Recently, a friend hooked me up with some fire cups, and I’m jazzed!

You see, ‘cupping’ is a treatment from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in which round or conical cups are attached to the body using negative pressure, or ‘suction’. In the past, cups were made of horn or wood, and then glass, and a flame used to burn the air out of them to create a vacuum; hence, the term ‘fire cupping’. Modern cups, however, are often made of plastic or rubber, and use valves or pumping mechanisms to void them of air. Cupping is believed to be capable of moving or drawing stagnant ‘chi’ and toxins out of the body, allowing them to be released through the skin, and is used to treat a plethora of ailments, including poor circulation, muscle tension, scarring, and acne.

Half a dozen years ago, my acupuncture therapist started using cupping on me, and I was shocked by how relaxing it was, not just during treatment, but for days… or even weeks… afterward. More importantly, its a drug-free way to achieve the same (or better) affect than I’ve gotten from the combination of pharmaceutical drugs and massage therapy that General Practitioners had prescribed for the same issues.

In fact, the only ‘down side’ to cupping I found was that, when I started dating my current boyfriend a short time later, he was freaked out by the red or purplish rings that cupping left on my body. ‘Guess I shoulda’ told you I’m kinky,’ I joked and, when his jaw dropped, I explained where they came from, but they were such a ‘turn off’ for him that I started looking for a chance to get some cups and ‘play’ with them, to see if there was a way to use them without leaving those marks.

Anyways, it took a while after getting my cups to, actually, try them but in the interim, I did some online learning and noticed that some practitioners attach them to the skin and leave them in one place (called a ‘static hold'(?), while others use them to massage the skin by oiling it before attaching the cups, and then gently lifting and sliding them around.

So, last Sunday, I tried both methods, and quickly found that by moving the cups around even a little once they were attached, I could keep them from leaving marks on my body. In the process, I also found that massaging my body with a cup feels just as good as getting a really good massage!

Now, I only have two concerns…

One is that, since the rings that cupping causes are said to be caused by toxins rising to the surface, one would think it best to allow them to form and, if massaging with a cup doesn’t allow this to happen, I can’t help but wonder if it will still allow those toxins to be properly expelled or not(?) The other, is that I’ve herd one should use this cupping massage technique to draw toxins toward the lymph nodes for ‘processing’ in them, but I know so little about the lymphatic system that I will need to learn more so that I won’t, inadvertently, cause myself damage (or illness).

Meanwhile, I can’t help recalling a conversation I had with my acupuncture therapist, Dr. Sally, while she worked on me one day. As she explained her methods and procedures, we also touched on some of the differences between the North American and Traditional Chinese medical systems, one of which is that North Americans are taught that they have no control over their own health and must seek the help of a doctor for any illness, while the Chinese have traditionally used tools like acupuncture and acupressure, cupping, Gua Sha (pinyin), and herbal remedies to deal with minor illness and fluctuations in their health, and only seek the assistance of a doctor if they’re unable to fix it themselves or if its serious enough to warrant professional help.

‘Wow!’ I thought. ‘Imagine the stress and expense that could be saved by the system, and by individuals, f we were taught to do the same!’

Of course, doctors, politicians, and chemists would clutch their pearls at the mere thought because of the power and income that kind of thing could lose them, but the potential is mind-blowing!

Anyways, I’m going to keep mucking about with this cupping, and will post if I find anything else interesting to share.