new obsession.

I have another Chinese obsession to add to the list.

Hot cupping.

The obsession list now includes: foot massages, hair washes, tea eggs, babies, and hot cupping. That's a nice well-rounded mix of obsessions, right?

Yesterday's session was kind of intense. My marks are realllly dark around my shoulders. Apparently, according to the darkness of the bruises, I'm about to keel over and call it quits. Or something is wrong with my "qi." Or I sit at a computer/in class/on a bus too often.

I'm choosing to roll with the later.

Check it out, these go all the way down to my pant line, but I'll spare you that much viewage:

Fire cupping has been happening in China for over 2000 years. How it works is someone lights the inside of a glass cup on fire, then places it on your pressure points along the spine. The idea is that the spine carries your "qi" and that cold badness can get into your body.

The hot cups create a suction and bring the "bad blood" to the surface and essentially pop the blood vessels (culminating into huge hickies/bruises). The darker the bruise, the worse your health (so they say). Hot cupping helps with circulation.

No modern medicine backs up these claims, so I take my impending doom with a grain of salt. But I do know that I sleep like a baby after I get it done and it feels so releasing. I'm a hot cup convert.

walk slow. xoxo.