Week 4 • Gimme a Beat

My Dear Friend,

Oh boy. This week was a funny one. The type of class that you will ONLY find in massage school. Let me give you a laundry list of the techniques we practiced. Try not to laugh. We learned: Tapping, Cupping, Slapping, Hacking, Beating, Shaking, Jostling, Rocking, and Vibration. 😂 

These ain't no smooth gliding effleurage motions. This is the world of Percussion and Oscillation Techniques. These stimulating methods drive force into the tissues in a more direct, rhythmic way. At first, they can feel very energizing and activating, but if you prolong the treatment, it can actually desensitize nerve endings, interrupt pain signals, and allow tense tissues to relax. 

Percussion 

Percussion - also known by the French term Tapotement, if you're feeling fancy - is precisely what it sounds like. You're drumming out a rhythm. In a massage session, you might use percussion for pain relief, for breaking up tissue that isn't responding to gliding strokes, or even to wake the client up at the end of their time. 😁

Percussive techniques are just categorized by the tool you're using:

Tapping uses fingertips. 

Cupping uses cupped palms - this can be especially useful in breaking up lung congestion. 

Slapping uses a flat hand and fingers. 

Hacking uses the ulnar border of your hand - this is the "karate chop" version you've probably seen most often. 

Beating uses a softly clenched fist. 

Oscillation

So then we have Oscillation techniques. Where percussion is about quick hits of contact, oscillation is more of a pulsation rhythm. Working with the push and pull of the fluid body. We are mostly made up of water, after all. And fluid accepts resonance, like that cup of water in Jurassic Park.

Shaking is exactly what it sounds like. What is cool is that when you shake someone, you can actually observe where tension is stored in their tissues, because those parts won't move as much. So shaking is a valuable diagnostic tool!

Jostling is more gentle than shaking. You grasp across the entire muscle, lift it slightly away from its position, and give it a gentle jostle across its axis. This is great for decompression of tissues. 

Rocking uses a push-pull and release movement side to side or up and down. Here, emphasis is placed on rhythm and following the fluid body in its own tempo. 

Vibration is a super concentrated application of a continuous tremor. It can be applied by a person or by a device. Massage guns are a classic example of vibratory technique. 

Drum Practice

Practicing these techniques with each other was a very silly time. You get ten people in a room playing drums on each other, and it's gonna get noisy. Slaps of skin, thunks on trunks, syncopated groans, loud sighs, and uncontrollable laughter.  

You really have to mean these methods, you can't casually introduce them in a session. They are disruptive, which is why I think a lot of therapists avoid using them. But that's also WHY they work. They disrupt our normal patterns. They make our nervous system say, "Whoa, ok. What is THAT input?" And when our body can then process that new input safely, WOW, can that tension just melt away. Voila! BODY MAGIC!

Ok I'm gonna go practice the drum solo from Wipeout.

Until next week,

Your Friend,

Professional Percussionist & Bodyworker-in-Training