Guasa Therapy - The Hidden Treasure

Guasa Therapy - A Brief History

History of Guasa Therapy started way back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). For over 1000 years, this traditional Chinese therapy has been widely used to treat various types of health issues and it has proven itself to be as effective as acupuncture treatments. Most importantly, throughout the history, with the right tools and techniques, guasa therapy has no known side effects apart from the scary looking "sa" (reddish spots) that will stay visible for a duration that ranges from 2 days to 2 weeks (the shorter the duration, the healthier the cell metabolism of the patient).

Sadly, such a wonderful therapy slowly loses its popularity among Chinese physicians, and slowly turns into "a home therapy passed down by grandparents". If you ask your Chinese friends, you'll find that many of them only know guasa therapy as a therapy that relief heat stroke. Only a handful of people actually knows the true benefit of guasa therapy. Here are the 3 reasons why guasa therapy's popularity deteriorates over time:

1. The scary looking "sa" - We all know that beauty is very important to many people, especially among the ladies, so guasa therapy became less and less popular among them because they felt that the "sa" looks ugly. There is a popular Chinese saying that directly translates to, "want beauty, don't want life". Beauty is more important than their health, so if it's going to effect their appearance, they rather continue to endure the health issue, or look for alternatives that won't effect their appearance. In these days, this is also true among many guys.

2. The "pain" during treatment - In general, people are afraid of pain. Guasa therapy looks painful in most cases, so many people are actually afraid of it. Just like kids who feared going for injection. It is not really that painful, but the fear couldn't be controlled.

3. It is too easy to learn - Due to it's simplicity, anyone can learn guasa therapy almost instantly. Though it takes some practice to actually master the scrapping strokes, but it is still one of the easiest therapy to learn. If you enrich your knowledge of meridian paths and meridian points, you can even use guasa therapy to treat various diseases. Since it is so simple to learn, Chinese physicians felt that guasa therapy is not "professional" enough, so they began to demerit guasa therapy and promotes acupuncture that made them look more "professional".

Since guasa is not very famous among the professionals, it is very difficult to obtain valuable information about it in bookstores or even online, especially if you are trying to look for guasa information in languages other than Chinese. Here in my blog, I would like to take this wonderful opportunity to offer my special thanks and gratitude to Elken Sdn Bhd for reviving this hidden treasure and returning it into the limelight where it rightfully belongs.

Introduction to Guasa Therapy

Definition of Guasa

The word, "guasa", is actually created from the combination of 2 Chinese words' pronunciation, "gua" and "sa". The word "gua" literally means "scrap" and the word "sa" literally means "sand". So guasa means scrapping sand? No, it doesn't. In fact, it has got nothing to do with sand at all. For some reason, the reddish dots that appeared on the surfaced of our skin during guasa looks like sand to them, so they named it sand. To avoid confusion, I will use "sa" instead. Just as its name implies, guasa is a therapy that make use of scrapping technique to achieve healing results, so it is also commonly known as the scrapping therapy. The "sa" that appears during guasa are indication of toxic and dead cells that were accumulated beneath our skin.  These "sa" causes blockage to the flow of "qi" (energy) in our meridian path.  When the flow of "qi" in our meridian pathway is not smooth, it will directly cause us to have poor blood circulation and this is where all other health issues follows.  Although guasa is not the only therapy that could restore meridian pathway's flow of "qi", it is the fastest, most effective and more importantly, a totally risk free therapy.

What are the tools required?

Guasa Tools

The only tool that you will need to perform guasa is a scrapping board that doesn't transmit heat and electrostatic charges. During Tang Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, the royal Chinese physicians use scrapping boards that are made of jade! Nowadays, we use scrapping boards that are made from water buffalo's horn. Compared to jade, water buffalo horn is just so much cheaper and it doesn't break as easily as jade. Most importantly, just like jade, water buffalo horn scrapping boards also doesn't transmit heat and electrostatic charges. This two properties are critical because it helps to prevent the therapist from absorbing the negative "qi" released by the patient's body. So make sure you do not try to use coin, rock, spoon, ceramic tools, plastic scrapping board or anything else to substitute the buffalo horn scrapping board.

If you need to perform guasa on naked skin, guasa oil will be needed to further enhance the therapeutic effect as well as to avoid damaging your skin with the repetitive scrapping. Good massage oil can be used as well, but proper guasa oil will be highly recommended.  Please refrain from using cooking oil and non-organic ointments.  The former could cause blockage of sweat glands as well as breathing difficulties to our cells until it is wiped off, while the later may cause allergic reactions on people with sensitive skin, damage our skin and even causes our cells to accumulate more chemical toxic.  The iron rule of thumb here: Always use the right tool for the task!

What is the "sa"?

Just as I have mentioned above, the "sa" is actually dead cells and toxic that our body accumulated within our body over time.  If your body is perfectly healthy, the "sa" that appeared on the scrapped area will only appear to be slightly reddish, like a blushing cheek, and it will disappear within minutes.  If the color of the "sa" is dark red or near black in color, it indicates that you've got a serious blockage in your meridian pathway and this also means that you've got a serious health issue.  If you want to know the health of your body, just take a look at the "sa" after your guasa session and you will have a very accurate overview of your health conditions and if your guasa therapist is knowledgeable and experienced, he/she could even tell you which organs of yours are more worn out.  According to guasa therapy, "sa" is the root cause of all health issues in our body. These "sa" will disrupt the flow of blood and "qi" (energy flow) in our body, hence causing us problems. According to Chinese wisdom, if the flow of blood is blocked, we will experience pain, and if the flow of "qi" is blocked, we will experience numbness. Seriously, we should stop taking drugs when we experience pain or other uncomfortable sensations. Our body is seeking our attention to repair the issues within when it sends us signals such as pain, numbness, dizziness, and so on. When we take drugs that suppress these symptoms, we are literally asking our body to shut up and turn a blind eye on the actual health issue.

How does guasa works?

The science behind guasa is simple and very straight forward, unblock the blocked flow of blood and "qi" and your health will be restored. While performing guasa, it will activate the meridian paths in our body, telling it to clear the blockage along its path. There are altogether 20 meridian paths (12 standard meridians that are directly associated with our internal organs, and 8 extraordinary meridians that are pivotal in the studies of QiGong, Tai Chi and Chinese Alchemy) in our body, out of which only 14 meridian paths formed by a total of 751 meridian points are needed in guasa therapy. These meridian paths are invisible vessels of energy in our body that is responsible in controlling the flow of blood and "qi". When performing guasa, we are actually scrapping the meridian paths that are invisible in human anatomy, and it should NOT be mistaken as scrapping our physical blood veins, blood arteries or blood vessels that are visible in human anatomy. The existence of of these meridian paths were being cast aside in the past as pseudoscience because they were being mistaken as anatomical drawings. However, recent science has finally cleared the misunderstanding and caught up to this ancient wisdom. The existence of these meridian paths are now scientifically proven to exist.

The 12 standard meridians (grouped with accordance to their yin & yang nature, and the time frame indicates the time when they are most active) paths are:

1. Lung Meridian (Yin, 3am-5am)

2. Heart Meridian (Yin, 11am-1pm)

3. Pericardium Meridian (Yin, 7pm-9pm)

4. Spleen Meridian (Yin, 9am-11am)

5. Kidney Meridian (Yin, 5pm-7pm)

6. Liver Meridian (Yin, 1am-3am)

7. Triple Warmer/Triple Burner Meridian (Yang, 9pm-11pm)

8. Small Intestine Meridian (Yang, 1pm-3pm)

9. Big Intestine Meridian (Yang, 5am-7am)

10. Gal Bladder Meridian (Yang, 11pm-1am)

11. Urinary Bladder Meridian (Yang, 3pm-5pm)

12. Stomach Meridian (Yang, 7am-9am)

The 2 extraordinary meridians are:

1. Conception Vessel (Ren Mai)

2. Governing Vessel (Du Mai)

What are the benefits of guasa therapy?

Many people only know that guasa therapy as a message technique for relieving heat stroke issues or just for releasing the excessive 'heat' from the body. The reason for that is because their guasa knowledge is being taught by their great grandparents, who probably self-taught their guasa knowledge through observation and word of mouth. In actual fact, guasa has these 10 benefits:

1. Promote metabolism and oxygen intake - Guasa therapy can be used as a form of aerobic exercise for our entire body cells. Good cell metabolism and high oxygen intake will ensure that our cells can carry out their tasks effectively.  Of course, if you pair this up with a healthy diet, you will be amazed on how healthy you could be.

2. Relieve sore muscles, joint pains and lethargy - Guasa therapy is good for all sorts of sports injuries that doesn't involve bleeding, cuts, wounds, fractured bones, dislocated joints or broken bones. If you sprained your muscles, sprained a part of your body (wrist, arm, feet, etc.), have stiff neck or shoulders, muscle cramp, or feels lethargy, guasa is an excellent treatment that provides instant relief. During the Olympics, which was held in Beijing in 2008, guasa therapy is used to treat athletes who sprained themselves, had muscle cramps, or experience lethargy right before competition starts, allowing them to continue to participate in their competition without any issue.

