Jeppe Tengbjerg ~ Building International Bridges Through Bodywork

Jeppe Tengbjerg is the founder and CEO of the International Massage Association and is recognized for his pioneering role in establishing the World Championship in Massage. Born and raised in Denmark, he was inspired by his grandmother, who was a massage therapist and reflexologist. Jeppe has a strong background in professional sports, being a former professional football player and coach, and a business educator before fully dedicating himself to the world of massage therapy. His passion for massage and education is reflected in his work, including the creation of international teaching programs and organizing global massage events.

Visit Jeppe at: https://tengbjerg.dk/

and: https://worldchampionship-massage.com/

Key Takeaways:

• The World Championship in Massage serves as a platform to inspire, educate, and connect massage therapists worldwide.
• Thai massage is highlighted for its international acclaim, particularly after being recognized by UNESCO as a cultural heritage.
• Importance of understanding body mechanics, or ergonomics, in providing sustainable therapy without exerting strain or causing injury to therapists.
• The role of international teaching programs in fostering a higher standard of massage education across different regions.

Thanks for listening to this episode. Check out: 👇
8IN8 Ashtanga Yoga for Beginners Course Online- Learn 8 Limb Yoga in 8 Days - Get FREE coupon code for a limited time only (Regular price $88) https://info.nativeyogacenter.com/8in8-ashtanga-yoga-for-beginners-8-limbs-in-8-days/

Practice with Native Yoga Online - New classes EVERY day - Use Code FIRSTMONTHFREE https://nativeyogacenter.teachable.com/p/today-s-community-class

Subscribe to Native Yoga Center and view this podcast on Youtube.

Thank you Bryce Allyn for the show tunes. Check out Bryce’s website: bryceallynband.comand sign up on his newsletter to stay in touch. Listen here to his original music from his bands Boxelder, B-Liminal and Bryce Allyn Band on Spotify.

Please email special requests and feedback to info@nativeyogacenter.com

https://info.nativeyogacenter.com/8in8-ashtanga-yoga-for-beginners-8-limbs-in-8-days/

Chapters

• 0:00 The Journey of Creating an International Massage Championship
• 8:44 Debating the Merits and Critiques of Competitive Yoga and Massage
• 12:16 Innovative Massage Techniques and Client Adaptation Strategies
• 16:18 Challenges and Innovations in Massage Championship Judging
• 20:51 Innovative Competitions Elevate Massage Therapy and Promotion Skills
• 26:35 International Massage Competitions Foster Community and Innovation
• 34:51 The Importance of Multilingual Communication in Global Education
• 36:36 Exploring the Challenges and Potential of Thai Massage
• 42:55 Building Bridges in Global Massage Education
• 48:17 Exploring Global Bodywork Events and Building Lasting Connections
• 54:43 Exploring Global Massage Competitions and Online Engagement

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. And today, my special guest is Jeppe Tengbjerg, and you can find him on his website www.tengbjerg.dk and Jeppe is joining me from Denmark, and oh my gosh, holy cow, I'm so excited for you to meet Jeppe. Oh, what an incredible person for our bodywork community. I'm just so grateful you're gonna hear everything you need to know by listening to this conversation, but definitely go to his website. And he's created the International Massage Association, and he has created the International Massage Competition that is happening in multiple places all over the world. Wait till you hear the way that Jeppe has organized, spreading positivity, education and curriculum for bodyworkers globally, and bringing the community together from multiple countries all over the world to help share and to innovate within our community. So on that note, here we go. Let's begin. I'm so happy to have this opportunity to bring Jeppe Tengbjerg to the podcast today. Jeppe, thank you so much for being here. How are you feeling today? Outstanding, and thank you for having me here. Thank you. You know I found you because somebody came in for a Thai massage and they said, the reason that I'm here is that I saw on social media someone practicing Thai massage at a time at a massage, international massage competition. I don't know if I had the terminology right, and you can correct me here in a moment, but I and when I heard that, I just kind of was like, You did what you you're coming in, because you, you there's a there's a massage competition. Like, what is that? And so then he showed me the person on social media, and I started following him. And then as I saw the event, and as I got a view of what the event that you've put together, I was just really blown away out at first the idea, because I'd never even thought of it before. I've never thought about having this sort of way to showcase and highlight the amazing arts of massage, the massage world. And then on top of it, I just got really intrigued and found your website, and I've seen all of the incredible things that you've put together for the massage community on an international scale. And so I just want to thank you, first of all, for all your effort, because I you know anyone who's really working the way you are to promote the positive benefits of massage therapy, I just think is amazing. I'm just curious, what is your background? When did you first fall in love? Or how did you come to become a massage therapist? Yeah, I have always had the interest. Actually, my grandmother, who's still living, by the way, is was a massage therapist and a reflexologist, and I grew up as a guinea pig through the 80s, which, and I was very curious, really, because it felt good receiving reflexology and massages. And I was a very talented football player. You know, soccer, real football. And already, when I was 12, when we went to trainings camps, I earned my pocket money by giving massages without oil, by the way, so it was pretty painful, but so, but the funny stuff is really