From Tibetan Yoga to Thai Yoga – or why, as a devoted practitioner of Tibetan traditions, I chose to integrate Thai traditional arts.

From Tibetan Yoga to Thai Yoga – My Path from the Himalayas to Siam

I entered a Tibetan monastery for the very first time in 1977, in Ladakh, in the north of India, a region newly opened to foreigners at that time.

In 1997, after years of searching, questions, and missed encounters, I met my first teacher—totally unexpectedly—while I was in Darwin, Australia. I wasn’t looking for him at all. But as the saying goes, “the master appears when the student is ready.” If I were to tell the full story of the circumstances of this meeting, one could almost call it an apparition… but that’s another story. Let’s keep our feet on the ground.

Since 2015, I have had the joy of teaching Tibetan yogas. Back in 1997, Anila had handed me a wrinkled piece of paper with a few sketches on it, saying: “Here, this is for you, maybe you can do something with it.” At that time I was stiff as a board, there were almost no explanations, and I wasn’t patient enough—so I put the paper aside. Until, one day, those very Tibetan yogas literally landed in my lap, all at once, on the same day, through the words of a friend I now call “the messenger.”

Those who know me from retreats or teacher trainings might wonder: “What’s happening to her? She’s always sworn only by the Tibetan system!”

And it’s true—I am a passionate defender and protector of these precious practices, sometimes even a bit strict with future teachers so that they respect the integrity of the traditions and the lineages. That doesn’t mean I’m not rimé (open to multiple lineages); it simply means I want to keep the roots authentic.

To make it simple: I love chocolate cake, and I love raclette, but I don’t melt raclette on chocolate cake. In the same way, I’m not into “sweet and salty” cuisine… but I do love both sweet and salty, each in their own place.

So why Thai Yoga Ruesi Dat Ton and Thai traditional massage?

As some of you know, I have certain conditions in my spine (retrolisthesis, herniated disc, stenosis, degeneration, etc., both cervical and lumbar).

In recent years, it’s through Tibetan yogas that I’ve managed to keep going and stay well.

But in 2023, while spending autumn in Thailand, I received a few massages. The relief of pain was so immediate and so significant that I realized there was a whole field here to explore.

A few months later, we returned to Thailand for several months, this time to train in the Nuad Bo’Rarn massage technique—a practice I now feel is essential to share, given its astonishing effectiveness. It is precisely this exceptional effectiveness that led UNESCO, in 2019, to include it in the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

During class, one day my eyes fell on a poster on the wall: a series of drawings of yogis in postures that looked strikingly similar to Tibetan yoga… I could barely listen to the teacher in the foreground.

That day, I discovered Ruesi Dat Ton, the yoga at the origin of Nuad Bo’Rarn massage.

Natural Bridges between Practices

Integrating Ruesi Dat Ton felt natural for me, because I was already used to Tibetan Kum Nyé yoga, which works on releasing pain through slowness and inner openness.

As David Wells explains in his book:

“Some techniques of Ruesi Dat Ton are similar, or almost identical, to certain techniques in Tibetan yoga systems such as Yantra Yoga or Kum Nyé. The postures resemble those seen on the north wall frescoes of the Lukhang temple, at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.”

He also notes:

“Some techniques of Ruesi Dat Ton are similar or identical to Tibetan yogas, which themselves include aspects of Indian Hatha Yoga and indigenous Tibetan Bön practices going back thousands of years. There are also techniques unique to Ruesi Dat Ton, likely originating in Southeast Asia, which were later absorbed into the system as it developed in Thailand.”

For example, auto-massage, postures, neuromuscular locks (bandhas in Sanskrit), breathing patterns, visualizations, and even gender-specific ways of practicing are almost identical across traditions.

It is therefore very likely that Ruesi Dat Ton and some Tibetan yoga systems share a common source, carried by practitioners from the foothills of the Himalayas into Southeast Asia.

From Tibetan to Thai Yoga

Lu Jong, on the other hand, comes from the Tibetan Bön tradition. Its postures, as we’ve seen, are depicted in the Lukhang temple frescoes at the foot of the Potala in Lhasa—a temple I had the joy of visiting in 2018.

Some techniques also come from Kum Nyé, which I also teach.

As you can see, Ruesi Dat Ton is closely interwoven with Lu Jong, Kum Nyé, and certain Tsa Lung practices.

Opening my Tibetan yoga universe to Thai yoga was therefore “just, logical, and obvious.”