Eastern and Western traditional cupping

Since the first Health Traditions Cupping Workshops over fifteen years ago, cupping has developed from an obscure technique to a highly valued therapy. These cupping workshops began the resurgence in cupping therapy and are totally original and unique in content. They are taught with thoroughness to ensure safe, confident and knowledgeable practice.

Cupping is a traditional therapy that remains favoured by millions of people throughout the world because it is a time-honoured, safe, comfortable and effective treatment for many health disorders. For practitioners, cupping requires only simple and inexpensive instruments, is relatively easy to learn, is time and energy efficient and achieves excellent results. Cupping is usually performed by introducing heat into a glass cup or similar object and placing it immediately on the skin. The vacuum created produces a suction effect that increases blood circulation to the local area, relaxes muscle tissue and releases the factors causing pain. Another popular method is to withdraw the air from inside the cup with a suction pump.

Traditional practice and experience recognises the ability of cupping to move vital energy and correct internal imbalances, as well as to clear the effects of external injury and climatic influences such as wind and cold. This therapeutic method has been practised by both medically trained and household practitioners in most parts of the world for thousands of years.

In ancient Greece, Hippocrates recommended cupping for a variety of ailments, while early in the 20th century the eminent British physician Sir Arthur Keith wrote how he witnessed cupping performed with excellent success.

North American natives and Africans use buffalo horns as cupping vessels and women healers in villages throughout Europe and Russie continue the practice of cupping on relatives and neighbours and pass down their knowledge as a family tradition. In present day Vietnam, cupping is commonly seen in clinics, in homes and at roadside stops, while in China much research has been carried out on cupping and the practice is a mainstay of government-sponsored hospitals of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

'There is no doubt that Bruce Bentley is the foremost international expert on the history and practice of cupping in different cultures around the world.' Introduction to an interview with Bruce for The Lantern, an international journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 2007, and translated into French for the Journal De Medicine Traditionnelle Chinoise. read this interview

Therapists at all levels will gain skills that are effective, time and energy efficient, interesting to practice and allow the practitioner to focus less on their hands when appropriate.

'The first class I did with Bruce was the Western Tradition Cupping Workshop and had such outstanding results in conjunction with massage on the elite athletes I treat, that I then did the Eastern Tradition and the Gua Sha Day. Bruce’s vast knowledge on these subjects is second to none and I highly recommend his courses. Cupping and Gua Sha have both been fantastic on the athletes. They are completely sold on both!! It saves my hands as well.' Heather Deller, official massage therapist for the Great Britain Olympic Cycling Team, US, T- Mobile, the Women’s Professional Cycling Team and Chinese, Giant Bicycles, Women’s Professional Cycling Team.

Dear Bruce - just a short note to let you know how much I enjoyed your Western cupping workshop. I've had wonderful results with my clients. One person, an ex-rugby player who's come back four weeks in a row said he feels like a new person. Another is a farmer whose body was locked -up with years of injuries. He said 'I feel great with the cupping treatments'. Instead of me working really hard, I'm getting even better results and with the cups I can get so much done in a treatment session. I reckon the cupping therapy is just great. Please put me down for the upcoming Eastern tradition. Many thanks!' - correspondence from Carol Lyons, remedial massage therapist.

BACKGROUND: KEEPING TRADITION ALIVE AND GROWING

Bruce Bentley first learnt traditional Chinese cupping as part of his internships at hospitals and clinics in Taiwan from 1976 -1981. This was followed by his thesis for a Masters Degree in Health Studies titled ‘Cupping as Therapeutic Technology’ and his first research trip to Vietnam. In 1996, he was invited to China, where a special course on cupping was presented to him by chief physicians at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. To investigate other cupping practices in China, Bruce also studied at the Tibetan Medicine Hospital in Lhasa, Tibet, and at the Uighur Traditional Medicine Hospital in Urumqi, Xinjiang Province. The following year he visited the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra to observe how the massage therapists there employ cupping to treat sports injuries and enhance performance. Midway through 1998, Bruce spent three months in Europe and North Africa. The first month was devoted to archival research at the Welcome Institute for the History of Medicine (the world’s premier library and research centre for medical history), London, and the Department for the History of Medicine at Rome University. For the remaining two months he travelled to Sicily, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia learning local cupping traditions. Bruce has also returned to study cupping in Vietnam and for the month of July 2008 he researched cupping practices in Cambodia. Following invitations from University departments of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the USA and Canada, together with requests from enthusiastic practitioners, Bruce began teaching his cupping workshops in the USA and Canada in 2008. He also attended the Earthspa workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which led to the development of the new cupping workshops called Contemporary Cupping Concepts - traditional practices refocussed.

The marks left by the cups

A common and unfortunate misconception concerning cupping is the misinterpretation of the marks - those round circles you can see in the above photo taken at a temple in Vietnam. These are definitely not bruises caused by cupping - and so it follows these should not be refered to as 'cupping bruises'. They are indeed 'marks' or 'discolourations' that only occur when the therapeutic process has drawn pathogenic factors to the skin surface. From there these marks rapidly fade away. Usually after 24 hours, there is a very noticeable change and they are typically resolved in a few days. 'Bruising' is incorrect because it gives the impression that they result from a traumatic procedure. A handful of good explanations why they are not bruises include:

1. When we have a bruise (due to trauma), experience tells us that it is tender to touch. After proper cupping there is no such accompanying tenderness.
2. Many times cupping does not produce a show of marks.
3. Let us imagine a case where a cup has been placed on a part of the body and has produced a strong discolouration (maybe even a deep dark circle - inevitably when there is a long term problem). After that has resolved and another cup is reapplied at the same spot, the marking is typically only a half as 'ferocious' as the former time. Then again another treatment at that same location brings on a faint and barely coloured showing. By the fourth treatment, for example, no skin colour change is likely - even though each time the cup has been focussed on the same spot for the the same duration and with the same force. Clearly a case where the internal unwanted toxins have systematically been resolved.
4. Traditional knowledge and experience is aware of the benefits of the cupping/vacuum effect for resolving pain and injury and has never interpreted these marks in a negative way. The same can be said for the practice of gua sha - another method that can produce colouration to the skin surface - though the kind of pathologic factor that gua sha releases to the surface is a different kind of disturbance known as sha.

FAQ: Which one is best for me to attend - the Eastern or the Western Cupping Workshop?

If you are a practitioner of therapies that are based on anatomy and the Western clinical model, and you work treating lots of sports injuries for example, then the Western tradition - Traditional Cupping Workshop, could be the one to consider. If your interest is in Chinese medicine then the Eastern tradition is recommended. However, there are many people who attend both. if you'd like to get as big a picture on cupping as I can offer, then you can consider both and start with either. For practitioners of European heritage who are interested in Eastern traditional medicine, getting back to our own cultural roots by learning Western cupping traditions is also an interesting experience. The traditional theory and practices in the Western workshop are remarkably consistent with Eastern traditions and these practices can easily be converted to Chinese diagnostic and practice protocols.

Enrolment requirements for the traditional cupping workshops:

Accredited health professionals such as massage therapists, acupuncturists, doctors, nurses, naturopaths, osteopaths and physiotherapists. Students from an accredited course of study, who have completed a minimum of 50 hours in anatomy and physiology.

Note: Women who are pregnant should contact Bruce Bentley.