of like, I was like,what? And, um, so how do what
is? What is the way that you tryto cross that bridge with folks,
to get them to understand thebenefits of putting yourself
(17:11):
into that environment wheremaybe a lot of people would say,
how can you possibly compete andjudge a massage? You know, I'm
just curious what your how you,how you go about explaining,
yeah,from a from a competitor point
of view, traveling all over theworld to compete, people think I
have a lot of money. My God, Ido not. When you travel to do
(17:33):
can get very expensive, yeah,depending on the country that
you're going to. Airfare,accommodations, food is taxing
on the body, potentially,because of jet lag is taxing on
the mind, because maybe it's anew city you've never been to,
usually it is, and you have totry to figure out how to get
from point A to point B and backand back and back, like it's
(17:56):
there's a lot of things that gointo it. Accommodations, just
huge. I'm actually planning thisEuropean part of this year right
now, and it's, it's gotten meballistic right now. But there
are a lot of people, I wouldsay, the majority of therapists
and practitioners. They don'tbelieve that a competition is
(18:17):
the right way to go. Iunderstand. I'm a Virgo. I
understand all points of view,but I think one of the things
that Jeppe probably would havetalked about was the building of
community, and I do firmlybelieve that there are multiple
(18:37):
organizations out there that aredoing competitions and for
whatever the purpose is, intheir mind, it is true, it is
building community of people. Itis an opportunity to meet
others. If you travel around theworld, you can meet people from
all over the world. You get tosee the different styles in
different country. But also youget to learn. And I think
(19:00):
learning is probably the biggestthing, you know, man, if so I
competed in Thailand, yeah. And,you know, Canadian mentality of
what Thai massage is likecompared to Thailand, Thai
competition mindset is, like, islike, it's a world of a
(19:22):
difference,wow. Can you explain that a
little bit? Can you explain thedifferences? Yeah. Uh, okay.
Well, let's talk about Japan.
Because Japan, I think, is oneof the biggest outside of, I
feel outside of, outside ofThailand. Thai massage is
probably the biggest craze inJapan, and in their companies,
they have over 3000 people.
(19:43):
What we will competing? Yeah,3000 contestants
first round. Like, it's it'sridiculous. They have to get a
stadium to do this. 3000people sign up to compete in
Japan.
Whoa, finals. How do you even.
Get to, oh my god, it's insane.
Well, where did, how far in didyou make that one? Hold on. All
(20:05):
right,mine was the World Final. So it
was the champions of eachcountry that came together.
So I understand, I understand,yeah, but in the open
competitions,like everybody wants to do it,
wow,it's mind boggling. Like the
whole world out there that Idon't even need I do want to go
actually, after talking to hepe,I was like, Man, I want to get
involved. He's like, Well, yougot one in Las Vegas coming up
(20:27):
in June, just and he's like,Yeah, we're
talking about that too. Yeah,that's pretty cool. But so in
Japan, you know, you think aboutThai massage, which you which
you've learned in Thailand, andwhich you have brought to the
US. And who knows what yourstyle is like. I don't know your
personal style, but your cultureand the people, the way you
(20:49):
interact with your client, willdetermine how that blends into
American style. In Japan, youbring Thai massage to Japanese
culture, and they're, you know,in religion as well. We're not
going to go too much intoreligion, but they have a
similar religion and thoughtprocess where, you know the
(21:09):
gracefulness of Japanese peopleand the flow of Japanese people,
you know the politeness of it,like it's all embedded into
their style of Thai massage, theway I feel. Yeah. And when you
come to North America, it'sdifferent. Yeah, you go to
Switzerland was different. Evenwithin Thailand was different. I
(21:29):
think, well, let's say I don'tknow what the mentality of what
Thai massage was like back whenyou first started, but you have
a lot of tourists and peoplegoing on YouTube, and they have
videos of these smaller womenjust bending people in different
into pretzels and offering thatas much pain as possible.
That's, I don't know if that'syour style. Maybe I don't know.
(21:51):
I'm notgonna I know. I've had to tailor
it big time. And after comingback from Thailand, I realized,
whoa, I gotta really getcreative here with the way that
I'll translate it into this,what, what people expect here
and can handle for sure. Andso there's even here in North
America, like there's people whobelieve in thy massage must be
painful for it to be effective.
