Apparently I'm the only one here who's been cupped before.
Had it done to me many times when I was a kid. Thought it was child abuse back then. Still do. Medieval ****, barely a step above leeching.
We didn't use any of these fancy rounded cups either. A family member would wrap some cotton around the tines of a fork, dip it in rubbing alcohol, and light it on fire. Then you stick the little torch into a glass. Same ones we drank out of. The flame would burn out the oxygen inside the cup and create a vacuum. The hot cup was then immediately slapped down on your back. To preserve the vacuum, the person applying the cups had to work fast and close to the victim's back. That flaming fork was just inches from my back. The vacuum would pull your flesh into the cup and hold it fast. Hurt like a mother, especially when you're just skin and bones. After a short while, the cups would start to get loose. The torturer, er, practioner, would pluck it off, stick the little torch back in, then slap it down on the back. Over and over again. You see, they figured where it hurt the most is where the "cold" was so they focused on that area. That's why they did it to me, to cure me of a bad cold or bronchitis or whatever. They figured it sucked the cold out of you. Kind of like leeches (in fact, there is a version of cupping where you actually make shallow cuts in the skin to suck out the bad blood along with the bad vapors or evil spirits or whatever the hell they figured they were doing).
The mark didn't look like what you see on the athletes. On them, it is a solid disk. It was more like overlapping doughnut shaped bruises on me. Black and blue rings, not a dark red disk. Looked like a honeycomb on my back. A little bit like this, but much worse:
I remember going in to the doctor after having this done. He was familiar with the process. He had a new intake nurse. She had taken my blood pressure, temperature, etc., asked about my symptoms and all that. So after she turns me over to the doctor and leaves he calls her back in. Being new, she's concerned that she must have screwed up. He asks her about the intake procedure, if she asked me all the questions, etc. I have no idea where he's going with this (plus I'm just a sick kid) so I'm sitting there quietly. The doctor then asks me to take my shirt off and turn around. The doctor tells his nurse that the entire clinic is now in quarantine due to the rare, highly contagious tropical disease I was carrying. She literally ran out of the exam room screaming in horror. That is an absolutely true story.
Alex.