Four finger grooming strokes

Your hand is curved and your fingers are held close together, giving it a “scoop” look.

Line-up your fingertips so that the nails are flush and present the most continuity from one to the other.

If you look at your knuckles, you will see the flat surface that used to be our front foot, for knuckle-walking.

•Four finger scratching strokes

This is the most basic grooming technique.
Your tightly held fingers simply go back and forth over the skin's surface.

Grooming only occurs during the in-stroke, so you put more pressure and attention during that phase.

Out-strokes are generally performed much faster than
in-strokes. They don't matter.

Basic but effective

If you want to groom large areas, four finger scratching strokes are your only choice.
Your entire body's skin surface is too vast for a single nail.
The combined width of your four nails is close to two inches if you're an adult .

There are three gaps, but they simply enhance the flexibility and effectiveness of the system.

A question of pressure

The effect you get when using this stroke depends on how mush pressure you apply.

Low pressure:
If you don't put enough force on your hand, you don't feel the folds.
This is like raking the ground across a line of rocks without noticing the change.

Even so, there are uses for this technique such as epidermis coat removal (see below), general speedy grooming and grooming unfolded skin.

High pressure:
The extra pressure pushes you to slow down your movements so you can feel the folds.
As soon as this happens, you sense an urge to change your hand position so that your four fingers fall into the fold.
Once this is done, you can slide your entire hand up or down the fold.
While doing this, you perform small four finger scratching strokes so that your nails pass over the seam of the fold,. going in and out.

Uneven finger use

Since your middle finger is longer, it sometimes takes the lead and blurs the distinction between single and four finger grooming.
It could also be called “two finger” or “three finger” grooming depending on the situation.
Skin condition dictates your technique.

Reach

Many parts of your body cannot be attained with this stroke.
The tool is simply too big to fit.
Forget the eye-nose-ear areas.
It won't work on your fingers, toes and hard to reach places.

Use on the epidermis coat

The four finger scratching stroke is good for resurfacing large regions of skin, mostly at first when the corneal layer of the epidermis prevents more detailed work.
On some parts of your body this protective coat may have become extra-hard.
It may take several months, or even years, of grooming just to get past it.
Since the coat prevents you from feeling the folds below it, you can use low pressure and speed up your strokes.

•Four finger pulling strokes

Pulling strokes require more strength than scratching ones.
Here also, you have to modify your hand's angle so that your nails fit into a fold.

You first increase the pressure, then use this grasp to pull the fold open.
The fold resists and you lose your grip.
But you've opened it a little and some nails have removed bits of epidermis from it.
You reposition your fingers and repeat.

•Four finger strumming strokes

The four fingers aren't held together for this stroke.
The fingertips remain in line, but there is a distance between each one.
Your fingers groom the target area in sequence: 5-4-3-2.
You use the side of those four nails as for cutting strokes.

The little finger takes the lead and the others pursue in order.
They all follow the bottom of a fold.
If I were a fold crossing, I would be hit first by your pinkie, then by your fourth, then by your third, then by your second finger.
Often you can augment the pressure as this happens since your more agile and powerful fingers come last.

Finger independence

Your strokes will benefit if you practice individual control over each finger’s action.
Some fingers rake for epidermis while others open the fold more.

If you weren't so folded

Had you been grooming all your life, you could preserve this condition by using mostly low pressure four finger strokes.
As it is, you have to unknot painful monsters and only single finger grooming will do that.