A Guide To Gua Sha

Welcome to "A Guide To Gua Sha". Gua Sha is a form of therapy that is common all throughout China and through a lot of the Far East. It's a form of therapy that doesn't require too much in the way of medical knowledge and how to perform.

As a consequence, it's considered a "peasant" form of treatment, so that anyone could do it. It's slightly looked down upon in certain circles within Chinese medicine because it's a very common form of treatment that almost anyone can perform. Most of the time, you can even do it for yourself, although sometimes, if you need to reach the back, you will need the help of someone else.

What you're going to need is a tool which has a soft, curved edge and any kind of lubricant or liniment. So, here we've got a Chinese ceramic soup spoon, which works very well with a curved edge. We have specific tools for Gua Sha where you have, for example, this is a buffalo horn-shaped tool that works with, just the end, smooth edges, Chinese cash coins, again, smooth edges.

You want to make sure that there are no sharp edges for scraping. Some people even use wooden tools, wooden implements, and other people even use stones. This is a piece of obsidian, which is again, very, very smoothly shaped.

Very common forms of liniments would be using red flower oil. For deep, muscular pains and things, wood liquor, and for general purpose, massage lotion, but you can use olive oil in your own home, you can use a jam jar lid, anything that's going to be easy and convenient. Gua Sha treats any kind of ache and pain, muscular-skeletal, particularly arthritic aches and pains.

In China, it's known as the "tool for immortality" amongst the elderly. So, it treats the pain from arthritis. It treats the pain from injuries, long-term injuries, and it's also extremely useful, like cupping, for colds and flus.

This is a guide to gua sha. For more information on how to apply it, see our other films about gua sha. .