Gua Sha Day

Both these people receiving gua sha remarked on the chronic pain and tension they felt throughout their neck and back, and in particular along the length of the spine. Examination discovered sharp pain elicited when the intervertebral spaces were probed, and both responded with a resounding "yes", to the simple, yet very neglected question, "do you feel an uncomfortable degree of heat throughout the spine?" Heat manifesting into "sha", a heat toxin, is formed when these spaces become compacted and jammed up.

The obvious line of redness seen down the mid axis, demonstrates this concentration of heat, previously locked within, been brought to the surface during and treatment. Immediately after, both people experienced marked relief and increased mobility.

Please note: To achieve an excellent result, Gua Sha should be performed at a comfort level for the patient - not performed harshly as is too often the case.

Posted 28 October, 2016

The top photo: A part of the course of action using Gua Sha techniques to eliminate temporal headache. Photo taken during class with doctors at the Tenguru Hospital in Tanzania.

Below: What to do if you suffer sunstroke. This is especially called for when a cold/icy towel on the back of the neck while eating cooling watermelon is just not going to cut it.

In 1998 I was in Xinjiang province in China's north-west, travelling by bus to Tianshan, known as one of China’s “three furnaces”. In these shimmering desert landscapes people mostly live underground and not a soul is seen when the sun is high. On the way there, I passed “Flaming Mountain”, made famous by its description in the classic "Journey to the West", aka "Monkey". It was incredibly hot as I sat on the back seat of a bus for four hours with the sun beating down on the back of my neck. When I arrived, as I was getting off the bus, I felt a bit shaky; an hour later as the sun began to sink, I felt decidedly unwell and emotionally unhinged. It is after all no less than having your brain fried.

It was my first experience of summerheat syndrome (heat exhaustion) and luckily my hotel manager knew what to do. As I sat outdoors in the eating area shaded by grape vines, he noticed how my world was falling apart and said: “We get this all the time, let me fix you up.” He did gua sha to the top of my head, beginning at the point Bai Hui (Du-20) and scraped some 6–7cm (two inches) towards my forehead. Next, from Bai Hui, he scraped the same distance to the left and right side of the point, and then down the midline towards the back of my neck. Each line fanning out in 4 directions from Bai Hui was performed 20 times. By the time this phase one was completed, I experienced a palpable pouring out of heat leave from the top of my head, in the form of an ascending column.

He concluded by scraping from Feng Chi (GB20) down the midlines of both sides of the trapezius muscles. The entire process took only a few minutes and immediately I felt like I had never had a problem in the first place!

It was truly an impressive recovery and I know of no other method that would have come close to the benefit I got, let alone in a ridiculously short time. The explanation is this. The heat, which rises in the body (as heat does), was efficiently vented at and around the Bai Hui point, as well as released from the neck and upper back. My scalp and trapezius were a veritable mass of sha – and I could not have been happier. Isn’t it terrific when we practitioners have such an effective and insightful healing experience - and having a hotel manager cum gua sha practitioner do it on site is just one example of what I love about Asia.

Posted 26 January, 2017