that I was always curious, but. You know when you grow up and your parents say, yeah, you need an education, okay, okay, okay, what to do? Then, of course, I went to business school, and I took a business degree, whatever. But still, this massage was within me, and it had my interest, as well as acupuncture and reflexology. And then I was a professional football player, also in many years. But around when I was 2120 22 I decided to go, go all in, really, within my interest. So I began taking massage classes, reflexology, anatomy, physiology, acupuncture and so on. And since then, really, it has been a big part of my world. I was a professional footballer for a while at the same time, and I was a professional football coach at the same time. But the last 10 years, I have been this international massage Association founder and CEO. So no more time to to play football and coach, wow, that's amazing. Hepe, that's so cool. And you performed at the professional level in football. So that's like, that was that's amazing. I don't know if you've ever heard of the show Ted lasso, but it's one of my all time favorite American shows, highlighting the coolness of football in Europe. So and then, how? What was the impetus for the idea to create the massage competition? Yeah, when I went to massage school, actually, I, I already had an idea of making a school of my own, because at the business school and I had a job within the municipality. I was working in an educational office at the Muslim municipality. So I had some skills, besides being very good at anatomy, physiology and massages, and I had business skills and I had organization skills. So I knew that I wanted to make a massage school, and already did three years after my education, really. So I opened the school in 2001 and then comes, of course, a lot of years where I was practicing and I was teaching and so on. But in 2014 I began to be a little bored. I was educating other peoples in the same over and over again. And I needed inspiration myself. And I I remember I was thinking, there must be many others in the world like me who need inspiration, yes, who really want inspiration? Yes. And so what I did is I had a plan in my mind. I didn't tell anyone in the beginning, but first, I created a master class in massage in my own country, Denmark. And these students in the master class, I wanted to, want them to help me to create rules and a setup for a world championship. And so the idea came in 14 and in and in 15, I created the class, and in 16, I made the first Danish massage championship, because we wanted to do a trainings camp in how to host a massage championship. Yeah, wow, before we invite the whole world, Yeah, correct. That makes sense, yeah. And then, of course, we also did in, in the beginning of 2017 the second trainings camp. And then came in 2017 the first world championship in massage. And in order to tell really how the procedure and how we promote it. I actually contacted two persons. I did not know them at all. First, I contacted the founder and the CEO of the world massage magazine, which is an English, UK based massage magazine. I wrote him, Hey, Carl, my name is, yep. I have this, this idea, would you like to to help me? 30 minutes later, he write me an email, yep, the coolest thing in the whole world, something like that. Yeah, yeah. I was, of course, very pleased, because I think, I think real thing was a good idea, and I'll tell you why it was a good idea, also in a moment. And then I contacted Ryan heimi from massachusett.com in America. I did not know him at all. I just followed him on YouTube a little bit because he made the material for. Teachers, really, so, so I wrote him, Hey, Ryan, my name is, yep. I have this idea, would you like to help me? And 30 minutes later, he writes me an email, Yep, great. I mean, nice, and it's so. So I was right. Many, many, really wants to elevate and inspire and share, yeah, and there is a reason why I think this became a huge success. Most of you guys who are therapists now, I don't give so much massage anymore. Unfortunately, I only teach, but you guys are working in small clinics, sometimes, very often, on your own, by your own, and you do not have colleagues to speak with. So we need events where we can meet, meet and discuss our frustrations and our chances, problems, whatever, and have fun. Yeah, such a I agree 100% that's why I'm so happy to be talking with you right now. But you know, that's what just even viewing well first. So I I'm a yoga teacher as well, and one of the first traditions that I got that I was practicing under was a style called Bikram yoga, and Bikram Choudhury. I don't know if you know any of his history or have heard of him, but he started a yoga competition, and this was very, you know, received a lot of different feedback from people as to competing in yoga. I thought yoga was a spiritual discipline. How are we going to judge a winner in a yoga event and and what are we going to sit in meditation and have somebody judge Okay, the first person to hit enlightenment wins. And which brings up a really good point, like, how do you even judge that? And so the yoga competition was judged a little more accordingly to like gymnastics meet would be in terms of studying forms, studying the alignment, the ability for the practitioner to hold the pose for the duration that they were striving for, and all these sort of criteria. And having been involved in that, I definitely had my it really pushed me to challenge, be challenged, and work outside of my comfort zone. I have different feelings about it now, you know, many years later, but I still feel like I gained a lot from it, I would imagine in the massage therapy field as well. Perhaps you've received some feedback that would say, how do we compete in massage? Right? I can already feel, from everything you told me, that the whole inspiration and motivation is grounded in the desire to help inspire people we're not. I'm guessing, it's not so much that we're competing against one another to see who's the best