(22:14):
And that's, I mean, good pain isgood pain. Bad pain is not good
pain. So, you know, let's, let'stry to, this is why I only do
Thai massage. Let's try to bringit back to what the purpose of
Thai massage is. And, you know,I try to kind of represent it as
the best that I can in thatrespect as well, yes, but yeah,
(22:36):
the different, the differentstyles, like even, well, I can't
speak of Denmark, because thatwas the world finals as well. So
you have people from all overthe world, but yeah, there's,
you know, competition sake.
Let's just say the Americans,you guys are all in competition
mode. It is like full blown,like, train, train, train, win,
(22:58):
win, win. And it's unbelievablethe kind of things that could
come with that mentality, likecreativity, just it's crazy.
What about the downsides,though, from your perspective,
and we can handle it. I want tohear that, because I feel like I
learned from seeing hearing fromoutside perspective. What? Okay,
(23:21):
cool, creativity might be great.
What are you seeing is like,maybe the say downside, because
there's alwaysno you can say downside, all
right, and I'll explain it asthis. It has to do with
expectations. As a competitor,when you go you know, are you
expecting to win? Are youexpecting to meet people? Are
you expecting to learn? Are youexpecting like, yeah, what is
(23:44):
your purpose of going to acompetition? Yeah, if you go
with a if you go to acompetition without the mindset
of, I would like to win atleast, then are you really
trying hard enough, or just kindof fluffing around, just being
in the atmosphere, which isfine. Are you going with the
mentality that you must win andif you don't win, then what? How
(24:05):
does your mind comprehend thatas well? Right? We can speak of
the egocentric style. We canspeak of a spiritual style. We
can speak of so many differentthings. So I think that one word
is expectation, and that reallyis defined by yourself, the the
competitor themselves, not byanything else.
(24:27):
Excellent answer. Great. Greatanswer. I love that insight.
Well, can you talk a little bitmore? Though, I've never been to
Japan. I really want to go. Ihear it's absolutely amazing.
Can you tell me a little bitabout, a little more about your
Japanese experience? TheJapanese experience was, well,
(24:47):
I've been to Japan twice, andJapan as a country, the people,
the food, everything, excellent.
There's nothing bad I couldpossibly say about that. Yeah,
the beauty of there was onecompetition there that was
Japanese only, and it was meantto be Japanese style. So only
(25:10):
Japanese kind of competed inthat one. And there was one when
I was watching everybody performand do their thing. There was
one girl that I went back toafterwards, and through Google
Translate, I told her that herflow was beautiful. Her flow
(25:32):
reminded me of a blossom fallingoff of a tree down to the
ground, resting on the ground.
Wow. And like it was, it wasbeautiful. And she didn't win
anything, but I've kept in touchwith her, and hopefully I, what
I said, made an impression onher, because she did win
(25:55):
subsequent years, and she'sdoing really well for herself
right now. So, yeah, it's, it'sbeautiful. So the kind of flow,
and the kind of, again, lack ofbetter word costume, or the way
they dress, you know, they werewearing their kimono, kimonos.
They were wearing a whole bunchof stuff that was cultural to
Japan, and applying Thai massageto that, and applying Japanese
(26:18):
culture to Thai massage. It wasgraceful, it was beautiful, it
was elegant, it was respectful,it was precise. Like, that's the
Japanese mindset. There's noroom for error, right? And then
some people want, needed to do alittle bit more kind of fancier
stuff, so they bring tools, andit was more of a dance for them
(26:39):
more of a real performance, notnecessarily my style, but it was
still beautiful in that regard.
