in short
About Pichest Boonthumme
Pichest Boonthumme was born in 1958 in Hang Dong, near Chiang Mai. His father, a traditional Thai medicine doctor, taught him the basics of Thai massage and Thai medicine. In his twenties he became a practitioner at the Old Medicine Hospital (Shivagakomarpaj) in Chiang Mai, where by the early 1980s he was one of the most important practitioners and teachers. Asokananda, founder of the Sunshine Network, met him there and helped make his name known in the West. In the 1990s he moved his therapy and teaching practice back home to Hang Dong, where students from around the world came to learn from him. He was known for an intuitive, intense and therapeutic style without fixed sequences, for stressing 'feeling' over 'too much thinking', and for good body mechanics. He died on 21 August 2023, and his son Aon continues the Boonthumme Thai Massage School.