The not so subtle art of bamboo massage

Hot stones are out and sticks are in – Christine Manby gets to grips with the deep tissue therapy... but was it really invented by monkeys?

(Illustration by Tom Ford)

Which of us hasn’t heard or said the rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”? And which of us who has ever been to school or had a job or, indeed, ever met another human being doesn’t know that’s categorically untrue? Words can be hurtful indeed, while it turns out those nasty sticks and stones can cure all manner of ills. At least when used in the context of a spa treatment. Hot stone massages are commonplace but stones are the Nineties massage tool. Sticks are the new(ish) thing. Bamboo sticks to be precise.

The history of bamboo massage is unclear. It seems like it should be an ancient technique. The Chinese have been cultivating bamboo for more than 7000 years, for use as food, as a building material and as something to write with and on. Surely they’ve used it for rolling out stiff muscles? Other sources suggest that bamboo has long been used as a massage tool in Ayurvedic medicine. There’s also a rumour that it began when someone saw two monkeys rubbing each other with shoots.

But the technique was actually patented in 2004 by Nathalie Cecilia, an American massage therapist, who came up with the idea of using bamboo sticks for deep tissue massage to save the strain on her fingers and wrists.