3. Regulate blood circulation - Just like aerobic sports, guasa therapy also helps to promote blood circulation in our body. Good blood circulation will ensure that our body is well supplied with oxygen and nutrients, making us more energetic.

4. Activate cells by promoting oxygen intake to remove bruises - Normally, when someone got bruises, they would avoid touching it as it hurts. If you could endure the pain for a couple of minutes, guasa therapy can help to remove pain from the bruises almost instantly. You may still see the purplish color of the bruised area, but you will not feel the pain anymore and the swollen bump is gone! Pain for 2 minutes or pain for 2-4 days? Choose for yourself.

5. Strengthen the immune system - Guasa therapy activates the 14 meridian paths in our body, hence it enhances our immune system greatly. A healthy immune system will ensure that our body could defend us from harmful microorganism invasions and free from diseases.

6. Promote youthfulness and beauty - Guasa therapy is widely used in many beauty saloons because of it's wonderful, scientifically proven ability to promote youth and beauty. It can be used for body slimming, skin firming & lifting (face, breasts, and buttocks), and you get to enhance your health at the same time. It is also very famous as relaxation massage therapy.

7. Promote physical fitness - Guasa therapy helps to enhance our body's detoxification functions, thus making our body fit. With all the 6 benefits above combines, our body can perform much better, allowing it to perform at its peak.

8. Slow down ageing process - This is also another reason why guasa therapy is very famous in beauty saloons. It is anti-ageing! As we grow older, our cells metabolism rate deteriorates, and made us look old. Guasa therapy can enhance & promote our cells metabolism, making it one of the cheapest way to slow down ageing.

9. Give relief to symptoms of illnesses or diseases - A guasa therapy handbook, written by a reputable Taiwanese guasa therapist, recorded 400 types of clinically proven guasa therapy techniques that can give relief to symptoms of illnesses or diseases such as migraine, menstrual issue, high blood pressure, diabetes, gout, stroke, erectile dysfunction, gastric, and asthma, just to name a few.  If you are interested to become a guasa physicists, you should apply for some guasa courses to get yourself certified.  However, I personally think that guasa therapy is better off as a health regulation therapy rather than a disease treatment therapy like acupuncture.  Regulating our overall health to slowly regain a totally healthy body is better than just treating a specific disease to quickly get rid of its symptoms.

10. Pinpoint the source of a disease - This is another great benefit of guasa therapy that most people do not know. Guasa therapy is able to pinpoint the source of diseases way before it even get to the point of being labelled as a disease. Hence it is an excellent form of preventive therapy. Guasa therapy allows you to grasp the general health conditions of your internal organs, allowing you to prevent them from getting worse. While diagnosing your health, guasa therapy is also correcting your health issue at the same time.

The Three Types of Guasa Therapy

Guasa therapy is generally divided into 3 categories, guasa massage, diagnostic guasa, and disease treatment guasa. In step 2 of Elken's MRT Concept, only guasa massage and diagnostic guasa techniques are being taught because MRT concept is all about health management, so we should leave the treatment part back to doctors or physicians.  We should always seek advice from the proper channel.  For medical advice you should find a doctor, for water advice you should find a water specialist, for nutritional advice you should find a nutritionist, for guasa advice you should find a guasa therapist and so on.  Don't try to act as a pharmacist/doctor, if you aren't one, and prescribe medicines yourself.  Medication suppression and control of illnesses/diseases symptoms are the job of doctors, but restoration and optimization of our own health is our own responsibilities.  Let us look at the 3 types of guasa therapy.

The 1st type - Guasa Massage

This guasa technique is the technique that is used in beauty saloons. Guasa massage can be performed on a daily basis without the need to worry about the "sa" showing up. For facial beauty guasa massage, we may perform the massage while using cream type facial mask, and it only takes less than 3 minutes to complete. Guasa massage on our head, arms, legs, lower back and abdomen can be performed on our own, at anytime of the day, and on a daily basis. If you wish to do a more thorough guasa massage for your entire back, you'll need an assistant. A full body guasa massage only takes less than 30 minutes to complete (20 strokes for each meridian paths). In step 2 of Elken's MRT concept, 2 types of guasa massage techniques are being taught:

1. The 12 Meridians Guasa Exercise - Simple guasa massage techniques that activates the 14 meridian paths in our body, allowing us to do aerobic exercise for not only our external body, but also our internal organs.

