About TaoMountain

TaoMountain is the premiere resource and online community for serious teachers, students, and practitioners of Thai massage and traditional Thai medicine. Our mission is to educate Western practitioners of the healing arts about Thai massage and Traditional Thai Medicine as serious alternative medical disciplines. Please get involved! Contact us with your ideas, comments, and feedback.

This is where we stand on on Thai massage and Traditional Thai Medicine:

1. These are not just spa techniques or bodywork modalities, but important alternative medical modalities that merit serious, sustained research rather than short, superficial courses.
2. The traditions of Thai medicine are at the beginning stages of study in the West, and this research needs to happen in an open, collaborative, and mutually non-competitive manner based on compassion for our clients/patients and fellowship with other practitioners.
3. Thai medicine needs to be studied and taught independently of other Asian traditions, with indigenous Thai traditions prioritized in all training programs.
4. Thai medicine can not be separated from the spiritual traditions with which it is traditionally bound, and all practitioners and teachers should strive to learn about these perspectives.
5. Integrity and authenticity, rather than marketability and commercial success, should be the driving factors in our research, practice, and education programs.
6. We should look to Thai teachers, institutions, and associations for leadership of our industry, and should cultivate humility toward our Thai mentors.

Are you looking to incorporate more Thai culture, traditional medical theory, and historical awareness into your practice and courses? If so, join the conversation! This website will inspire you with stimulating conversation, continuing dialogue, and a spirit of openness. You are welcome to poke around, join as a member, participate in the conversation, and contribute your ideas, comments, and questions.

Our organization is a collaborative effort between practitioners, students, and scholars who come together in a non-competitive, intellectually honest manner to share our knowledge with each other. We are interested in fostering an environment that genuinely embodies the spirit of metta, or loving- kindness, which is the foundation of the practice of Thai medicine. With this goal in mind, we have made this space open, free, and unaffiliated with any particular school or agenda. In return for your invitation to participate, we only ask that you please respect the spirit of camaraderie and mutual respect this website represents.

We invite you to keep in touch, to use this website as a resource, learning tool, and community, and to help us fulfill this mission.

Read "An Open Letter to the Thai Massage Community" (en Español)

What is TTM?

Traditional Thai Medicine (TTM) is an officially recognized part of the healthcare system in Thailand today. Every formally trained TTM practitioner is required by the government to study a standardized curriculum, which typically includes one year of classes to become a traditional pharmacist and another two years to become a full physician. The arts of therapeutic massage (nuad boran or nuad phaen boran) or traditional midwifery (pradung kahn) can be taken during a fourth, optional, year. Students graduating from these programs are examined by the Ministry of Public Health, and are licensed and regulated by the national government through a process parallel to that which regulates medical doctors, nurses, and other practitioners of Western medicine. A study in 2005 counted 37,157 practitioners in various branches of TTM, and reported that 83.3% of hospitals, 67.8% of community centers, and 22.4% of health centers incorporated TTM to some degree.

Traditional medicine in Thailand is split into distinct disciplines, which can generally be grouped into three different approaches:

• Spiritual practices (including both Buddhism and magical therapies)
• Traditional Thai Massage and other body therapies
• Herbal/dietary therapies

This website is dedicated to the study of Traditional Thai Medicine in all of its various forms. Click on any of the Resources for more information on these disciplines, join an interest group, or participate in the discussion forum. Enjoy learning, and let us know what you think. See you online!

With metta and best regards,

C. Pierce Salguero, Director