So that's, that's the Japaneseway, man, they like a lot of
stretching as well. So amazing,amazing, beautiful. And it's
huge in in in Japan, like inrelation to, how does Thai
massage and shiatsu compare inrelation? No,
(27:05):
yeah, I can't tell you, becauseI've never studied shiatsu. Many
people say that? Well, I won'tsay many, because you're going
to ask, who's the many peopleyou and I are, like, very few
that are, like, geeking, geekingout on, like, all the details
of, well,it's precision, right? It's, I
definitely don't want tomisrepresent what either are, of
course, but I have heard that itis very similar, but you know
(27:30):
it, right? Same, same, butdifferent. Like it? Yes, yes,
yes. So even when you speakabout, like Chinese medicine and
stuff. I have a student of minethat does that, have two
students minded to do it, andthey were saying that it's very
similar. And you know, it has tobe, because we're all it doesn't
(27:51):
have to be, but we're all Asian,right? I'm Asian, if you didn't
know. And yeah, there's, there'sinfluence from all over the
place, all of Asia. And if youwere to say that Thai massage is
the culmination of all of those,like acupressure, stretching,
you know, all that massage like,then, yeah, maybe Thailand is
where I can say the best. Ican't, I can't say that, where I
(28:15):
find the most influence. Nice,yeah. Well said. So then you
were able to take part in Thaimassage competition in Thailand.
How nerve wracking is that? Thatwas one of my most proudest
moments, one of probably my mostnervous moments as well for
(28:37):
competition, because for me ason the competitor side of my of
my brain, how wonderful would itbe to reach the podium as a
foreigner in Thai massage inThailand against Thai people?
And I was happy enough for thetraditional Thai category, I
(29:00):
got, I got third place. Wow, ohmy god.
How many people signed up forthat? How many people at their
preliminaries?
Okay, so I'll, I'll say thismuch as well. In my category, I
think there were maybe aboutlike nine or 10 people somewhere
around there, cool. But majorityof everybody in my category,
(29:24):
who, who competed, competed insix categories, like you guys
are nuts, like they didn't haveany breaks. One competition,
finish. Change, reset, up,compete. Change, reset, compete
six times, back to back to backto back to back. I think these
guys are crazy. I only did twocompetitions, two categories
(29:46):
rather. The other one I did wasAsian freestyle or Eastern
freestyle. And so man like Iwonder though, if they would
have just focused and honed inon maybe even. Three, maybe I
would be off the podium. Butthis is all subjective as well,
(30:06):
right? Because the judges So,yeah, yeah, how do
you I hear you, what, uh, interms of judging, have you ever
do you? I mean, hip isincredible. I mean, he, you can
just tell, yeah,he's a character, too, and
so to come up with this, andthen to design the judging
(30:29):
criteria. And did any of theseThai massage competitions in
Thailand happen before he pickgot this started? Wasn't he kind
of like the Pioneer here, or isthere somebody before him that
was getting this going, and thenhe
I, man, I feel like I'm steppingon broken glass when I talk
about we should be careful.
Yeah, yeah. Quite honestly,because there are multiple
(30:50):
organizations out there, okay,and I don't know who started it
all. I don't know how longeither they've been in planning
or preparation, but there are somany out there that, you know, I
think going to Denmark would bethe eighth year right for the
IMA. The one in, the one that Itook part in in Shangri was with
(31:13):
the universal massagechampionship, and they're under
the umbrella of the worldmassage Federation. I think
they're based in Greece. Andthen there are, you know, the
world, world massageAssociation, so the World
Association of NOAA Titan spa,based in Switzerland. And
there's, like, there's based inJapan, there's based in Canada,
(31:36):
there's in the US. You know,you're the AMC, the American
Massage championship, and youguys do state championships. So
like, how long has that beengoing on for? Like, I don't even
know the history behind that,because I know the massage
festival has been going on for avery long time. So, you know, I
think the beauty of thecompetitions in the organizers
(32:00):
is refining what the judges arelooking at, rather than just
saying, Does this appeal to you?
Does that appeal to you? Who doyou think is better? You know,
categorizing what they are tojudge upon makes it a lot more
clinical, clinical, that's notthe right word, but more
(32:22):
focused, yeah, into who kind of,quote, unquote, deserves to win
and who doesn't? But yeah, Ithink judges have a tough
choice. Man. Judges have theygot a it's a tough job. I
describe it to people likeballroom dancing competitions or
even figure skating ballroomdancing, because in couples
(32:44):
ballroom dancing, they're allcompeting at the same time.
They're all dancing on the samefloor, so the judges have to
just watch, but you can't, ifyou're worth if you're watching
someone on this end, you can'tsee the other person on that
end. It's the same with massage.
So where we are static and thejudges are walking around. You
know, how are they going tocatch your whole performance, or
your whole demonstration? Theycan't. It's impossible. So, you
(33:06):
know, it's a tough job. It's ait's a really tough job.
I was under the impression thatsome of the judging is actually
the receiver, the they go on thereceiving end. Is that true, or
am I wrong? It's more judgein Japan, in the world finals,
all the judges had a chance tobe a receiver. That was for the
World Association for ima, thejudges were in the grand finals
(33:33):
as receivers. So the grandfinal, I don't know if did he?
Did he talk about that or Well,I mean, you're blowing my mind,
Lynn, because I, first of all, Ididn't know there was multiple
organizations doing this. I'mlearning that now. I didn't even
know the United States hadcompetitions in each state.
(33:54):
That's new news to me. Yeah, I,I didn't talk about this
afterwards, when we're notrecording.
Oh, gosh, what the the behindthe scenes? Politics, I can only
No, no, not politics.
I'll be just telling you what isavailable. Like, Utah is coming
up right now as well. Okay,like, there's, there's, you guys
(34:15):
have them all over the place.
It's, it's crazy, dude, thisFlorida too. How do you not
know? Idon't know. I mean, that's why
I'm so glad I'm talking to you,and why that's why I appreciate
podcasting, because I get to getin the loop now I've been
circulating outside this loop.
So how has your practice ofmassage improved and or changed
(34:41):
based off of your experiencethat you have gone through in
these multiple competitions.
Just before I answerthat, going one question back,
the judge the grand finals forthe IMA World Finals is the gold
medal winner from each categoryand. Uh against each other. And
then there are the body modelsfor that round. The final,
(35:05):
final, grand final round, therewill be judges as the body
models, and they are allowed toaward points. So that's got it.
Just connect what you weretalking about.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'mtrying to figure all the details
out. Yeah.
Oh, you need uh Episode Two withuh, Jeppe. I
know. I know. I know. Man, I'vebeen watching the videos and and
(35:27):
since I started following onInstagram and seeing where he's
at in all these differentlocations, all the different
competitions happening. I mean,personally, just watching the
videos from the competition hasgiven me so many new ideas,
yeah, and and technique andstuff I never even dreamed of.
(35:49):
Like I saw one the other daywhere the woman was doing a Thai
massage on the person she had,like a an or like a, like an or
a canoe or something that was inHong Kong, and she's pressing in
on the erector spinae whileshe's pulling and so, like, and
I it was just incredible towatch. And though, and like you
said, the elegance of thechoreography is just next level.
(36:12):
You're like, wow. So I this ishere's what it
kind of all ties into thequestion that you were asking
for. Because how has it changedme? And that is the exciting
part for me, because my brain, Ineed, I need, I need to work. My
brain is working like overdrivefaster than my body or my mouth
(36:34):
can speak, my body can move. Andone of the things that kind of
draws me to time massage more sothan anything else is the
ability to create and the factthat I don't I'm not opposed to
it, so people want to hate on mefor this. I love working on the
floor. I feel like a child onthe floor. I feel like I'm
(36:58):
playing in sand or gardening orwhatever as an adult, and I feel
like the creativity that I cando with that surface area, with
that much space, is justimmeasurable. When we work on
people, we know that we have tomodify techniques that we do.
And you know from all the timemassage training that you've
(37:21):
done and for as long as you'vebeen doing, you know you have to
modify for someone's physicalsize, their flexibility, range
of motion, their age,everything. And that, to me, is
the beauty of competing, becauseit forces you to create. And you
(37:42):
know, it's for me, it's anextension what I've do every
day. So it's not, it's not likesomething I need to over prepare
for. It's just, you know,finding that point that you want
to work on. And how many wayscan you do it? And maybe someone
has done it before, maybesomeone hasn't, maybe requires a
(38:02):
tool like an or, or maybe itdoesn't like that is what
competition breeds in my soul.
