Chung-Hua Institute

In last month's installment, I wrote on how acupuncture is traditionally used to treat the injuries that are sustained in kung-fu practice. Now, while acupuncture is probably thought of as the trademark modality in Chinese medicine, there's another system of injury treatment in Chinese medicine that is probably even more appropriate for handling the types of injuries caused and sustained in martial arts practice - "tui-na".

Literally meaning "pushing and grasping", tui-na can be thought of as the oldest of Chinese medical treatments, as it revolves around physical realignment of injured bones and soft tissues to their "normal state". It's like chiropractic and massage rolled into one, with techniques missing from both, thus uniquely different from them as well. In recent years, with greater acceptance of treatment methods labeled as "alternative medicine", the public has begun to hear more about Asian massage techniques, such as shiatsu and Thai massage. But tui-na is the oldest such system from China, and its track record in dealing with sports and martial art related injuries is incredible.

In the modern era, China's leading recognized tui-na instructor was Dr. Yu Da-fang, who passed away in 1999. Prior to his passing, Dr. Yu was also the main man responsible for bringing tui-na to the United States, teaching in some of the leading Chinese medical research institutes in Southern California. Among his many students, he accepted a Korean disciple, Dr. Kim Jae-man, who now heads the World Tui-Na Association. Kim, who was also a certified instructor of Korean ship-pal-gi kung-fu and earned doctorate degrees both in the United States and in mainland China, is uniquely qualified to speak on the use of tui-na to treat martial arts injuries.

According to Kim, "Tui-na is the most practical means of injury treatment in a martial art setting." Too often, there are careless injuries that result in training, yet the instructor may not have acupuncture needles on hand, or the injury may require a bone to be set of a joint realigned. While the acupuncture needles can alleviate the swelling quickly, they won't magically pop a hyper-extended joint back into place. That's where the techniques of tui-na come into play. Tui-na has the ability to effectively treat injuries ranging from simple cramps and sprains to more serious injuries like dislocations and fractures. From my own personal experience, I've suffered many injuries through the years - from a spiral fracture up my fibula to having my cervical vertebrae turn inward on each other - and I thought for sure that many of them were career ending. Painful injuries to my back, neck, and countless joints cost me a great deal of time away from training and teaching, but tui-na treatments, including those I've received from Kim have managed to keep me coming back to the training hall. However, injuries that tui-na should not treat include open wounds (since hand treatment may increase the risk of infection) and bone fractures. Traditionally, tui-na specialists were very successful in treating fractures, but because of liability issues, this is not done in the United States.

Tui-na science divides injuries into two categories: internal and external. "Internal injuries affect the chi (internal energy), blood, and internal organs, while external injuries deal with the soft tissue and bone," Kim explains. "There are 28 basic tui-na techniques, which can be further categorized into six divisions," he continues. "Those categories are:

and 6. joint movement.

Thus even people who have some sort of illness with their internal organs can benefit from tui-na, not just people who have sports related injuries," says Kim.

Each of these is designed to realign external injuries, while helping boost and circulate the chi or blood, which can be deficient or stagnated in a particular site of injury. "With manipulation, tui-na can treat something like a twisted ankle by first relaxing the muscle spasms surrounding the injury, realigning the bones, and then rubbing the ligaments and tendons in such a way as to smooth then out and encourage more circulation to the connective tissue," explains Kim. The lack of direct circulation to connective tissue is the reason why joint injuries take so much longer to heal than most other injuries, but with direct stimulation, the injured ligament can receive increased blood flow, since the practitioner's hand pushes the blood to that area.

This particular system of treatment is particularly interesting since tui-na operates on the same basic principles as joint locking. "If you understand the way a body part is supposed to function, you can do certain things that will aid that function, or completely disrupt it," says Kim. "Thus, you can think of tui-na as the flip side of chin-na (Chinese joint locking techniques). While chin-na is geared towards taking a joint or body part out of it's natural range of motion to destroy the joint, tui-na brings the injured area back into a proper range of motion, resetting the bone and soft tissue in its proper structure so that the person can resume normal function."

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For more information on tui-na, you can contact Dr. Kim Jae-man at the Harmony Medical Center, 3409 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505 or visit his website at www.tui-na.com