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Health & Fitness

Saturdays with Grace: My Journey in Traditional Chinese Medicine

My first visit to Grace was on a recommendation from Suzan.  Suzan is a very tall, slender, muscular woman from the Netherlands whose soft voice I hear in my head “keep our shoulder’s down…(she lightly touches me)…yes, that’s it”.   I trust her. Suzan has been nourishing my soul as my yoga guru for the past two years.   When I described what I thought was a pinched-nerve, she suggested Grace.  
I needed to find Grace; she was a Chinese woman somewhere in this city of 22 million people.  I traveled two subway lines to arrive at what appeared to be an apartment complex. The instructions said to go to a special door positioned between two clearly marked entrances.  I had to put in a code and the metal door popped open. Once inside, I took the elevator to floor 12A (code for floor 13) and arrived in a lovely spacious apartment filled with very traditional Chinese ornate furniture, vases, wall hangings and silk draperies. There was an older woman sitting on a couch watching a Chinese soap opera drama with the volume blaring. These drama shows are very popular; modern actors/actresses set in dynasty times and full of overacting.  The older woman took a look at me and then went back to her drama.  Looking deeper into the room, there was a woman in the kitchen chopping vegetables and cooking some kind of soup.  The scent was warm and inviting. Grace appeared, a petite Chinese woman (married to a man from Arkansas), and greeted me “Welcome Sheryl” in a soft and soothing voice.   
Grace took me to a small room that has two massage –type tables and instructed me to put on the “pajamas” that were laid our for me. Suzan had told me I would be sharing a room with another patient during the treatment, so I was mentally prepared for this. I did as instructed and waited for what was to come next. Grace returned and asked me about how I felt today.  She confirmed the information that Suzan has told her about me.  She touched the bottom of my feet.   She felt my lower back.  She was concerned my ‘Chi” wasn’t flowing to my feet – it was getting stuck in my middle. “Cupping”, she announced, “Is that okay?”.  
In the next moments, she arranged a series of different sizes glass cups, similar to the shape of brandy snifters, heated them with a lighter, and placed them all over my lower back and bum.  The feeling is like a vacuum cleaner suctioning to your skin, the sound is like slurping the last dredges of your Steak and Shake Milk shake at the bottom of your cup through a straw.  I lay there, feeling exposed and vulnerable, for about 15 minutes.  Grace worked on my feet during this time, massaging and touching them, to see if my “chi” was flowing.  Cupping isn’t painful, they just feel like your skin is being stretched tightly. (Dan says it is like the Simpson episode where Homer gets liposuction.) Relief came when they were removed, but that was short-lived.  What came next was much more alarming.  
Now that my blood flow was at the surface, Grace grabbed large handfuls of my skin and began pulling.  She pulled at the flesh all over my back in a very strong and methodical manner.  In my attempt to be stoic, I stopped breathing when she was pulling and tried to take quick breaths during her release.  As the pinching ended, the pounding started.  Not cute little chop-chops like a gentle massage, but full out closed fist pounding using the bottom of her fist. I was trying to keep an open-mind, but I was exhausted and just relented to the pain.  As I thought I might need to say I can’t take it anymore, Grace announced, “your treatment is done”.  A euphoric relief swept through me; I felt good.  Amazingly good.  
Re-dressed and exiting the room, I was invited to sit at the table and drink tea. Grace explained in more detail about the “chi” flow – and asked me to visualize it as blood flow.  She explained how this is the most important part of good health, and that she would be treated my whole body, not just the area with the pain.  When your whole body is working and your “chi” is flowing, she explained, the pain will go away.  She suggested that I start soaking my feet/lower legs in body temperature water every night to help my chi move throughout my body.  As I sat there feeling like a noodle, I thought, yes, I am going to give this a try.  I made an a appointment for the next week.

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