Tui Na Massage refers to traditional Chinese Therapeutic Massage or Manual Therapy. Manual therapy means a therapeutic method applied by the hands touching the patient and includes all normal concepts of massage but also includes treatment of injuries sustained in martial arts practice or combat sports.
“Tui” means “push” and “Na” means “pull”. Together all of the techniques of Tui Na are variations of these two fundamental hand gestures. Tui Na is a practical method of therapeutic medicine with a long history of successful results.
Traditional Chinese martial arts masters were expected to also know enough medicine to treat common injuries and illnesses such as their students or fighters might sustain. Because the strength and skillful use of the hands required to be an expert martial artist are similar to those required to give a successful massage treatment martials make exceptional manual therapists.
Tui Na Massage was designed and used by expert martial artists. Tui Na Massagemakes use of the same body movement method, strong structural alignment, and synergistic whole body power used by martial artists to develop power for their striking and throwing techniques. Because Tui Na Massage practitioners use the strength of the legs, hips, spine, and shoulder blades for their massage techniques it is easy for them to keep their hands and arms relaxed. With relaxed hands a practitioner can be much more sensitive to the condition of their patient and use appropriate power and angles of application easily.
This linkage between the whole body synergy of the martial artist and the refined massage methods designed to rely of them is a special quality of Tui Na Massage and traditional martial arts. Just as having a base in good body mechanics and physical prowess gives a massage practitioner a huge boost, learning Tui Na Massage also benefits the martial artist. Learning the foundations of Traditional Chinese Medicine opens the door to understand these concepts in your martial arts practice.
Learning Tui Na Massage and working on patients gives you a type of hand and finger strength that it is hard to get any other way. Even doing push-ups on finger tips and other hand finger strengthening exercises, while providing great benefits, do not have the same level of random complexity and varying resistance and challenge of doing the thorough and challenging techniques in a full Tui Na Massage treatment.
In addition to really strengthening your hands, wrists and forearms Tui Na Massage also helps you become much more familiar with touching other people’s limbs and joints. This in turn leads to a dramatic improvement in your ability to apply joint locking or controlling techniques.
As an instructor having the ability to immediately massage away a common strained muscle or joint so a student, friend, or family member feels fine the next day is amazing and builds trust and friendship.
The Tui Na Massage that I learned was part of my study of the advanced levels of Xing Yi Quan and Ba Gua Zhang. Learning these skills has allowed me to help many family members, friends, and students since the early 1990s. I hope you will be able to join me in my upcoming Kung Fu medicine course and learn these valuable skills that will allow you to help other people and deepen your personal skills and understanding of traditional lineage arts.
Stay tuned for more info. later!
So good to see these performances again! I was there for the live versions and since they happen so quickly I was not able to fully absorb the artistry and athleticism demonstrated by each performer. Wow! Seeing you do it again gives me an even greater appreciation of your skill, knowledge, and execution. Many hours of dedicated practice pay off. Great job Steve, Henry and Darren.