Scraping together a little scraping massage science

Gua sha is the Asian cultural practice of scraping massage — and the bruising is the point! There are also a bunch of commercialized variants, like Graston Technique and ASTYM. Jonathan Jarry has done a critical analysis of gua sha for the McGill Office for Science & Society, and of course there’s not much to analyze: muddled, simplistic, and implausible claims … hardly any science to speak of …

“Gua sha will need more than a spoon or a jar lid to smooth out the many wrinkles in its scientific literature.”

Yes, people use spoons, jar lids, and other hard-edged improvised tools to do gua sha. Jarry also discusses the health risks, of course, and there are some (mainly infection). But the real hazard? As usual, it’s the waste of time and money.