What are the five layers of the body?
Traditional Thai Medicine holds that our being consists of five aspects: our physical body, our emotional body, our energetic body, our mental body and our spiritual body. These five aspects exist collectively as a whole and are not separate.
The physical aspect has five layers that practitioners work with using different techniques. Once a practitioner is familiar with the five layers and the methods that work best with each layer, they can structure treatments to work mindfully from the superficial level to the deepest level.
Skin
The outer layer of the human body is the skin. Treatment should begin with gentle therapies for the skin layer to “say hello” to the skin by touch, rubbing, compressing or using balms. Practitioners can also use heating techniques such as friction over clothing, herbal compresses massaged onto the body, herbal balms, and balms and salves to bring warmth and circulation to the body’s surface. This friction helps practitioners get into the second layer.
Tissue
The second layer of the body is the tissue layer, in which most massage therapies specialize. This layer includes the muscles, the fascia, and the fat. Practitioners use techniques that stretch, squeeze, rub, or deeply hold tissue for release. Thai massage techniques for the second layer have the most commonality with other massage modalities.
Sen
The third layer of the body, the sen layer, is perhaps the most misunderstood. The word sen means many things, including path, route, string, road, equator, noodle, hair, trajectory, nerve, vein, tendon, ligament, and artery. The current curriculum in Thai Massage schools teaches that there are 72,000 sen lines in the body through which lom (wind) flows. In traditional Buddhist texts, 72,000 is a number that represents the uncountable, the infinite.
Older Thai traditions teach that sen are physical pathways in which movement occurs in the body, like veins, nerves, or arteries. So rather than wind, sen are the biological pathways where major, minor and invisible movement occurs in the body. The biological pathways with major movement are the arteries and nerve ducts. The pathways with minor movement are the branches of major arteries. And pathways with invisible movement that is too small to see are things such as the effect of hormones in the body.
Practitioners primarily work on sen as massage lines on the legs, arms, and other body parts. Some sen like in the Achilles tendon or the wrist, are easily accessible. Practitioners need not access these sen via any channel or muscle gap.
Other sen exist in the grooves or channels between the larger muscles. Practitioners create space for these deeper structures by working between muscles or between the muscles and bones. If practitioners have not worked on the muscles, practitioners may not be able to access the third layer.
There are many techniques taught for working the sen layer. Most schools teach students to press the sen layer with various thumb techniques, including thumb over thumb, thumb on thumb or thumb walking. Straight-down thumb pressure usually works best to open and loosen the sen layer. Direct pressure touches upon many sen and gives the nerves and arteries impulses. Direct pressure also creates space when muscles or muscles and bones are tight.
The thumb-walking method is best for moving things directionally. For instance, thumb walking will move the blockage away from the injury site if a client has an injury. Another application will be if clients are exhausted or spinning with energy. Thumb walking upwards from the feet will open up that area to receive more energy, and thumb walking down will lower their energy. The third application of thumb walking is if someone has a low digestive fire, you will thumb walk towards the core to bring more energy.
Bones
The fourth layer consists of the bones and the joints. Practitioners work the bone layer by using passive motion techniques on the joints, such as traction, shaking joints, and range of motion to help maintain joint health. These techniques also help release blockages in the sen at the joints.
Practitioners need to understand the function of all major joints to know what movement each joint needs. They also need to do a range of motion more than three times. Theoretically, a joint movement needs to be moved nine times for improvements.
Organs
The final layer of the body is the organs. There are two types of organs. Hollow organs like the lungs, bladder and stomach connect to the external world. Solid organs like the liver and spleen have no connection to the outer layers.
Practitioners engage in visceral massage to help improve organ function. Abdominal work will not address serious problems with the organs but instead supports the work of your primary care physician, herbalist, acupuncturist or naturopath, who can more directly address your organ health.
The final layer of the body requires specialized training. Practitioners should only attempt to work on the organ with this additional training.