massage therapist, but more as a way to celebrate the culture and the field. Can you talk a little bit about what type of criticism, if you received any at all, and then what the benefits perhaps have outweighed that critique. Yeah, of course, in the beginning, we had criticism actually a lot and but it that is a good thing, because it created a debate about how to judge and what the purposes and reasons why we are doing this. But of course, sometimes we still have a little criticism, but maybe it's a person that has not been awake for the last many years, because the most people now understand why we are doing it. Yeah, and I will, I will tell you that how that just in yoga, was also interesting to hear, actually, at the World Championship massage, it was not like in the beginning. Beginning, we had the same criteria sheets for all categories, categories, we had to start somewhere. But now we have criteria sheets. Is this especially designed for each category regarding the because of the purpose? Really, the purpose is always different from category to category, or at least very often. So I tell you a little bit about the judging. Of course, it's about techniques. It's not about the number of techniques. It is whether they are relevant, and the combination of techniques, whether they are good. And it is about economic, of course, as well as in yoga, it's about economic for the giver as well as for the receiver. When you say economic, do you mean the amount of energy you're exerting? In based off of the result of your effort. It's very much about your own body economic in order to save your joints, protect your joints. Yes, it's also about using your own strength and power and weight and so on. And of course, also the receivers should lie in certain positions for some creeps and so on, and and then, of course, we have the flow. It could also, it's when you say flow, it's also about the pace of the massage. And here we make many mistakes, really not not the not the judges, but the therapist in general. Because, depending on the on the on the tissue that you are giving massage, there is a certain pace that is suitable or beneficial. You do not give deep tissue massage fast, because then the nervous system will fight you, against you. Maybe you can do more speeding massage when you are superficial, but not when you go deep. And it's also about which kind of tissue are you working? Are you working muscle tissue, tendons, ligaments? Are you working fascia? And all this has requires a different kind of time and power, really, and it's always different from also client to client. Yeah, so this is the most difficult part, is really to adapt to each client. And now, anyway, so we have now techniques, we have economics, and we have the flow. And the flow is also, of course, from one muscle group to another, whether it is connected with our sometimes you give ear massage and then you take gave a foot massage. Doesn't make sense, okay? We also have innovation, and innovation can be important, not always, not always. Innovation is important if you have to adapt to a client, are you a small woman giving a bodybuilder, a guy a massage? You need to adapt? Maybe with tools? Yeah. And this is also interesting, adapting, but innovating. Combining different methods is not always a good idea combining, but very often, if you choose right, you will do very good. You can make you can choose bodywork, normal massage with shiatsu and energy lines. It is possible, and can also make sense. So the combination we this is also why, from the beginning, we had a freestyle category, because we want to see innovation. We want to see everything. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. Such a good idea. Yeah, tell you. I will tell you some ideas and some stories a little later. But let's end up with we also have something called client contact with this really the interaction between the therapist and the client and and the the touch. Really how we whether we can give the right touch. We can also see it as judges in the beginning of all these championships, the first three years, we also give points as receivers. Because this is it is actually that the other competitors are receivers. Oh, cool. So we did not have any listen. We did not have any problems with that. All the participants were fair. They were giving fair points. And if they didn't, we throw them out. Nobody was okay. It was not a problem, and they had up to a certain number of points to give, and they were fair, and it so we also had some feedback from the receiver. Unfortunately, a little bit unfortunately, we had to take it out of the competition because of COVID. We we had to make the championship as a hybrid championship. That means, oh, because it because of, well, let me think about this, because of COVID. You still tried to run the championship through, probably not 2020 but, but maybe 2122 and then just here we are now, 25 it's been a gradual like re, re introduction into it's okay to be touched. It's okay to have somebody close to you. Oh my gosh, that's a whole nother thought. But wait, so let me just back up a little bit. You said that initially, in the first three years, the competitor, as a competitor, you also were the receiver. So as a competitor, you also were able to be a judge, which is a cool idea. I see where you say there could be challenge there, because then someone's gonna say, well, that's not fair. They didn't judge me, right? And they, you know, and he's a competitor. So I get where that challenge would be, but I'm trying to understand that then changed at COVID time. So that means that the competition probably started in 27 17. Am I right? I think he's is that when the first competition was, he had one in 1718, and 19, and then maybe, is my timeline? Am I thinking correctly? Was it? Was it was postponed in 2020 Yeah, 2021 we wanted to continue no matter what I'm with you. I know, yeah, but it was very much because we wanted to promote the massage provision. We want to keep it alive. Yeah, yes, so and, but the thing