PRE-THAI BIO
Deon de Wet, from Dutch and French ancestry, was born and raised in South Africa, speaking Afrikaans as a first language.
After completing his National Military Service in the Namibia/Angola border region in South West Africa, he went to Business School and graduated from the University of Pretoria, South Africa with a degree in Business Administration and Marketing Management.
For the next few years he travelled around the world, volunteering on a Kibbutz in Israel, hitch-hiking from New York to Los Angeles and traversing Europe several times. Eventually he settled in Los Angeles and began a corporate career in sales, then business consulting and ultimately executive management of an indoor air purification company.
Throughout his life, he has been consistently devoted to the pursuit of self-realization, enlightenment, living fully and loving deeply
TRAINING BACKGROUND
Deon first discovered “Nuad Bo Rarn”, Traditional Thai Massage, while traveling in Thailand on vacation. It brought forth sensations of emotional and spiritual well-being, similar to those related to periods of deep meditation. He also experienced a profound sense of Bliss and connection to his body, previously only felt after vigorous exercise.
On his return to the USA, he began a period of intensive and ongoing training with Saul David Raye, who had spent years learning the system while living in a Hill Tribe Village in Northern Thailand. Saul was personally certified to teach this ancient healing art by the legendary Asokananda, one of the world's foremost experts in Traditional Thai Massage.
After completing several training courses, retreats and evaluation of hundreds of hours of work, he was certified by Saul as an Advanced Thai Yoga Therapy Practitioner and has continued to train with him since then. In the same year, Deon also became a Certified Massage Therapist, after receiving thorough training in Swedish and Circulatory Massage at IPSB, the Institute for Psycho-Structural Balancing in Culver City, California. He has been practicing Yoga for many years and obtained his Teacher Training Certificate in the Anusara style of Hatha Yoga.
Deon still returns to Thailand periodically, where he spends time in Chiang Mai, studying with and experiencing treatment sessions from master Thai Massage practitioners and teachers such as Pichest Boonthumme, one of Asokananda's early teachers.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Deon retired from his position as a corporate executive in 2002. Since then he has been spending his time helping people to feel better from the inside out through his unique interpretation of Thai-style Yogic Bodywork, regularly seeing clients for private treatments in Los Angeles, New York City and London.
He has always been deeply committed to providing the utmost in care and compassion to his clients and students. As a result, he has integrated techniques and wisdom obtained from his ongoing personal practice of Hatha Yoga and Meditation as well as from the many other mind/body healing traditions experienced along the way.
As his therapy practice evolved, Deon started to share the profound wisdom of the work with other people by teaching Guided Partner Classes at Yoga studios around Los Angeles. Next, he formalized a curriculum and created guidebooks. He has been offering more in-depth training, focused on the essentials, intermediate and more advanced techniques of Traditional Thai Massage (Northern style), within a Yogic frame of reference. Deon’s unique approach combines assisted Yoga stretches and Traditional Thai Massage in a way that is accessible for everyone. He has even created an adaptation of the technique, traditionally performed on a mat on the floor, to make it useful for the therapist that intends to practice on a treatment bed or massage table.
Deon also teaches for The International Dermal Institute as a featured international guest instructor. His workshops, aimed at post-graduate skin and body therapists have been very well received. As a result of the positive student feedback, he continues to teach across the USA and internationally.
To date, he has trained massage and skin-care therapists, yoga practitioners and instructors, couples, friends and family all over the USA, in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa. As a professional instructor, he has been certified as an approved provider of continuing education credits (CEC’s) by the National Certification Board of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB).
PERSONAL INFO
Deon lives in the Upper Ojai Valley, Ventura County, California with his wife Michaela. Whenever he is not treating clients, teaching students or practicing Yoga, he can be found happily walking the dogs (3), petting the cats (3) and occasionally blasting through the canyons on his way to the desert on his BMW GS1200 motorcycle.