Is that that that innate natureof mind to to do something
different and to create? Yeah,wow. Well, currently, what is
your schedule look like? I wouldimagine that you're sought after
(38:26):
because you're so passionate andyou're you're exposing yourself
to learning like this and beingcreative. So I would imagine you
potentially could be as busy asdoing six to eight sessions a
day, if you physically couldhandle it, or would even want to
handle that. So what do you? Howdo you, how do you structure
(38:49):
your kind of taking care of yourbody and and your work life and
your the workload? And can youexplain a little bit about,
maybe even also like, whatcompeting has done to your
professional life in relation tohow busy you can be, if you
wanted to besure, I think I'm in a really
weird place. This is going tosound kind of well, it's kind of
(39:13):
sad to me, because I have a hardtime defining who I am. I've
I've I've only been doing thisprofessionally for just under
three years. And you know, my myknowledge of the people in the
industry or all around the worldis very little compared to
someone like you. And even then,I find that my family of massage
(39:34):
extends outside more so outsideof Canada, more so than within
Canada, which is weird initself. Yeah. I mean, I feel
like I have a lot to offerpeople, but I also I feel like
I'm just another guy, right?
Like there's no there's nothingreally special about what I do.
(39:58):
It maybe. Mindset, which isspecial, and if people can feed
from that, that is, that is whatI would like people to to feed,
to eat, right, like, but how doyou, how do you teach people to
be passionate? How do you, yeah,how do you teach people to want
to you know, my my direction ofwanting to be as traditional
(40:24):
Thai massage as possible, butstill be part of the family of
innovation and evolution. It's Ifind that a little tough, right?
That's a great point. So if Ican try to get that in my head
the way that I think Iunderstood it so like, if you if
(40:46):
you did a little bit more of atoned down, kind of simple,
repetitive routine over andover, without the creativity,
you think that maybe that mightbe more of an in demand way of
approach, versus you're wantingto be so creative that sometimes
people maybe aren't ready forthe creativity. Does that? Did
that sound right? Sure.
(41:08):
So my my mission. When I teachITM levels one and two. I teach
The Book, yeah, after theclasses and even during the
class once in a while, oh mygoodness, if, if it was watching
this, I'm going by the book.
(41:28):
I go by the book too. I mean,it's way, it's way easier to go
by the book when you have abrand new crew, because somebody
goes, well, what can I do overhere? And they're like, Well,
you could do this, you could dothis, you could do this, you
could do this. And they're justlike, going, Whoa. I just wanted
to know.
What I wanted to bring up is themodification for the again,
creativity. You can be overcreative, but modification is
(41:50):
the key. And when we're teachingif our the student has less
flexibility or has less mobilityor has a problem with their
elbow or their knee, you know,then we have to teach the
modifications. So we do teachthe book, but we also teach
modifications to it. And that isthe source of the creativity.
(42:10):
That is the source of whether ornot you know your students, you
know other students will look atit and say, oh, I want to try
that too. Some students will belike, Oh, whatever. That's just
for them. But it's the studentsthat say, like, Oh, let me try
that, or let me try what you aredoing. And that is what, that is
the breeding ground for thatcreativity, right? That is a
(42:30):
breeding ground for, let's trysomething different. That is
what I consider beyond thebooks.
You know, I'm so glad you'rebringing that up, Lynn, because
are you familiar with style ofyoga called Ashtanga Yoga?
I've heard of it. I don't, Idon't if, if I stood up and you
saw my belly, you'd know that Idon't do yoga. But I've heard of
(42:53):
it. I don't know what it is,though.
Long story short, there's aroutine of movement that is done
exactly the same way every day.
And there's a first series,second series, and then a few
extremely advanced folk get upin the third and fourth. And
it's taught, if people areteaching it the way that it had
been held down for a long timein India, it had to be, it had
(43:14):
to be exactly like this, right?
Yeah. And so then, you know,somebody's able to do this
really deep back bend, and thenthe next person comes in and
they're not able to do thereally deep back bend, so that
person that wasn't able isn'tallowed to go into any of the
other poses until they're ableto do that really, really deep
back bend, which forces peopleto hurt themselves. I mean, long
(43:39):
story short. So in my in myexperience of teaching it over
the years, I've just had tomodify, modify, modify, modify,
and from like that old schooltradition side, no, no, no, you
don't let them do that. Youknow, it's got to be like this.
