Gua Sha: How Touch At The Surface Affects The Interior Of The Body 

How does bodywork work anyway? How does manipulation at the surface, through techniques of touch or even needle poking, ramify into the interior? This is asked by many patients and providers struggling to mend the break in their body/mind. We know bodywork feels good, mostly. But how do we understand its therapeutic means?

The East Asian medical construct is that healing occurs by way of the vertical and horizontal movement of Qi, within the channels and within the Li, the lining or 'network of bags': collectively the fascia and connective tissue. Through the connective tissue, the channels traverse a terrain that surrounds every cell, fiber, and organ. Every aspect of your touch, from the warmth of your the hand, to your thoughts and intentions, enter. How deep and to what effect depends on the state of the terrain and the technique used.

If you give care with your hands you know the somatic conversation of touch meeting resistance, invitation, yielding, then entering an even deeper conversation. This is intelligent fascia talking to intelligent fascia. These external layers of fascia are contiguous with every internal cell, ramifying now in both directions from external to internal and vice versa.

But when Blood is stuck in the surface fascia, fabric and function are compromised. There is pain, and a slowing of normal processes, not only there at the surface, but also deeper in the organs. When you palpate, you recognize the signs: trigger point banding, unyielding tightness, blanching of the flesh that is slow to fade. These are signs of Sha (pronounced sah). Gua Sha moves this stuck blood, immediately relieves pain and restores the normal processes of circulation from surface to interior and back again. It is easy to apply, and the results are unparalleled.

Gua Sha is one of the best-kept secrets of East Asian medicine. Not because someone has been keeping it from us, but because our modern worldview belittles the traditional healing practices of ancestral medicine. The language of how it works and why it works is different, some might say antiquated. Yet Gua Sha is part of this tradition of healing practice that leaves patients and providers stunned, asking: 'How come I didn’t know about this?'

Continue with the Gua Sha FAQs.

First Appeared In
PULSE, the journal by the American Oriental Bodywork Therapy Association (AOBTA)