Tai Chi Tui Na/Massage: Oral history

Some of the back story behind Tai Chi massage is that in the old schools of Tai Chi Chuan, the younger students had to do massage on the senior students for several reasons to understand:

1. Anatomy and physiology, know various Acu-points for cavity strikes, acupuncture/acupressure healing, and for meditative Neigong exercises.

2. Muscle and Tendon groups for seizing and grasping tendons/muscles, and for massage healing.

3. Joint and Bone locations for breaks, dislocations, and traumatology healing and bone setting.

The deeper the more advanced Tai Chi senior student went into training and fighting, various injures were occurred and knowing how to heal it was just as important than knowing how to injure someone. Either way, it was for both knowledge and experience of anatomy for both fighting and healing. This is how Trauma medicine is learned.

Muscle Tendon/Sinew Channels: these are used in the session:

Sample of Main areas of Tai Chi Massage

•Prone:

•1. Push down the back channel: Tai yang foot. Cloud hands, or circles on back: rocking technique.

•2. Up the Tai Yang Muscle channel Legs

•3. Up the Channels of arms: Yin channels.

•Supine:

•1. Face: yintang and tai yang Extra points, ST channel, Scalp: GB and occipital points: Du 15-16, BL, SJ17 GB12, GB20, BL10.

•2. Push on GB21 and touch LU1.

•3. Up the Legs muscle channels.

•4. Up the Arm muscle channels.

•5. Push and Pull abdominals.

Note: other methods taught by Taijiquan teachers to matt:

Cass Overton’s method

Wilson Pitts polarity method and acupressure set

Coach Xu Jengheng: Goulin acupressure set.

Sample Videos: