I should have known it was going to be an adventure when the scene unfolded as if in a bad Hollywood movie. "You want a massag-ee?" Uh huh. After some back and forth with pantomimes and typing out numbers on a cell phone, we got it sorted out. About 10 minutes into the massage, as she was kneading my shoulders and back, she stated "you have cups good" and left the room. I was mystified, trying to figure out what on earth this could mean. She returned a minute or two later with a tray containing bamboo cups of various sizes. She told me to relax, I heard a small whoosh, and then a cup was suctioned onto my back. It wasn't unpleasant, and while she worked at applying the cups, I tried to work out how the mechanics of this procedure. My theory is the small whoosh was some sort of fire heating the air in the cup to create the suction.
Once all the cups were on, she covered them with a towel and proceeded to work on my legs. I was mildly concerned about how these cups were going to come off, but that proved to be simple - it felt like she lifted an edge of the cup and the suction released.
After she removed the cups, she pointed to a couple of spots on my back and said "bad". Again, the sense that I was in some cheeseball Hollywood Asian movie.
It wasn't until I got back to our room and checked my back out in a mirror that I realized I had been attacked by a giant squid.
5 comments:
Ouch! Hope that's not as painful as it looks. (And now Tara can join the ranks of folks who publish semi-nude photos on the net?) Is your guide Min the same guide that you had in 2008?
I think it's Rolfing.
I realized I was focusing on the wrong thing when I looked at the picture and was more taken aback by the missing cup mark on the left that would make it symetrical instead of the giant welts.
ow ow ow ow ow ouchie ow. "Bad" truly does sum that up. Hope it heals up quickly. Ow.
It's called cupping. One of my friends gets this done when she has acupuncture, and she gets the sucker marks for a couple of days. It's very medieval - any time they talk about sucking the "humours" out of you, or "stagnancy", I gotta wonder. http://www.compassionatedragon.com/cupping.html
I was picking up a massage gift certificate for Cindy today (Shhh! Don't tell!) and I asked the therapist about this. She said that cupping is done when the muscles are really tight because the increased blood flow helps to loosen the upper layer of fascia so that the therapist can then work on the underlying layers. She also said that in the USA cupping is more often done by accupuncturists than by massage therapists. She likened cupping to (ahem) a big hickey.
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