Class Notes 4

Zhan Zhuang (Pile Standing Practice 3 minutes)

Silk Reeling Practice

Grasping Sparrow’s Tail

Testing Structure (at hip, at shoulder, at forearm)

Leaning on wall with elbow, with palm, with fingers

Loosening Up: Shaking out wrists, Shaking out elbows, Shaking out shoulders; Wrist circles, Elbow Circles, Shoulder Circles; Finger/Wrist Extension, Finger/Wrist Flexion,
Twisted Stretch; “Pull my Finger”

A Review of GUN FA (Rolling, two forms), YI ZHI CHAN (One Finger Meditation), ZHEN FA (Vibrating), ROU FA (Kneading), MO FA (Other forms of Rubbing, like on the limbs).

Self-Massage Practice (Together)

ZHEN FA (Vibrating, with Palms)
Press palms together. They can either be fully contacting each other, or you can turn them so they are perpendicular to each other. Practice Zhen fa by tensing up one arm, from the chest to the palm. Then, alternate by doing the same thing with the other arm.

ROU FA (Kneading)
1) Press the thumb of one hand into the palm of the other hand. Use your fingers to wrap around the back of the hand being pressed. Sink the thumb into the heart of the palm, then make circular kneading motions with the thumb. You can vary the tempo of this. Try to cover the entire surface of the palm,

2) Do the same thing using the straight fingers.

3) Press the thumb into the thigh (around Spleen 10 is good). Try to sink in, and then move your thumb in circles. Switch to the opposite leg and opposite hand.

4) Same thing with straight fingers.

5) Same thing with knuckles.

6) Same thing with full palm.

7) Same thing with fist.

8) Same thing with forearms. (ipsilateral)

9) Same thing with elbows. (ipsilateral)

YI ZHI CHAN (One Finger Meditation)
Practice Yi Zhi Chan on a single point on your thigh. Use your nondominant hand as a guide.

Practice on Partner (Seated Next to You)
Other forms of MO FA (Rubbing)
Unscrew the partner’s arm. Indian burn partner’s arm.

Practice on Table Surface (Together)

GUN FA (Rolling, Two forms)

GRASPING/CROSS FIBER TECHNIQUES

Today, we will talk about "grasping techniques," techniques in which you grab a part of the body and apply pressure to it from at least two areas in towards one point (the center). This distinguishes these techniques from, say, PRESSING (AN), where the pressure is applied from one area (say the palm) into the body.

As you can imagine, a grasping technique is easier to perform on a part of the body that is contoured (not flat), and allows you to "wrap around" and apply pressure from different angles simultaneously. This doesn't mean that you can't apply a grasping technique on "flat" regions of the body (like the back or the chest); it just means that the grasping techniques tend to be more difficult to do.

Now, as with other techniques, there are different tools and different degrees to these sort of grasping techniques.

The primary tool we'll be using is, of course, the hand. But there are many different ways to grab with the hand. We can grasp with a full relaxed palm. Or we can grasp with the pads of the fingers and thumbs (with the palm NOT contacting the patient). Or to make things more intense, we can grasp with only the distal parts of our fingers touching the patient. We can even grasp with our fingernails.

Another variable we may impose is the AMOUNT of tissue we grasp. We can grasp a large amount of tissue; typically (thought not always!) this means our technique will be gentler and more diffuse. For example, when we grasp with the full palm (generally a softer technique), since we are covering more area, we grasp a larger amount of tissue. Or, by contrast, we can grasp (usually we use the word PINCH) a single tight, ropy tendon between our fingertips, and apply pressure from both sides; we may even PLUCK the tendon repeatedly.

Two related variables are the amount of force and the speed. As you might expect, gentler techniques tend to be performed with less force and faster. The more forceful the grasp, the slower the technique.

Now, once tissue is grasped, what do we do with it? This can also affect the nature of the technique. Sometimes, all we do is grasp and release tissue repeatedly. At other times, particularly when we are applying a more focused technique, we will want to grasp and hold the tissue for a certain amount of time. In other instances, we will want to actually "move" or "pluck" what we are holding. And in still other instances, we will want to "lift" what we grasp and pull it in various directions.

