hi james,
thanks for your reply :) yes i intend to continue my interest.
thai massage looks fascinating.

you said in your post that, "Without a belief or understanding of
Ayurveda (Thai Medicine), a practitioner is not really doing Thai
massage". in your opinion, would it be enough to have an academic
knowledge of where the meridians are / are said to be, and the parts
of the body that they relate to. in this way you would be
saying, "the indians and thais said that if i do technique x to area
y then i will achieve result z. this seems to work, but i'm not
convinced that it works for the reasons that traditional indian /
thai medicine says that it does". aren't you still getting the same
result or am i missing something important?

re: yoga, i have to say that i don't agree with your argument :) i
think that, even without prana, yoga is so much more than just
stretching. what about the meditation, relaxation, breathing,
strength work, ballance and so on. in fact, arguably, relaxation and
meditation are more important / define yoga more than the asanas.
and that's not even mentioning the higher moral ideals and ways of
living that many yogis follow, eg "loving kindness" and "non-
attachment". in my opinion, none of this is dependant on a belief in
prana. though of course if prana does exist, and can be utilised then
it may add to yoga's benefits.

is see from your site (cool - must try kite surf one day :) ) that
you practice the soma veda style of thai massage. is that
signicantly different from traditional thai therapy / an
americanisation or is just copyrighted to preserve standards? i
think that i heard somewhere that it incoroporates myofascial
triggerpoints? is that right?

regards, dan