And so I can relate. It's funny,because ever since I left after
studying in my second trip inThailand, I've just kind of been
(44:02):
just working and just doing itand not really worrying about
that's one thing I loved aboutThai massage, is that I didn't
have anyone breathing down myneck kind of saying, No, Todd,
you have to do it like this. SoI love that I'm even hearing
from you that there is this sortof criteria now and again. I
love ITM so I'm not I understandwhat you're saying. Like, no, I
(44:23):
do it by the book. I But it'sinteresting that there, there is
that, and you kind of need tohave that if you're continuing a
lineage, or you're continuing astructure system. So I see the
value in it and I understand it.
But I and I also reallyunderstand what you're saying
too about we got to be veryadaptable in the moment exactly
(44:43):
to what's needed according towhat the client in front of me
is requiring.
You know, the evolution ofourselves as students and
learners to become teachers isalso important. You know, I love
teaching levels one and two.
Yeah, and I'm, I'm actually verysure that you do as well. I can
kind of see your your passionhere I do because it is
(45:04):
Foundation, right? Everythingthat we do in terms of
modification comes fromfoundation. So when you're
talking, even when you'retalking about the yoga Ashtanga,
like that, foundation is whatholds us together. When I first
started learning, like I said,my flexibility is not that
(45:24):
great, but I look back everytime I teach one and two, I find
myself being more able to do thethings that I wasn't able to do
before. So it's not a matter ofmodifying and keep the
modification. It's modifying.
And now let's go backwards, seeif we can do the original move
(45:47):
forward again and then gobackward again, you know. So
it's an evolution, not of ourmind, but it's an evolution of
our body, that we can kind ofconnect the Lin, like you said,
the lineage and the history andthe the the art, the culture,
the traditional Thai massage.
I am so stoked to meet Elaine.
This is so cool. You know,before, before we did this
(46:12):
interview, my wife is awesomeand funny. And I said to her, I
said, Yeah, I'm getting ready tointerview this, this man, Len,
who's up in Canada. And shesaid, Oh, are you sure that he's
going to want to talk to you bean American? And I kind of
cracked up. Like, there's thislike feeling just in terms of,
like, I'm sure people are kindof like, going like, whoa. How
(46:35):
does Canada feel about theStates right now, and how and
what is this going to mean? AndI've had people kind of say,
like all these, we have a ton ofCanadians that live here in
Florida, and I've heard peoplecome in and say, oh, man,
they're selling their condos,and they're not coming back
because they're so, you know,riled up about this and that and
the other can you just, fromyour perspective, and you were,
(46:55):
what are your thoughts there onthat is, There's no way I'm
just, I just got to guess, yeah,I love Canadians. There's no way
that all the Canadians thinkthat all Americans are just kind
of kind of wild and crazy or, orare we, I don't know, like,
well, Florida,all right, all right. Fair
(47:17):
enough.
That's good. It's good, justlike anything else that we do in
life, when we have a whenthere's a worldwide community of
something, politics and borders,they are erased. Let's be honest
right now we speak aboutAmericans and Canadians as a
whole other that's allunderstood when it comes to us,
(47:38):
as you know, for myself, atleast the Thai massage or
massage practitioner community,or that wellness community, you
know, I, I was happy to havegone down to North Carolina last
year before the hurricane sweptthrough Asheville to do the Thai
(48:00):
massage Summit. I don't know ifyou're aware of
that, either. No, you're again.
No, you're educating me. You'reeducating me. I don't know.
Thank you. I'm glad I I'm goingto stay in touch with you, and
I'm just going to keep askingyou, like, what do I need to
know?
Hey, man, you know what? We'lltalk about this. Well, I'll give
(48:20):
you all those details of thingsto look at, all right, when we
finish, and then, yeah,obviously you can, you can post
it to other people. You can putlinks and stuff. Thank you. What
I was getting at for there wasthat there was this community of
of practitioners who cometogether once a year, and it's
(48:41):
growing, again, buildingcommunity, and that growth
allows for anybody from aroundthe world, really, to join in.