then we had to do it hybrid. So 50% of the participant had to do it, stay at home. Could not travel to Copenhagen, and maybe 50% could come. It was open, but it was difficult. Yes. Oh, so, for example, you are actually in your studio. Now, I think your massage clinic, yes, yeah, you have a nice camera. You can, you can give a massage with a camera. You can even have two cameras, if you like, and then this way we could see the massage. We had a huge screen where we could see maybe 10 participants at the time. Yeah. It went amazing. Good for many reasons. When you do online, the judges sit and can see everybody. They are not going through the massage tables and don't see what is behind them, yeah. So actually, it went very well, and, and, but the thing is, why couldn't we take the points? It was because the receiver could have been your mother, you know? Yeah, yeah, Mom's gonna give me a 10. Yeah. It's only in the big overall final that we have judge judge, receivers now. And there was another problem also with with the participants being judges as well. For the first three years, all participants were judges, judges in the final they could give one point to the ones they thought was the very best. Yeah, the problem is that there were maybe 20 from Thailand and one from Hungary, and now it's not really valid anymore, so we had to take that also out. So now it's only the judges, and we also take some judges out if they have former students, yeah. So in order to make it valid, trustworthy and all this, we are very careful how we judge these championships. Wow, man. I love the attention of detail, so great. And I like the fact that the way you broke down the categories, and if I were, if I were, I mean, I'll be really honest right away. When I saw the competition, I thought I got to go to this like, not, not because I want to, like, assert my like, I think I'm the best massage therapist in the world. I'm coming, you know, like, but more like, I just want to be around everybody and just learn from everyone that just sounds so cool to me. But then when you when you bring up the idea of the categories, and then just to even promote to therapists that are just entering the field that these are some of the different characteristics that you're going to want to really put attention into. And I'm sorry, because when you said ergonomics, I thought you said economics, but now I understand when you said ergonomics, my mind went to like, oh, the economy of movement and energy. But I guess maybe that is the same thing as ergonomics, in the sense that that's that's kind of what. No, no, no, no, your English is amazing. No worries. There I am. I, you know, as being a therapist for a long time, this really does matter. To be able to keep using our joints in our profession for six to seven to eight hours a day, you know, requires a lot of attention to detail, and then the fact that you're bringing up the flow and the pace, and I don't know that maybe even someone who's listening that is not a massage therapist that hasn't worked doing body work, I think probably everyone listening has received a massage, even to even think about what the therapist is gaging as they're working, and some of the detail that is going into perfect, the art, I love that you're bringing this to the forefront. I think this is so important. I can see where you're you're combining all of your background, your sports background, your professionalism in sports, your business background, and the passion for the bodywork community, having learned it from your grandma, what a great combination of elements. I'll let you continue, but I just want to highlight some of the things that you're you're bringing to the table here. Sorry for the pun, but, um, you know, keep keep going, please. I feel like I maybe I interrupted you, but I want to hear. More about how the structure of the competition works. Yeah. Now we have nine categories. The last one was what we call body shaping massage. So it's we are actually trying to combine the massage profession with the beauty profession and the wellness profession. Wow, yeah. And we're trying to build bridges here, and it's very big. Actually, this body shaping massage, especially in Eastern Europe and also other places, actually very good. It was a French slash Swiss woman winning last year, and she was, by the way, this same woman actually also won in facial massage. So we have some different categories, and we try to, we will not take all massage methods in now, because it has to be also a little bit valid. It's also difficult to find the right judges. We have to educate the judges at the same time. You know, it's not, it's not easy. We when the beginning, there were no massage judges, and we had to find the very best that could evaluate massage by seeing so we was not anyway, I will tell you a little bit about another thing that we we do here at the International massage Association. We Our job is, of course, to promote the massage provision, and we do it, of course, with the World Championship in massage. But due to COVID, we came up with another great idea. We we've made the best massage promotion competition. We don't really have a good name for it, the best, way say that again, the best massage promotion, promotion competition, like who can promoting the massage profession in one way. It could be, it could be that you are promoting your clinic, or it could be that you're promoting a massage Method or an event you do your spa or whatever. So, so it's actually about making competition. And the idea is, of course, that everyone can see what good promotion is, and from there, become better themselves. Wow. Excellent idea. Where did that one come out? Who? I mean, obviously the one of the big challenges in our profession is that we come into it with a love and passion or desire to be great at the craft, and then to be a good business person on top of it and learn all of the skills essential to self promotion can often feel so overwhelming and like but wait, I don't have that background, and then