2. Hot Guasa Spa - A special, body shaping & slimming massage technique that is uniquely taught in Elken.

The 2nd type - Diagnostic Guasa

This guasa technique requires an assistant because it needs to be carried out on the entire back of an individual. Diagnostic guasa CANNOT be carried out on a daily basis because we'll need to wait until our body fully metabolism the "sa" before we can repeat the process.  Diagnostic guasa can review the health condition of our internal organs, specifically our heart, lung, gut, liver, stomach, spleen, kidneys and if you're female, it also shows the health condition of your ovary.  Although it is called a diagnostic guasa, it allows our body to work on the health issues at the same time.  Unlike western diagnostic technologies that only tells you what is wrong with your body, diagnostic guasa tells you what is wrong and enable your body to start fixing it immediately at the same time.  There are 2 reasons why we cannot do diagnostic guasa on a daily basis:

1. We may injure our body as we did not give it sufficient time to process the "sa". If you haven't done any sports for a long period of time and you suddenly went for an aggressive sport session, you'll be experiencing muscle pain the very next day. The same situation applies when you perform diagnostic guasa. The next day, the individual will be experiencing muscle pain on the areas where diagnostic guasa is being carried out. So you would be experiencing unnecessary pain if you forcefully do another guasa session the next day.

2. Our body would be too busy processing the "sa" so there is no point trying to give it even more work to do. Besides, the automatic survival mechanism in our body will also prevent our body from releasing more "sa".

So there is absolutely no point in trying to do diagnostic guasa everyday. You can still do the 12 meridians guasa exercise on other parts of your body though.  Diagnostic guasa needs to be paired up with colon detoxification in order to gain the most benefits out of it.  Diagnostic guasa services is quite common in typical reflexology centers.  However, they usually only provide a 30-45mins guasa session, which not only may not reveal the real "sa" but also do not come with a proper colon detoxification package.
Diagnostic guasa is not complete without a proper colon detoxification because these toxic would not accumulate if our body was capable of removing it in the first place. Due to the limited capacity of our detoxification systems, the extra toxic are temporarily accumulated in the body until it has the time to process it.  However, we intoxicate our body nearly every seconds (air pollution, water pollution and chemical/toxic rich food), so our body not only has no time to process these accumulated toxic, but also continues to accumulate more and more of them.  During diagnostic guasa, we are actually assisting our body to dig out these toxic so we also need to ensure that our colon has the capability to flush them out of our body because these toxic will reach our colon after 12 hours.  If these toxic are not flushed out, our body will store it again, hence you will experience less improvement in your health condition.
If we only perform diagnostic guasa alone, majority of the toxic that are dug out will remain in the body, which is why many people get the misconception that once you started treating your health issue with guasa therapy, you will become addicted to it and your body will not feel comfortable without going for your weekly guasa session.  If you perform a complete diagnostic guasa session (guasa + colon detox), you will notice significant improvements in your overall health within 2-8 sessions depending on how severe your health conditions were.

The 3rd type - Disease Treatment Guasa

This guasa technique requires a more in-depth knowledge of the 12 meridian paths, including the 751 acupuncture points along all these meridian paths.  If you can read Chinese, you're lucky, there is a book called "Guasa 400 ling chuang" (400 clinical studies of guasa) that documented very detailed guasa treatment method for over 400 types of diseases ranging from minor illnesses such as headache, coughing, cold or flu to life threatening diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke and so on.  The book also describes the symptoms of each and every illnesses in detail, so once you have confirmed which illness/disease your patient is suffering, you may follow the guidance in the book to carry out treatment guasa.  Treatment guasa has an effectiveness that is on par with acupuncture, but personally, I feel that diagnostic guasa is the most important aspect of guasa therapy.

Good Guasa Practices

Since we are just focusing on guasa massage and guasa diagnostic, so below are a few things that we should take note of:

1. Use the right tool for the task - Avoid using guasa boards that are made of any other materials that are not real jade or real water buffalo horn. Make sure that proper guasa oil is used, especially for diagnostic guasa.

2. Always perform guasa massage in a spacious enclosed room - During guasa, our sweat gland will open up, allowing it to release excessive heat, negative energy and even sweat. Therefore, the room should be enclosed, but not suffocating, and most importantly, don't point any fan or air sources directly at the area where guasa massage is performed. This is to avoid external winds from entering our body via the opened sweat gland. The same reason why we shouldn't be cooling ourselves in front of a fan right after sports. It may feel good, but you'll regret it in the future when you get rheumatism.

3. The person who is performing diagnostic guasa should always stand either on the left or right side of the individual throughout the guasa session. The person performing diagnostic guasa must refrain from standing directly behind the individual's back to minimize the absorption of negative energy.