And I was, yeah, I was, I was anoutsider. I was, like, the only
Canadian there, and that's okay,because we are all here for that
one purpose, and because, youknow, majority of everybody else
(49:03):
is American, you know, you getpeople from the East Coast and
the West Coast, and we're allsharing ideas, we're all sharing
technique, and we're buildingcommunity. We're building this
network of people that we canalways turn to for support. And,
well, okay, now we're gonna geta little political Jeopardy. Was
(49:23):
telling you about Las Vegas, andthat is the location this year
for the American NationalFinals. So AMC for the American
Massage championship. I wasthere last year. Also in North
Carolina, they were, like, abouta month apart, and it was, it
was crazy, because, again, youstill have people from all
(49:45):
around the world coming tocompete. So it's not just
Americans. This year I would Iwas supposed to go. I'm still on
the fence of going or not,because again, now this the
politics. Part of it. I just, Idon't want to risk anything. I
don't know what you guys haveheard. So
(50:06):
I don't, I don't again, Len,you're I'm learning what, what?
What do you mean risking? Whatdo you mean risking? I
Are we not being let in orsomething that I did, whatever?
I have a little fear of that,and if there's a chance of it, I
don't want to takeany chances. I understood
(50:27):
good. But I'm disappointed,because I want to go support the
organizer, who's who's organizedthe event. I think it's her
first and second time owning it.
I'll link you to her afterwardsas well. And also, I have two
friends of mine who are beinginducted into the Hall of Fame.
Wow, wow. Did you know The Hallof Fame? No, you didn't. No, I
(50:47):
do.
I knew about Metallica, atleast. I really
wanted to be there to supportthem. One is from Boston, and
the other one is from SanFrancisco. Both great in their
own right. And, you know, Ithink Las Vegas is a great I
(51:09):
think it's a great location forsomething like this, because
everything I've never been toVegas either. So I haven't
either everything never beenanything that happens in Vegas
can really get blown a littlethe doors can be blown a little
bit more wide open. So if peopleare aware of massage
competitions, maybe Las Vegas isthat place, at least within the
(51:32):
US community, to kind of breakdown those barriers and and the
mentality of the negatives ofwhat a competition is and really
bring about the the openness andthe positives of what a
competition can be for theindividual if they choose to
intention. We all know that. So,yeah, it's so I don't I don't
(51:57):
know if I'm going to go to theUS, but understood to head over
to Paris in a couple, oh, myGod, about a month, Istanbul,
Copenhagen, and then another onein Canada, and then maybe go
down to the US. But it's a lot,man, it's Wow.
(52:17):
I just didn't, I mean, oh man,I'm so grateful that Rihanna
connected me with you. I'vereally excited to hear all this,
and I just appreciate you beingso open and honest. I love your
enthusiasm. I can't even believeyou've been like, like you said,
three years, like you've doneall that within a three year
window, like your learn timemassage and then going
(52:41):
internationally to learn andstudy in all these different
countries, because that's whatthis is ultimately like. I know
I said, I know I can, you know,you like to compete, but you're
learning so much. Andyou know, winning, winning is
one thing. I think the thewinners, let's focus on that the
real winners are the people wework on, right? Because the more
(53:03):
education I get, the morecreative I get, the more I'm
able to modify myself to theclient's needs, right, and how
I'm able to apply new techniqueto it. So they're the winners.
We get a little trophy, we get amedal. We get, you know, we can,
(53:24):
we can post it online, we cantake photos and stuff. But, man,
we are. We're the conduit justfor people's health, right? Yes,
yes, we are. You know, you talkabout how, how short of a time
during lockdown, which was abouttwo years here in Canada, all I
was doing was just practicinglevels one and two. So by the
(53:44):
time I got to be able toactually put this into practice
in the real world, you know, mylove for it really, I wanted, I
wanted to do Swedish massage wayback in the day, back in early
2000s but I just didn't want totouch naked bodies, right? I
didn't want to do it. It just itkind of turned me off. Thai
(54:06):
massage. Clothes on. Bring iton.
I know it really mylove was already there, but the
trajectory was spiked, because Iwas able to be creative in a in
a modality that allows forcreativity and fun. It's just, I
think it's fun. I think beingable to help people get that
(54:31):
release we're talking about inthe beginning of the interview.
I think it's fun. You know,there was a client of mine that
I wrote in the notes before shecame back the next time, just in
case she didn't come with me, Isaid, make sure there's a full
box of tissues ready for her,because she used more than half
the box in her first sessionwith me. Of just crying, wow,
(54:52):
like I was like, I'm so happy tobe able to be able to.