little over time, we become really great business, entrepreneurially minded individuals on top of great body workers. But you're right, that is such a skill that requires a lot of education and learning. I love the fact that you're weaving that in and bringing that to the forefront too. Yeah, and it's, of course we debate what good massage is as a promotion video idea, okay? And of course, we have, we have had this competition in 2122 2324 44 years. And maybe we have 121, 30 videos that we are receiving and is evaluating and actually very proud of the winners. I think they are very good videos. You can see them on our on our website and so on. But we did actually a survey. I want to tell you a little bit about. It's not American survey. It's actually a Danish survey. But we we try to find out, why are we losing our clients? How come that we are losing clients, and how many are we actually losing and why are we losing them? And we made a big survey where we asked many, many clients, and they say they they want to try something new. Yeah, 1/3 of the clientele are leaving us because they want to try something new. However, if you can give them a new experience once in a while, the chances that they stay rises, Okay, makes sense. So this is why we had to go to to get learn a new stuff, whatever use of bamboo, or use of copying or something, you have to give them a new experience once in a while. And then they found out, okay, what you actually do is actually quite amazing. I stay with you. And so, so the promotional video competition is very much. Much about inspire to do new things, new stuff, and to find out what really is interesting. Yeah, well, that's a great idea. I like that spin, and I feel like probably taking that angle, like when you make mention of, how do you judge promotional material? Because if you highlight somebody just showing skin and turn and maybe misrepresenting a therapeutic environment and just trying to make it look like maybe bringing too much of sexuality in, or some other component that obviously gets a lot of a lot of likes that type of thing. We know that, but we got to maintain some sort of ethics. So the fact that you're leaning on this, this concept that you bring up about innovation and or, let's highlight something new, I think that's also brilliant, man, you're I love seeing the accelerating at the beta, yeah. Man, how cool. Well, man, where do you get all your motivation from? I mean, is this just springing up from within? I mean, obviously being around other professionals, I understand what you said. You hit this point in 2014 of like, I need some motivation. I think you're, you're lending us toward the direction of we get motivation from each other. We get this from we, I mean, we'd like to sometimes think, Oh, I'm so great. It comes from within me and but no, it's through community. It's through, listen, I didn't really know what I started when I began. Tell it again, as you can imagine, I always say this because it's a little funny. But anyway, I there are two important days in your life, Mark Twain told us the day you were born and the day you find out why. And back in 2017 after the First World Championship, I began to realize really my purpose. We do one or two things in life that actually matters. And here it was, creating a community across borders, an international community that had never seen before. And the first half is, of course, it was my intention, but I never see that the need for this community was this big. Yeah, I didn't realize that, actually. And now, after the first championships, we saw people traveling across borders to help each other teach. And blah, blah, blah, blah, you know. And, and me, myself and many others have now been teaching in America, in Asia, of course, in Europe and, yeah, many, many places, okay, and, and it's interesting because there are many that's me, who are school owners. We we can find the best teachers at the World Championship, yeah. And teachers can find new school owners, yeah. And therapists can can, of course, share their skills and find inspiration. And we do it, by the way, also have workshops at the World Championships, yeah. And let me tell you now you are an American podcaster here. And America was a little late within these championships. But then we have now had three American championships in connection with the world massage festival. Wow, yeah, we will have the fourth year in July in Las Vegas. And I can only encourage Americans to show up and share their skills. So July of 25 in Las Vegas, there'll be, like, a branch of the international competition you're holding in Europe that'll be affiliated through you following the same protocol and standards and judging criteria in Las Vegas. How cool. I didn't now, I know. I guess I know. I guess I know where I'm going in July. Yeah, you should actually just another thing. It's very important that therapists, schools, spas, support these hosts and events. If you really want to meet and have fun and share, we should go, yeah. I just before we had this conversation, I sent an email to many, many former participants at the Danish championship, and I encourage them to come on, guys, come and boost your career. Come and have fun, because they need it, and they also want it, yeah, but sometimes they needed to be reminded, yeah. Yes, I agree. I mean, even just watching the videos of the some of the techniques that the people are doing blew my mind. I thought, Wow. I guess maybe I'm getting stale and look at these incredible different maneuvers they're doing within this little structure of just the shoulder, like just focusing on one part of the body, the shoulder. Whoa, I haven't done that movement before. What? Let me try that. And so even just the learning component of the content that's coming out of the competition, in and of itself, is really amazing. And I think the true testament, you know, with the power of social media, and the fact that somebody came in because, like, he'd never, he'd never had Thai massage, and here he's watching somebody