What is Gua Sha?
If you have received acupuncture from me, you might have experienced me using gua sha to relieve muscle tension of the neck and upper back, or tendonitis of the elbow.
In Western Culture, gua sha is popularized for facial rejuvenation as part of the facial acupuncture or as a self care beauty tool. Even though I have been using gua sha for about 10 years now, I have to admit that I have never used it for facial care. But, considering that I am 10 years older now, maybe I will start using it for that purpose soon :)
Gua Sha involves scraping a flat, rounded jade tool, or an Asian ceramic soup spoon over the skin. In my practice, I use it mostly to relieve the neck and upper body tension, and also have used it for shoulder joint pain and tendonitis of the elbow and Achilles. (You might have slight bruising on the area for a couple of days after gua sha treatment.) For common cold and flu, I have also used it on the upper back. But, it's been a while, since we are not treating patients with common colds during the pandemic.
During our Chinese Medicine Doctoral program, one of our colleagues asked teacher, practitioner, and translator Dr Allen Tsaur about the origin of gua sha.
I’d like to share his response with his permission:
“ Guasha has a historical root as "bianshi 砭石 (wedge stone)" and can be readily found in Neijing (I have also cited a 7th century annotation, Taisu 太素, in order to obtain more information about these terms):
Suwen 12 "砭石者亦從東方來 wedge stones come from the east " (annotation from Taisu 太素： 砭鐵破癰已成，冷石熨其初起 the wedge iron 砭鐵 breaks the abscess that has already manifested, the cold stone 石 compresses its initial formation. )
Suwen 25 "夫氣盛血聚，宜石而瀉之 in the presence of exuberant qi and gathered blood, it is suitable to drain it by stone." (annotation from Taisu 太素: 氣盛血聚，未為膿者，可以石熨，瀉其盛氣也。氣盛膿血聚者，可以砭石之針破去也 in the presence of exuberant qi and gathered blood, if pus has not formed, one can hot-compress it by stone, so that that the exuberant qi can be drained. In the presence of exuberant qi and gathered blood and pus, one can break it and eliminate it with the needle of wedge stone.)
Lingshu 1 “無用砭石，欲以微針通其經脈調其血氣 I do not wish to utilize the wedge stones, I wish to utilize the fine needles to open the channel vessels and regulate the blood and qi.” (annotation from Taisu 太素： 砭石傷膚 wedge stones injure the skin.)
Lingshu 60 "其以成膿者，其唯砭石排鋒之所取也 When pus forms, one may only select the wedge stone with serrated edge."
Note:
Although 砭石 wedge stones seem similar to the guasha we do today, they were used differently. It seems that at the time of Neijing's compilation (1st century CE) and Taisu's writing (7th century CE), wedge stones were used to break skin and release pus.
This fits with the definition of Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 (i.e. the earliest dictionary, 100 CE): "砭：以石刺病也。 bian (wedge stone): penetrate the disease with stone."
Huang Longxiang speculated that wedge stones 砭石 were used to release blood from blood vessels and break pus. The former function was likely replaced by needle (+ people no longer sought to treat diseases by cutting the blood vessels), and the latter function preserved for longer. I am not really sure when and how the modern technique came about. “
So it looks like that the wedge stone that was mentioned in old classical text Neijing and Ling Shu was not used for the purpose that we use these days. Although we don’t know the origins of the modern techniques, It has been a very useful tool to have it.
I have purchased a few of jade gua sha and they are available to purchase at the clinic, but if you have an extra ceramic soup spoon at home, with a little bit of massage lotion, it’d definitely do the trick!