THESE days, a massage is not just a massage. Newfangled treatments are often created, more for a spa to differentiate itself than for the true therapeutic qualities of the treatments themselves.

So it is nice to find that at the newly opened St Gregory spa at Pan Pacific Singapore, the menu has been kept relatively simple, with familiar favourites as staples.

The smart thing to do when one is located in a hotel is to draw customers' attention to rituals they want, and that's exactly what the spa does.

Hence, the focus is on signature and therapeutic rituals for jetsetters and those suffering from jetlag. These combine body massages with scrubs, facials or foot massages, in tantalising packages lasting 80 to 145 minutes each, that weary travellers - and stressed locals - will find hard to resist.

At the same time, the 13-year-old spa brand known for offering specialised and traditional Asian healing therapies such as Chinese Tui Na and Thai massage, along with western massages, is also willing to tweak things a bit to improve on the old favourites where necessary.

A case in point is the Experiencing Thai ($168 for 80 mins) spa ritual, which comprises a 60-minute traditional Thai massage and a 20-minute Thai herbal compress.

In a typical Thai massage, you lie on a padded mat on the floor and the therapist works on you with her hands, elbows, knees, legs, and feet, stretching your limbs as she goes along. Combined with the muscle compression, joint mobilisation and acupressure involved, the kneading and manipulation can easily exceed your comfort level. Add to that the loud cracking of your joints and bending of your spine, and the fear factor often makes people averse to this treatment.

At St Gregory PanPac, however, customers lie on a massage bed, their eyes covered by an eye pillow. The therapist is thus standing on the floor, and she does not use her knees, feet or full body weight for the treatment. Instead, she employs mostly her thumbs, palms and sometimes, her elbows. There is more stretching of limbs and targetting of acupoints than the cracking of joints or getting you into contortions. It also helps when you have a therapist like Nid, a Thai with a reassuring smile, who checks if the pressure applied is all right with you as she works.

Throughout the massage, there were only two instances of audible cracking - both from the toes - unless, of course, you allow Nid to end the massage with a cracking spinal twist. This movement - where you're sitting, and she's behind you with her arms under yours and around the back of your neck - can be scary, but when correctly done, is more likely to elicit a satisfied "ahhh…" then a tortured "ouch". The therapy ends with a very relaxing head massage - minus the alarming neck twists that Thai massages are also known for.

In St Gregory's ritual, the massage is followed by a Thai herbal compress (for this, you remove the spa's loose-fitting clothes that you've been wearing), where two heated herbal compresses are applied quickly to points along your back and limbs to soothe sore muscles, improve blood circulation and supposedly detoxify your body.

You may or may not buy into all of this, but one thing's for sure - because Thai massage essentially gets you "exercised" while you're lying down, you do walk out feeling less stiff, more mobile and both relaxed and energised at the same time.

All this is done in the serene environment of the spa's 5,400 sq ft, Japanese-accented interiors where lots of natural materials like wood and stones are used. The spa has eight treatment rooms, including two couple rooms complete with traditional cedar wood hot tubs (mu tong) imported from the US.

St Gregory's latest outlet - it has three others in Singapore - isn't the place to head to for fancy treatments, but it is unlikely to disappoint if you're looking for therapies rooted in traditional techniques.

St Gregory
Level 4, Pan Pacific Singapore
7 Raffles Boulevard, Marina Square
6826-8140