do this, really, the choreography of the movement that I was witnessing, that I saw, that he showed me. I thought, well, yeah, I see why you wanted to come in. You're right. That looks amazing. I want to meet that guy. Actually reached out to the one of the winners. And, you know, I was trying to get some of the winners to come onto the show. I haven't had any luck yet, just because maybe there's a language challenge for which I again, I want to thank you. You're multilingual. I am not. I only speak English. You're speaking multiple languages. I'm sure. I know, obviously, you know, you're Danish and English. How many languages, languages do you speak? Happy with you, with you, working with all these different cultures around the world. Listen, I manage, of course, understanding and speak a little bit German and also Dutch, because I used to live in the Netherlands for three years, wow. But, of course, I understand Norwegian Swedish and so on. But listen, it's English. Is the common language here. And this is also interesting, because in many ways, I am the average of everyone, really. And of course, there is a big world speaking English, but the rest of the world doesn't, so we have to find an understandable English, and the way to communicate and time is, of course, easier now for many reasons. Now we can even use apps to translate right away if needed, but English is for now, at least the language I will tell you something because you keep reminding me, we my big purpose with this is, of course, to share all the knowledge that we receive from all our amazing participants and teachers and all the networks. So we actually go around when I say we is me, and very often with a co teacher, we teach classes and we actually try to teach what the trend is and and also teach what we really have been taught or learned from all the amazing therapists. And because you could keep telling me that you have learned Thai massage, and Thai massage is very, very interesting in many, many ways, actually very proud, because after three World Championships time, massage came on to the uniscus World Heritage List. Yeah, I'm not saying we had anything to do with that, but I'm pretty proud. It's a nice con, yeah, nice thing that happened that year in 2019 anyway, we have made a surveys regarding the Seven World Championships that we have done, we have done it with the number of medals, but we have also done it with the average of points. And the last thing we have only done for three years, but it's very interesting because it's it shows us that timers as is, at least in the statistic, the best massage Method in the world. Wow, yeah, there is. That's cause for celebration. Man, that is really I agree. I mean, personally, when I first came in contact with Thai massage in Thailand. I was practicing here in Florida. I graduated in 2000 and somebody had asked me, well, what are you going to do with, you know, what modality Do you want to go down? Do you want to learn craniosacral therapy? Do you want to learn Feldenkrais? Do you want to neuromuscular therapy? Or, you know, on the list goes on, there's so many options. And I was like, I don't know. I'm not sure. I just wanted to do massage. I didn't know I had to, like, specialize. What are you talking about? And then, well, they said, Well, what are you what are you interested in? Like, what's your you know, and I, I was really passionate about yoga, and I was just loving the body work. Like, well, have you heard of Thai massage? I said, No. And they were like, well, it's the perfect blend of yoga, body movement massage. And I just went light bulb, like, Oh my gosh. And so I had never had a Thai massage, and I'm like, I'm going to Thailand. So I went to Thailand, and when I had my first Thai massage, again, this just like, this is the best. This is this brings every element of all the different things I've been practicing and studying. It just. Seemed like it synthesized it in such a incredible way. Then you have the culture, and you have the history, and you have the blending of cultures that created Thai massage. And I just, I've been so enamored with it all along. So I but the big challenge when I came back to Florida, you know, you leave, you're in the center. You're in an epicenter of Study and Learning and culture and everyone knowing about something, and then you leave that epicenter, and you find nobody knows about what I'm excited about. And so education about what Thai massage is, has been my biggest journey, or a big part of just being a practitioner is the education part. So I love hearing what you're saying. I just it just just makes me I just can't tell you how happy I am. Thai massage is so, so good, because it also have a problem, I tell you in a moment, please, is, of course, a good pressure, or massages, hopefully has good pressure, but pressure and it contain stretching and joint mobilization. And as you say, you come in and it's very nice atmosphere. There is a little smell of whatever, and it's very cozy when you go into these clinics, and very nice most of the time, at least. The thing is with thy massage, and why it's not really perfect is that it is not adapted very much to the different kind of tissue. Okay, of course, we try to adapt which techniques we are using, because we have to. And it's time. Massage is endless of massage scripts, but you understand that, what are we working with? Are we working with the muscles? Is the tendons, or are we talking about fascia? It all requires different time. And what you see in thy massage, it's the same pace, very often, okay, very often. And so so many of the therapists are doing magic numbers, you know, three, three pressure, here, for there, and so on. And which is nice, and it's also nice mentally, because the receiver can relax and almost meditate, meditative. Meditate, meditate. It is meditate, and but it's not perfect. It is not perfect. And can we reach perfection? It's a good question. I don't have the answer. I like the fact that you're as optimistic as you are. It can reach