4. Guasa massage and diagnostic guasa is similar to aerobic sports, so do NOT do it while you are on an empty stomach, or when you are fasting. There shouldn't be any problem to perform guasa massage on empty stomach, unless you have starved a few days, but performing diagnostic guasa on empty stomach (haven't eaten for over 8 hours) could cause the person, who has a weak body, to faint.  If the person haven't eaten anything for over 8 hours, it is better to make some light cereal drink for the person to drink before carrying out diagnostic guasa on them.

5. Diagnostic guasa should not be performed during pregnancy to avoid the possibilities that some of the released toxic would ended up in the baby.  Of course, this is just a possibility, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

6. If you ever went through operation to replace bones with mechanical parts, do NOT perform guasa therapy on those areas. The sharp edges of the mechanical parts could inflict internal injuries or wounds. So again, better be safe than sorry.

7. After guasa session, one should drink a glass of warm water. Water plays an important role in detoxification, so drinking a glass of warm water will allow our body to process the "sa" more effectively.

8. Do NOT shower straight away after a guasa session. To be on the safe side, please wait at least 1 hour after the guasa session. 30 minutes is actually sufficient for most people especially athletes or people who do sports regularly.

9. After performing diagnostic guasa, use guasa oil to clean the guasa board, do NOT use water or soapy water. Good guasa oil has antibacterial property and can help to prolong the lifespan of guasa board. Using water will cause the guasa board to become too moist, making it bad for the next person who receive diagnostic guasa with it.

10. Guasa therapy is NOT complete without detoxification. We need to ensure that the "sa" are successfully flushed out of our body, therefore detoxification is a MUST after any session of diagnostic guasa or disease treatment guasa. The detoxification that we are talking about here is non other than replenishing our colon with beneficial bacteria. Taking slimming detox tea, hi-fiber detox products, or any other detoxification products that doesn't replenish our colon's beneficial bacteria is utterly USELESS. Guasa therapy works best with a healthy colon, and the ONE and ONLY way to ensure that our colon is healthy is ensuring that it has sufficient beneficial bacteria, without which our colon is as good as a car without an engine.

If you wish to learn more about Guasa Therapy. Feel free to contact me (WeChat ID: Kindboy80). I do provide Guasa Therapy service for a small charges and I am more than happy to teach you for free if you are serious in learning it.  Whether you are having stiff shoulders, migraine, back pain issues, chronic diseases (high blood pressure, gout, diabetes, cancer, stroke, etc), or any health issues that you wish to get rid of, feel free to contact me for free Molecular Reform Therapy advice.  Molecular reform therapy advocates that 80% of chronic diseases, deemed incurable by modern medicine, could be reversed or cured via molecular reform therapy.

Below are some of my accomplishments in Guasa Therapy:
1. I cured my own asthma-like health issue that has haunted me for over 26 years.  It took roughly 4 sessions including the first session that was performed by my guasa master.  I did the other 3 guasa sessions myself and that's how I started learning guasa.
2. I taught a chinese physician, who is also a certified guasa therapist, how to cure her migraine issue and even shared some of my guasa knowledge with her.  Surprisingly, she does not know much about guasa even though she has a certificate for it.
3. I helped a few people to restore their arm's mobility.  Some of them couldn't fully raise their arm, some of them experience pain when lifting their arms, some of them couldn't lift heavy objects and some of them simply just injured their arm due to excessive sports activity.  My mom had a strange incident where her left thumb suddenly couldn't move after she nearly twisted her wrist while she was doing house chores.  After just one guasa session, her thumb is back to normal again.
4. I helped a few people, including my own father, to restore their legs' issue.  My father used to experience a mixture of numbness, discomfort and tingling sensations in his legs whenever he sits down for over 10 minutes.  After around 6 sessions of guasa, his legs are totally fine now.  I ever helped an uncle who drop by my master's guasa demo classes, to cure his leg's rheumatism.  There is also a case of an uncle who experiences pain in his leg, but no doctors has been able to identify the cause as they couldn't detect anything through their various scanning tests.  When I guasa for him, half of his calf reveals huge clusters of dark colored "sa" and when my guasa master saw it, my master told me that those are signs of internal injuries.  When we asked the uncle whether he has had any serious accident previously, he told us that he accidentally slipped his leg into a drainage a few years ago.  Although the leg appeared to have healed, the internal injuries remained.  Similar to my personal case, it again proves that guasa can completely cure internal injuries which are undetectable by x-ray and even CT scan.
5. I helped 2 of my father's friends, who has difficulties moving one of their arm and leg due to stroke, to improve their mobility.  Besides their arm and leg mobility, I also helped them to improve their speech clarity.  They already spent a lot on other medical aid (acupuncture, acupressure, tui na and medication) previously for over 6 months with little improvements, but noticed quite significant improvements after 4 sessions (4 weeks) of my guasa.