Ashtanga Yoga Studio
Traditional Thai Bodywork
Yoga done to you. With Andrew Eppler, in Norman, Oklahoma.
There is a kind of release you cannot reach on your own. The breath has to be met, a joint has to be opened for you, before the body will finally let go of what it has been holding.
Traditional Thai bodywork, sometimes called Thai yoga massage, is close to having a practice done to you while you rest. You stay clothed and comfortable. The work compresses, stretches, and rocks the body along its own lines of energy, opening what is blocked and quieting what is overworked. Joints are freed, the long tissue is lengthened, the breath deepens on its own, and you leave feeling returned to yourself.
The work
Pressure, breath, and slow opening.
The practitioner works with thumbs, palms, forearms, elbows, knees, and feet, following the sen lines that the Thai tradition maps through the body. Steady pressure travels along those pathways and rests at key points, then releases into an assisted stretch. The rhythm is unhurried. Joints are opened, tendon and ligament are lengthened, the internal organs are toned, and the flow of energy is brought back into balance.
The form is old, more than a thousand years in Thailand, carrying both Indian and Chinese influence in its understanding of how energy moves. Andrew stays in a steady state of concentration through the whole session, with attention on the breath, so the work stays present and listening rather than mechanical.
Stretch and release. Something like having yoga done to you.
Your practitioner
Andrew Eppler.
I have studied Thai bodywork for more than twenty five years. It began in Chiang Mai, at the Old Medicine Hospital, and carried on with teachers in Austria, England, and Greece. In 2014 I completed level one and level two with Chock Petchprom at the TMC school of Thai Massage. Along the way I trained in Shiatsu, myofascial and myoskeletal bodywork, Muscle Activation Technique, and chiropractic, and of all of it, traditional Thai work has stayed my favorite. It is the form that lets me bring everything else to bear.
Most people come with something specific. Yoga injuries, sports injuries, the slow wear of long hours at a desk. Lower back pain is one of my specialties. As a longtime yoga teacher I like to send people home able to help themselves, so when it fits I will give you a posture or a breathing practice to carry on your own. I work with people of all ages and every kind of background. The aim is simple, to relieve what is hurting and to make daily life easier to live in.
A session
What to expect.
A full session runs sixty or ninety minutes. You stay clothed in something loose and easy to move in, and the work happens on a mat on the floor. There is nothing to do but breathe and let the body be moved. The longer session leaves room for a fuller, head to foot sequence, with more time spent wherever the body is asking for it.
Sessions are in the studio in Norman, at Yoga on Main, 123 East Main Street. For bodywork at your own location, that can be arranged as well.
Rates
Simple, by the session.
In the studio in Norman, or at your location. Andrew's private yoga sessions are priced the same and live on their own page.
Begin
Book a session.
Tell me a little about what is going on and what you are hoping for, and we will find a time. You are welcome to reach me directly.
Photographs by Andrew Eppler.