perfection? Another question, though happy along that note and where my mind went when you said the challenge with it, people with orthopedic disorders, and say, going into a session with somebody who just like, say, back bending, for example, in the classic Cobra, where we put the knees on the hamstrings, catch the hands, lean back and facilitate somebody coming into a really deep extension. I personally have spondylolisthesis, and so back bending is really painful now, and so I'm really scared sometimes to go to a Thai massage with somebody who doesn't really know what they're doing, because they're just gonna they learn these moves, and they think I'm just gonna do these moves on everybody, and then there's so much variation within each person's orthopedic situation that I just crave expertise. But I am finding it fascinating that you are pointing out the pacing and the timing and the relationship to the work on each specific tissue and and that there's, there's a there's the capacity and potential for improvement. Amazing. I will, I will add a little bit please, please. In 2017 and 2018 we also have a theory test within anatomy, physiology, pathology, history, philosophy at the World Championship, it was in English, and I tell you that even though the Thai therapists were amazing, they truly failed here in theory of the Anatomy and Physiology. We wanted to use this knowledge. We wanted to find out, what are they missing really, not only the tie, but everybody, all countries, so and we we also used it if necessary, if there was a tie within points, then we used the theory. But it never really was an issue, and we never used it really, and we had to take it out, because if you make a test, you will have to do it in all languages. Okay, so we took it out, but we learned a lot from it. We learned about what the Romanians were good at and not good at, and the Thai and. And the Americans and blah, blah, blah, wow, wow. Very interesting. But we also realize another thing, that especially in Europe, we don't have massage teacher educations. You have in America some massage instructor courses. And in Thailand, they also have a few instructor courses. Maybe you have taken one yourself, but especially in Europe, it was just massage therapists that were teaching other therapists. And the problem is, you might be a good therapist, but that doesn't mean that you understand how to each others great point. I realized this very, very early in the in the process. So together with Ryan hoyman, massagement.com and three Russians, we who has a festival in Russia. This was before war and all this, we created what we call International Teacher classes, two classes. We began, of course, with physically classes, because this was before COVID And before war. And now we have done it into online classes. So wherever you are, you can take our basic class and our advanced class, really, and we are trying to give some knowledge in many things when you're a teacher, because you and I, everybody learns in different ways, and we need skills to teach this way, whether this is you need skills within online teaching, or skills within communication or whatever, yeah, so, so we this is another thing that actually has improved the massage profession, especially in Europe. We have now educated more than 150 teachers around the world, from Sri Lanka to America to whatever, yeah, which is, which is nice, yeah, that's amazing that we had to benefit or developed, yeah. Oh my gosh. You understand the problem. I understand the problem. One of the biggest challenges in doing trainings and teaching other people to be teachers. Oh, there's so many challenges. You brought up. A bunch of them, you know, but it's an important task. Important task, yes, and nobody did the task. Really, there was these instructor programs. I don't know them actually in America, I just know you have them. Maybe you can find out the level and so on. And what are the criteria to begin a school? And this is the problem, really, that all countries have different rules. Yeah, we cannot even say to the participants or our students. Hey, you can begin your school in Italy without any problems with this class. Italy has some rules. Spain has rules and so on. So it's just an inspiration platform that people can take, you know, can use, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, how? Well, I just thank you for building bridges in the international community. I haven't really, I haven't met someone like you in a while that's really pushing extensively to build bridges and and I like from what I'm picking up on, the fairness component, like you said this, okay, if we have a standard test in anatomy and physiology, it needs to be offered in all these different languages. We can't expect someone to come and be feel welcome. If we have this exclusion area component of you can only do it if you know English. You know so and you're taking all of these things into consideration, which is obviously necessary if we're going to build a cooperative, global community. I know most of us are working in the community level, with our within our own culture, you know, on the ground, you know, in the office, with people in face and I just think, though that we need people like you. He to do what you're doing now, when you mentioned the Mark Twain quote, I'm gonna agree with you, you found your calling, because this is really important work. So I just I'm grateful. Thank you so much. You it, do you? Where do we go from here? Like not you and I? Yeah, of course. I want people to come to Denmark and share their skills and have fun. Do this also have. Fun. And of course, the World Championship is a little serious, because it's a world championship and but we have other events you can go to, not only ima, but we people who also outside ima is having an event. They have a good event in Romania, for example. We also have seams charity events in Germany, and we have a lot of national championships going on everywhere in the world. And my job is really to come and help them make sure