The manipulation is the main therapeutic procedure of Tuina, which is also one of the earliest therapies in human medical history. According to the legend of China, as early as the Shennong's era, the famous physician Jiu Daiji mastered this technique to treat diseases. So did other ancient civilizations in the world. For example, it was written in European explorers’ travel notes of the 16th century that the primitive aboriginals of Polynesia islands applied a unique external therapy to relieve sufferings though they didn’t know any medicine. When an aborigine was ill, he or she would lie prostrate on the ground, and then a child would step on his or her back to and fro. Illnesses were always relieved very soon by this way. They believed that the child’s stepping on the back could drive the evil out of the patient’s body. But Chinese medicine explains that the force of the child’s gravity acts on the Governor Vessel and the Bladder Meridian on the back, which stimulates the adjusting function of the meridian system, and thus treating illnesses. Click to learn Chinese medicine Treatment for Irregular Menstruation.

Manipulations are defined as those standardized skillful movements in which the manipulators stimulate body surface or move the limbs or trunk of the patient with their hands or other body parts for medical or heahhcare purpose. Differences in stimulation pattern intensity and time result in the formation of a lot of different elementary manipulations such as pressing, grasping and pushing etc. Those combined with two or more elementary manipulations are known as compound manipulations such as pressing. Kneading, pushing circular rubbing, and pinching-kneading．Those composed of serial moVements and given specific nanles are called complex manipulative programs such as"Riding Horse across Heaven River", "Wasp Entering Cavity"and"Red Phoenix Rotadng Its Head". Click to learn Chinese medicine Treatment for Ovarian Cyst.

Tuina manipulations are highly-skilled techniques or expert movements on the body. They should not be mentioned in the same breath with the casual movements of everyday life though they originnated from those movements such as pushing, grasping, pressing and kneading. Their direct acting object is living tissues of the body where there are pathological changes in most cases, and their medium is the meridian syste. Therefore, the manipulations must accord with the specific requirements in technique and in clinical application. Only the highly-skilled manipulations and the properly selected indications can promote the self-regulating function of the meridian system and attain satisfactory therapeutic effect, and avoid harming local tissues of the body. Click to learn TCM Treatment Evaluation for Adenomyosis.

Tuina of Traditional Chinese Medicine has always been putting specific emphasis on the role of manipulations in clinical practice. Golden Mirror of Medicine· Chapter of Bonesetting(1742) states that "There are mild and serious injuries,which should be treated accordingly by applying different manipulations．Whether a speedy and full recovery results or not all depends On the applied manipulations"．The therapeutic effect of Tuina relies on the manipulative skills instead of the physical strength or the violent force. It happens a lot in clinical that some patients’sufferings are not relieved after"Tuina therapy"offered by nonprofessionals. Instead, their skins are damaged and their subcutaneous tissues in—jured, or even more,severe medical accidents occur. The movements without specific techniques are definitely not Tuina manipulations.