Grooming modes

The gestures you use while grooming vary depending on your goals.
Let's distinguish a few types;
• Exploratory grooming
• Superficial grooming
• Deep skin grooming
• Curative grooming
Since both your objectives and your moves are different, these modes describe distinct manners of grooming.

 

Exploratory grooming

You must always include a period of exploratory grooming before attempting any serious work.
This phase can last only a fraction of a second, but can extend for days and weeks.
It depends on how familiar you are with grooming a particular zone, so let's differentiate Reconnaissance, Test and True exploratory grooming.

•Reconnaissance

This phase occurs when working on regions that you have never or not groomed for some time.
•Move your nail over your skin.
•Map out any interesting details or sensations.
Even if your problem is very precise, it may be linked to other ones nearby, so it's good to cover an area at least one foot wide.
You don't want to spend too much time on one particular spot, because you could hurt yourself.
Once done. you should have an elementary mental picture of the area including any troublespots.

•Test grooming

Here, you want to see how a particular region of skin reacts to grooming.
In fact, you should allow a period of test-grooming whenever you feel unsure of your technique or simply experimenting something new.
Design the tests yourself.
Each one should last several days.
On the first day, only groom a few spots lightly and just for a few seconds.
The next day, if your skin shows no adverse reaction, you can increase both the intensity and the duration.
Keep on doing this for a few days.
If, at any time, you witness anything that doesn't heal rapidly, simply stop grooming there.
Re-evaluate the force and span of your actions.

•True exploratory grooming

True exploration occurs at the onset of any grooming stroke.
Before you get to work, you have to;
•Find out where you are on your skin.
•Locate the folds in the area and their crossings.
•Pinpoint the problem you want to tackle.
•Determine the best angle and method of attack.
Of course, you want to do these things very fast, so this phase can be quite short.
Usually, you need to explore frequently, so a typical grooming session goes;
Explore-groom-explore-groom-explore-groom...

 

Superficial grooming

The top of the corneal layer of the epidermis (the one you see) is composed entirely of dead cells.
The uppermost coats are supposed to be removed all your life through daily grooming.
Since you have never groomed, the corneal layer on your skin has become very thick and hard.
Scraping strokes are ideal for this job, but you must not put too much pressure on your nails.

Grooming off the top of
the corneal layer

The surface of your body is so ample that covering it all with your nails is no small task.

If you weren't so folded

Had you been grooming all your life, this stroke is almost all you would need to use.
Your skin would never have folded and you wouldn't have to resort to the more complex techniques of curative and deep skin grooming.

How much must be removed?

The thickness of the coat varies of course, but you must also consider its toughness.
In most areas, it will be very thin.
It's like removing the waxy, shiny layer at the top of your skin.
Don't worry, your liberated skin will glow with health.
On some parts of your body, (chin, nose, fingers, ...), this protective coat may have become extra-hard.
In those cases, it may take several months or even years of grooming just to get past it.
This coat prevents you from feeling the folds beneath it.

A habit to take

You have to continuously grind down this layer of dead cells for the rest of your life.
Your skin was conceived for this, and this is why you have flat nails.
Try to integrate superficial grooming into your life by performing short flurries of four finger scraping strokes at different moments of your day.
Do part of it while doing something else.
Superficial grooming is the only mode I recommend when grooming someone else.

 

Deep skin grooming

If you had groomed your skin superficially all your life, you would not have to utilize deep skin grooming at all.
This is the level of grooming where you have to feel the folds and their crossings.

Considerable pressure

Deep skin grooming can only be accomplished by putting lots of force on your fingers.
You need to exert much more pressure on your skin than you do in other grooming modes, so be watchful of any sign of damage.

Finding the right spot

Though all parts of your skin benefit from all this squashing, you won't get anywhere unless your nail is precisely positioned on a fold crossing.
Luckily, your skin is so folded that it has several per square inch, so you won't have to search very long to find one.
For your nail, they present themselves as cavities in your skin, holes.
You want to position yourself exactly in the center of the depression.

     

Nail searching for a fold crossing		Nail has found a crossing

A small percentage of the crossings appear as bumps.

Place your nail at the highest point

Crossings are lined up along a fold, so getting to the next one is only a matter of following the groove.

Imaging the crossing

•Gradually increase the pressure on a crossing.
•Try to ignore the pain.
•Concentrate on the shape of what is blocking the progression of your nail.
•This structure has a size, a hardness, an orientation, ... You can feel tensions on all sides
•Try to map this image as deeply as you can.

When you apply pressure on it, you can feel
the complete structure of a fold crossing

It is essential to have a mental representation of the object you are trying to unknot.
Your acuity will grow with time.

Crushing the crossing

•Press your nail down the center of the crossing.

Your nail penetrates deeply into the skin
as it crushes the fold crossing

Your goal is to flatten the structure as best you can and to collect additional information about it as you go.

Orienting your nail

A fold crossing has a chimney in its center.
It drives into the skin, but not necessarily straight down.
•Make a calculated guess of where the bottom of the crossing you are grooming is.
•Reorient your finger and nail so that the pressure you apply is in line with the chimney.
•Aim for the bottom with your nail.

Match the angle of the crossing

If you are precisely positioned on the center of a crossing, you will feel its chimney open up, as your nail penetrates it.

 

Curative grooming

This section would not exist if humans had been grooming their skin properly all their life.
Regrettably, in the present situation, it concerns the bulk of your grooming activities.
Your folds and their crossings have kept on growing continuously since your birth and each one is similar to a construction that you now want to take apart.
They all are unique and different and only you can feel and figure out how to flatten them out.
To do this, you will have to make all kinds of gestures and take all sorts of positions.