Gua Sha

Posts Tagged gua sha

7 Must Have Books in Chinese Medicine

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Yael12 Comments

Sometimes it feels as though there’s a sea of books in Chinese Medicine.
So many interesting books, how can one choose what to buy?
I will try in this post to write the must have books I feel are essential for practitioners and/or students in Chinese Medicine. This list also contains some books that are still on my wish-list, due to lack of funds they are still on the list and not on my book shelf…
This is of course just what I think, there are many wonderful books out there that can help you grow in your career.

The I Ching- Richard Wilhelm
I just started reading it, but this book talks about a field in it’s own right.
Not to mention one of the most interesting books I have ever read.
Essentially, this is the book that talks about the change between Yin and Yang. And this is one of the more important ideas in Chinese philosophy. Understanding it will give us a better grasp on Chinese Medicine.

Tags: books, chinese medicine books, claude larre, cupping, elizabeth rochat de la vallee, gua sha, I ching, leon hammer, peter deadman

Filed Under: Practitioners notes, The Library

Posted on May 20, 2008 by Yael1 Comment

Tong Ze Bu Tong, Bu Tong Ze Tong- so claims an old wise Chinese saying- free flow- no pain; no free flow- pain.
One of the first things on which Chinese Medicine is based upon is the free flow of Qi and Blood in the body.
Gua Sha is a 5,000 year old technique, and by applying it one can move stagnations of Qi and Blood in different areas of the body and encourage free flow to those areas.
Along with cupping, these techniques do not recieve the proper attention during the 4 CM school years in the west. I chose to talk about Gua Sha in this post, as it is a simple enough technique to use, but is very powerful and can help you help your patients a great deal.

Gua- rubbing; Sha- “reddish, elevated, millet-like skin rash, aka petechiae” (1).
Gua Sha is mostly used when we have pain in muscles, but from the name we can understand that we can use this technique when we want to improve the Blood flow in the entire body, in cases of chronic pain, tiredness, cough and more.