Facilitate that for someone.
Yeah, and I'm so happy that theytrusted me enough to keep crying
while I still continue doingwhat I was doing. Yeah, yes. You
know, like, I don't thinkthere's any bigger joy in terms
of helping people than that,because I wanted to be a
(55:15):
psychologist too once in mylife, too many things, I'm sure,
I'm sure you are working as apsychologist as well, because
you hear, you hear everythingwhen you're when you're working,
you know, and sometimes, I mean,it's one thing I always
appreciated about the ITM methodof no music, or try to keep the
music element out and try toencourage the client not to go
(55:39):
into a big, lengthyconversation, and just let the
silence of the moment to be ableto feel what's happening and
have enough meditative awarenessto kind of process it. So I hear
you. It's one last question, Lenbefore, before we go. That was
actually episode two. Yeah,exactly. I know. I like to try
(56:01):
to keep them around the hourmarks, that when people see the
length of the conversation, theydon't go, how am I going to do
this? Man, I got, I got so muchgoing on. You know, actually you
did. You did answer my question.
Because my final question is,was going to be is, can you tell
me an example of recently thatwhat you experienced working on
(56:23):
someone in relation to theenergetic component, but I feel
like you just did do that, andthe fact that you had an
experience with someone wherethey felt comfortable enough
with you to release emotion andand that is powerful. So I guess
I'd come up with one more lastquestion before we go. Is there
(56:44):
any final tidbit of informationand or final last words before
our second episode that you'dlike to share with us as we sign
off? Yeah,I think you know, just because
you were talking about that,that emotional side for the
client, my my mode of oftreatment usually gravitates no
(57:11):
matter what, gravitates totherapeutic. Because I feel like
here in the North Americanspace, you know, people are
working in front of computers,you know, not exercise and doing
all that stuff. I feel liketherapy is more important, but
I'll bring it back to thatspiritual part where I was I
only teach small classes, likeno, no more than a six people.
(57:34):
And I always go around, and wealways do ask, you know, what's
your name, I always ask like,why are you here? Why do you
want to take this? Why do youwant to learn? And usually,
people want to take it todevelop a different modality
from something they've alreadydone. Maybe just for funsies.
Maybe they want to do a career.
(57:56):
There was one class thatsurprised the hell out of me,
and majority of them were allout of towners. They all came
and they said the same thing,and it was spirituality. I'm
like, Whoa. Okay, I've taughtmany classes, well, not that
many. I've taught classes, andall based on technique, based on
(58:18):
this movement. This is the firstclass that everybody unanimously
said spiritual. So then I bringthat to you as a, as a, as
something to think about, like,how would you teach ITM in a
spiritual sense? Is it actually?
Like, yeah, we have to sit downand do the mantra. Is it we come
together and do the mantra atthe end of class, beginning in
class. Is it the exercise thatwe do? Is the meditation, or is
(58:41):
it something that you continueteaching the way you're
teaching, but you relate it backto something that they need in
their lives to ground themselvesand to to bring them to another
level of awareness. That's myquestion to you, how would you
approach that, as as a closingyou don't have to answer that,
(59:03):
but how would you approach that,rather than a technical side,
textbook side?
Yeah, right, yes, I'm gonna,I'll answer it the next time we
get together. I'm gonna have tothink on that, because that's a
great question.
Episode Two, wait for it, it'sgonna come.
(59:24):
It is my friend. Well, man,thank you. Lynn, I really and I
wish you the best.
Thank you, cool. It's a wildride right now. So yes, let's
keep riding it. Thank you. Todd,thank you. Lynn
(59:45):
native yoga Todd. Cast isproduced by myself. The theme
music is dreamed up by BryceAllen. If you like this show,
let me know if there's room forimprovement. I want to hear that
too. We are curious to know.
What you think and what you wantmore of what I can improve. And
if you have ideas for futureguests or topics, please send us
(01:00:06):
your thoughts to info at Nativeyoga center. You can find us at
Native yoga center.com, and hey,if you did like this episode,
share it with your friends. Rateit and review and join us next
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