What is Point Percussion?

To be completed

Around the time I was going to Healesville, when Skye was 3 or 4 years old, I came upon a woman who had been funded by New Idea Magazine to go China to help her help her son Jake through his phenomenal cerebral palsy. He was very contracted and although being 10 or so, was unable to move well due to the tightenings of his body.

I organised to visit her whilst at one of Kathryn’s IAHP sessions and we spent a day together. She taught me what she was doing and I took the information home and started do immediately with Skye.

Unfortunately, within three weeks I had to stop as the tips of the bones of my fingers were so sore I could not continue.

However, in that time I changed the course of what was happening.

Skye had always ‘M’ sat. – Legs splayed out to the sides. Gradually she stopped doing this – and I took this initially to be her growing put on a phase – as the boys had never done this.

When I paid more attention – I noticed that she actually COULD’NT do it any more as she was starting to go into contractures. When sleeping, a side of her face was looking strange and during the day it was sagging when she was tired, and when sleeping in the car I noticed that one of her hands was curling into itself. Like a claw.

Although I started masking from 50 to 80 times and got rid of most of these problems, the final part of this act was to get the circulation spreading well and the point percussion was designed just for this – to “open the channels” as an acupuncturist would see it.

How to do Point Percussion and why

Originally performed in China, point percussion was very brutal – tendons were occasionally snapped whilst working on children – and this was all part of the picture. At all costs the body had to regain its suppleness.

To encourage better circulation, very fast tapping (of all the fingers touching the thumb tip) against and all over the body in lines and sections happened. The more the upwards movement was fast and not like hitting, the more the area changed. It hurts, but is a good hurt. For a period afterwards, the area feels as though it is revitalized.

When the local area is all red, the points around a joint were pressed very firmly and when all was ‘warmed up’, a quick clicking like movement adjustment was made to get the joint to open up . . . and was repeated up and down all limbs and the head – twice daily. It is easy to see that me being an ‘all or nothing’ type of worker, I wore myself out quickly.

I would give Skye an apple – and she would happily sit in my lap whilst I attacked different parts of her body. She seemed to wake up somehow – that is what it looked like.

I would get out 10 videos a week – (10 for $10 deal). As she was not a sleeper and we were awake anyway, I continued therapy into the wee hours, till she did get tired. I watched the videos so I didn’t go mad – as sleep deprived and having far too much to do – and still having to be awake – as she did not sleep – meant she screamed if I was not with her. So at least this was giving us something to do in the hours I had to fill up. Skye was not interested in anything but the apple and being held. The therapy did not phase her.

Eventually some people started up this as a therapy option and adjusted it to look more humane to the Australian psyche. In so doing I am not sure the results found in China were replicated. Jake in Melbourne, thanks to his mother’s tenacity, and the generosity of the Australian New Idea readership went from being totally bent over to standing up straight. He screamed through a lot of it – and it would have been horrendously intensive – and it worked. Skye did not regress after this, although I could only manage three weeks before the tips of my fingers gave out.

The collision of my fingertip bones against her cranial bones was just too much for me, as pain stopped the process going any further.

As I was doing 80 not the usual 50 rebreathing masks a day by then, I am very sure the combination got Skye over the hump and back into normal elasticity of her tissues.

For more on point percussion, please go to http://members.optusnet.com.au/mengyu/