How to distribute a stroke?
Answer:
I would watch a movie near someone giving a massage to someone. When you try to pat someone, massage the muscle next to mild pressure in a flowing process.
Your best bet is to find a school that teach massage. There is too much detail work to cram from a book or just experimenting. There are three different kind of massage. Find out which one you want to revise. Whether you want to give polish for fun or profit, it will help to cram from someone who has be giving massage for a long time. Its constituent attitude, part knowhow and some intuition. Is this really what you want to do?
I agree with aspirit. There is a ton of information available, because nearby is so much to it. Massage therapists enjoy to learn almost as much more or less the body as doctors do. So much so, that Canada requires 3000 hours of instruction on the subject.
If you just want to do it for a family unit member, spouse, etc you could swing by your local book store and find an instructional book. There are plenty of them.