THE CONFUSING ENGLISH TRANSLATED NAMES
Okay, so there are a variety of English names for these techniques, and a lot of overlap and confusion as to how they differ. Let me list you some of the techniques and their descriptions from the Sun Chengnan text:

GRASPING: This involves grasping a part of the body with the pads of the thumb and fingers, or pressing an area from both sides with the entire hand.

PINCHING: Squeeze the appropriate part of the patient's body between the thumb and any one or all of the fingers. Keep the palm high, away from contact with the skin. Pinch and loosen the area repeatedly and nimbly (*unless you are focusing on one spot*)

GRABBING (+GRASPING): Control your breath, motivate Vital Energy through your fingers to form "Eagle's Talons" with your hand. Grasp and lift, applying force through the fingers with your palm raised. Take care not to injure the skin or underlying muscles.

NIPPING (+GRASPING): Bend the fingers of one or both hands into hooks. Probe the fissues, fossae and points around the joints. Nip and grasp nimbly and intermittently, pressing and relaxing in turn.

PLUCKING (+GRASPING): Apply force through your fingertips, palpating the soft tissues to find the selected tendon. Grasp the tendon and pluck it repeatedly. Proceed slowly and intermittently. Avoid nipping with fingernails or rubbing the skin with fingertips.

LIFTING (+GRASPING) [USED EXCLUSIVELY ON MUSCLES OF BACK AND ABDOMEN]: Grasp and lift the muscles of the abdomen or along the ribs with both hands, or hold them with the thenar mounds. Rotate them back and forth symmetrically several times. Repeat successively.

As you can see, it can be hard to tell what is meant by each of these terms. Let's try to put things into a continuum of sorts. Okay, first, let's consider the techniques that always use the entire hand (and not just one or two fingers):

1) First, Grasping may be seen as the name for many of these techniques as a whole. But when used alone and unspecified, think of this as a relatively gentle technique, where you use your whole palm to grasp a given area. You may do this quickly and repeatedly, or "squeeze" one area, but in general, this is the least penetrating.

2) Grabbing (+Grasping) may be seen as a harder form of Grasping. Your "palm" doesn't touch the patient; rather, your finger pads/tips (in the shape of talons) do. This tends to be a little more forceful than simple Grasping.

3) Nipping (+Grasping) is more forceful than Grabbing, in the sense that you use your fingertips (and even FINGERNAILS). In fact, Nipping is usually considered a form of Pressing (on a point) with fingernails.

4) Lifting (+Grasping). This technique is done almost exclusively on broad flat regions of the body. Here, you are grasping large regions of relatively superficial layers of fascia and LIFTING them off the body, and THEN "wringing" them by moving them in different directions... As you might imagine, this is not a very gentle technique. In fact, it is reserved for acute pain.

Okay, now let's look at the two techniques that do not necessarily utilize all five fingers:

1) Pinching: Here, think of pinching in the conventional sense; using your fingertips to "pinch" a relatively small area of tissue. There can be SOFT PINCHING, which is done gently and nimbly and quickly, or HARD PINCHING, which is done on a specific region or point, and is usually slow and penetrative.

2) Plucking: This can be seen as an extension of Grabbing or Nipping, only, you are fine tuning the technique to only find single bands of hard tissue. It can also be seen as another version of Lifting (+Grasping), only here you are isolating single bands, not entire fascial sheets. With Plucking, you can use just a few fingers (or all fingers, or even all fingers of both hands) to isolate and then "pluck" (like a guitar string) the tendon. This can be VERY UNCOMFORTABLE, so do it slowly and with intent.

WHAT ARE CROSS-FIBER TECHNIQUES?
Try to visualize muscles as bundles of ropes.

Normally, we think of a spasmed muscle as being a rope with a knot in it. The knot keeps the muscle/rope tight and short. So we try to work on the knot to soften it up, and thereby increase length in the muscle/rope.

Now, sometimes adjacent ropes in a bundle of ropes stick "laterally" to each other. This will also prevent the muscle/rope from lengthening, but to get at the problem, we need to "change our technique." Here's where cross-fiber techniques come in.

Examples of cross-fiber techniques include PLUCKING, because we isolate tight tendons, and we apply pressure "across" (at a right angle to) the grain of the fibers. This is like "rolling" or "twisting" the bundle of ropes to try to break the adhesions holding the ropes together.

Note: Cross-fiber techniques can be VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. So if you do them, do them with slowness and intent. Don't try to go too rough on your patient!!!