All about cupping, an old healing technique
Area school teaches ancient Eastern healing technique
Kim Kardashian is into it.
So are Olympians, such as swimmers Michael Phelps (USA) and Pavel Sankovich (Belarus) and American gymnast Alexander Naddour.
Phelps could be seen competing during the 2016 Summer Olympics with bruise-like blotches on his shoulders and back. Meanwhile, Sankovich posted on his Instagram a photo of his thighs covered in suctions cups with the caption: “Cupping is a great recovery tool.” What is this? It’s a traditional Chinese medicine practice called cupping, which dates back thousands of years and is sometimes used in conjunction with acupuncture therapy and/or Chinese herbal medicine. We met up with Les Rolf, a licensed massage therapist, board certified acupuncturist and faculty member at the Won Institute in Glenside, Cheltenham Township, to learn more about it.
“Certified acupuncturists are trained to do it. You don’t need to be licensed (to practice cupping), so massage therapists can do it,” he said, noting that there are 500 acupuncturists, just in Pennsylvania, that practice cupping.
However, most health insurance plans do not cover cupping, Rolf said, unless the plan covers acupuncture “adjunctive therapy.”
Cupping involves placing cups — made of either glass, ceramic, silicon or bamboo — on the skin (typically a strategic acupuncture point area) and creating suction that, according to Rolf, increases blood and lymph flow, stimulates energy flow through the body’s meridian channels and draws toxins from the body. The suction can be done with a pump device, or in the case of Cheltenham resident Pamela Davis, by lighting an alcohol-soaked cotton ball and placing it
into the cups. As the flame quickly uses up the oxygen and goes out, the cups are placed open side down on the skin.
The cooling creates a vacuum, and after a few minutes on Davis’ arm, the skin sucked into the cup turns reddish from the pressure on the blood vessels. “You feel a little bit of pulling (from the suction), but that’s about it,” she said.
Davis has come to the Won Institute clinic because working out at the gym three times a week leaves her with pain radiating from her shoulders to her arms.
The cups are normally left in place for between 5 and 10 minutes. In some cases, oil is applied to the skin and the cups are moved to different problem areas.
Rolf said: “This may get redder with time, and may not go away for one or two days.”
That doesn’t bother Davis, who has been coming to see Rolf for four years. “What brought me here is my cancer issues, and I have stayed because I’ve gotten better,” she said.
Besides muscle aches and pains, cupping coupled with acupuncture is also said to help with respiratory conditions and gastrointestinal disorders. Acupuncture has a connection to Buddhist philosophy, Rolf said, because it aims to achieve yin and yang balance.
Over the centuries, cupping made its way across Asia, to western Europe as traders observed it being performed, and to the Jewish communities of eastern Europe.
“A lot of our patients come from friends who refer them,” said the Won Institute’s president, Dr. Bokin Kim, also mentioning referrals from chiropractic offices and Buddhist temples.
Established in 2001 in Samsung Hall, a 1928 building on South Easton Road originally intended to be a bank, the Won Institute teaches cupping as part of its Master of Acupuncture Studies Program. During clinical internships, students provide cupping as treatment in student and veterans acupuncture clinics.
Explore more by calling (215) 884-9002 or going to www.woninstitute.edu.