"Cupping"
Jenny & Adam
CAMERON HIGHLANDS, Malaysia // So after "Jungle Trek 1" we all decided to get a foot massage at the reflexology place next to our hotel. We basically are staying in the “Chinatown” area of Cameron Highlands so picture a few towel covered La-Z-Boys and a bright green patterned window curtains kind of place. The foot massage was the most painful thing any of the three of us had experienced. They found knots in places I didn’t know muscles existed. Adam swears they were seconds away from tearing off his big toe. They cracked all 10 of my toes which usually I’m lucky if a lady can get one of them to pop.
Anyways I digress away from "cupping", at one point they get to my ankle and I feel like they have just stabbed me as I feel unbelievable pain. I look at my foot reflexology chart to see what part of my body this corresponds to and its my hip, which has always been unnaturally tight. He notices the pain and yelp I let out and moves up to my knee. He finds a tiny pellet size knot on the inside of both knees. He grabs what looks like a plastic pot scraper from his torture kit and starts attacking this pellet until a few minutes later he conquers the pellet and it ceases to exist.
But before I can relax from the attack he says "cupping" and the next thing I know there is a torch on fire in front of me, little glass fish bowls on a cart and he is putting the fire in the cup and then attaching them to my knees. They don’t hurt going on but you can see as your skin under the suction starts to pull into the bowl in little red mountains. 6 cups are added, 3 per knee. One on top and two on the sides. They kind of feel like your knee is being pulled in three directions. Supposedly its the opposite of pushing on a muscle to get the blood to come to a tension filled spot. This time it pulls the blood to those spots to help heal.
What feels like an eternity later but was probably only 5-10 minutes he starts yanking them off which he does fast like a bandaid because that part hurts. 3 days later I still had 6 circular purple and red bruises on my knees. 10 days later I still have one little bruise left. They don’t really hurt to touch but they look nasty but other than that no pain though Im not sure I feel any extra relief in my hip either.
A first and probably a last for my "cupping" days.