that everything is in order and is valid, and they consider all what they have to consider. So so now we go around and and most of the championships are open, for example. Now you are in USA in beginning of March, March the second there is a Mexican championship in Tijuana. Wow. Very nice place. I don't know about the city, but it's very nice. Host a very nice event, and people can Google it and find it and and I will also say, in Canada, near Montreal, half an hour drive from Montreal, there is a Canadian International Canadian championship in the beginning of April, and that's one that is a very good one. Nice to take an airplane get to Montreal and find it, because this is it was awarded Best National Championship at the World Championship, best national championship at the world championship last year, because it is the best the year before, it was the championship in Japan, which is a, well, maybe the biggest national championship, at least it is the biggest event, because besides having maybe a 200 participants, or 150 or something like that, they have maybe 1500 at the workshops that is connected with the Japanese championship, and they will have another championship here in May as well, in Tokyo. Wow, that would be so amazing to go to Japan and do a massage. I'm calling myself, by the way, so and take and take workshops and learn and like, have, like, a whole array of different modalities to and have all these people get together, oh, man, what is the overall vibe? I mean, I'm imagining like when you said hungry, I thought, Wow, I've never been to hungry. How cool would it be to just arrive in Hungary meet a bunch of other people that are doing the same thing as me, and then actually probably receive a fair amount of body work, as well as share body work and have that, that sort of connection and and then obviously leaving having met and made new friends that probably will last beyond and go down the road. So I'm what is your overall feeling? I mean, you know during these events, I mean, you got to be, I know you're probably, you probably hit some stress levels that maybe your next level. Because when I you know, I know how much work I've see my other friends that are that engage in these large events or coordinate these large events, I'm always mind boggled at the amount of plates they're spinning at once. And how do you manage your stress when you're hitting those peak challenge moments when you're spinning multiple plates? Yeah, listen, it's tough. Always very tough. And of course, during the big events, I don't sleep very much, yeah, but I am pretty healthy. You know, daily life, I always exercise and get as much rest as possible. So but, but I also do all these things because I want to explore the world, and now it gives me a reason. Just last weekend, I visit Dublin and Belfast, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Northern Ireland. We never been there. I know many. I want to go so bad. What was it like? Yeah, it was amazing. I and I tell you, it's because I had a student, a Romanian student. I taught in Romania, here in, I don't know, November or October last year. And I found out, Hey, she's living in Dublin, and I've never been to Dublin. And then my wife and I, we, we like traveling, of course, when we have the opportunity. And I we went to Dublin, she took care of us. We went to some museums, and we went to Northern Ireland to see Belfast and many things anyway. So we do this also for private reasons, really, to have a social life, to have fun, yeah, great point. Great point. It is a great point. Then, exactly. They have some fun. Let me so you make time for fun, you'd make Yeah, and of course, I mean, I think for me, the best holidays are very often with other people, not only my wife and I, but with other people also. And I like that, yeah, we have been many places, and we will continue doing this absolutely also when I 10 years from now, because now we know people all over the world and the participants, it's the same. They come and meet and they found out, hey, Mongolia is just around the corner. We fly to Mongolia or whatever. So it's, it's very nice. Well, HEPA, I'm so grateful. I really appreciate this opportunity. I want to make sure that everybody listening will have a very easy time of finding the links to make so they can get a view, a visual of everything that we've been speaking about, I have your website, which is, I know I'm messing up how a pronunciation of your last name, but it's spelled t, N, G, B, J, E, R, G, dot, D, K, pronounce for me, please. 10 gear. Thank you. I'm gonna keep trying. I promise. I will. I will. I will try. Where else should we look any further than that? Because I noticed when I went to your website, I needed to go into the upper left where there was the little lines, and then I could go down to where there was English, and then I could see some English. And from information in English, is there another website that would highlight the actual competition, or like a main hub spot that, or is going to that website that I just mentioned really the the primo place to go. And you should find that wasn't my Danish site. You should find the world massage the World Championship and massage page, the International massage Association, okay? And there you will find all the links for the all the social medias, and we have many okay with the you are on Instagram, Facebook, whether you are a YouTuber, whether the threats and the Twitter and the WhatsApp channel and the telegram channel, you have it all nice. Join and find us and enjoy all right. Well, thank you again. I look forward to meeting you in person one day at your event in your home country. It would be an honor to visit, and I want to stay in touch with you. Happy to see how I can further get involved. And again, I really appreciate your generosity with responding to my request to join me here and and your graciousness. So thank you again. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Native yoga. Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time you.