Dinner Fork or Salad Fork?

I ran a supply company for 5 years, specializing in high quality acupuncture supplies. One of the great things about that job was that opportunity to handle a lot of superb Teishin (blunt-ended needles) made of different metals. What I noticed, after only a short time, was that I could tell what material the Teishin was made of just by handling it. Although platinum, silver, and zinc all look similar, the feel of each is very different. And although 14K, 18K and 20K gold look quite alike under low lighting, Qi passes through each of them in a totally distinct way.

Different alloys of steel also have different qualities. If you perform the same technique with two different brands of acupuncture needle, you will notice differences in the way each feels during treatment. Some needles feel heavier, others transmit changes in the Qi of the point more quickly to your fingers, some might feel duller and have less Shen, or still others may feel bright or shiny when you use them. I have had people tell me that certain Teishin “sing” to them while they work. And while a machine-made filiform needle does not have the uniqueness and depth of character that a handmade Teishin does, a good steel filiform needle can still hum a quiet tune from time to time.

If you want to see what I am talking about and you only use one kind of needle, go support your local acupuncture school bookstore and buy some boxes of another needle that is of the same or higher quality than the one you currently use, but in the same size and length. You can alternate between the two brands on different days, with different clients, or as your whim dictates. Pay attention to how the insertions and manipulations at different points feel in your hands while you work. If you find that you like or don’t like certain properties of the needles, force yourself to express why. For me, it is never enough to think, “this one is not as good.” I push myself to come up with clear reasons why I do or do not like using one brand of needles over another.

When you are not treating, handle the needles you use often, and experiment with how it feels to pass Qi through them in both directions. Remember that a needle not only transmits Qi into the client for treatment, but also transmits the Qi of the client back to you for evaluation and feedback. In addition to handling your needles more, become consistent in the way you load them for insertion. I am a huge fan of the one handed needle turn, and I will post more on this soon. But whatever method you choose for readying the needle, spend some time doing it without a client present – just loading and unloading, over and over. In this way you can compare two needles easily. You will be surprised what your fingers will pick up while you do this.

If these exercises proved interesting, I recommend you make a habit of them. Over time you will develop increasingly deeper awareness of what you feel during needlework that comes from the properties of the needle you are using, and what comes from your technique. Separating the two will give you better palpation skills and greater understanding of what techniques and which needles are appropriate in different clinical situations. If you want even more information about this, come to my upcoming class on Advanced Palpation Skills, and the other Advanced Skills classes coming later in the year.

The Self is the Guru

Sometimes you will see me walking around in my favorite T-Shirt, which Rachel gave me a few years ago. It says "The Self is the Guru." This is my mantra and my call to acupuncturists everywhere to recognize the power within each and every one of them.

Every so often someone calls me "Sensei," which is a term of respect and means something along the lines of "one who has been there before" or "one who is walking a little further up the path from me and can give me some guidance of what is coming toward me in life." A Japanese colleague of mine shared another definition of this term in saying that "Sensei really just means 'Mister' these days." So while I am flattered that someone means to respect me when they call me Sensei, I am not a fan of this term for two reasons.

Firstly, the American acupuncture profession (I can't speak for other countries) is mostly made up of women. Among the many female senior practitioners who have shaped my life and made me the practitioner I am today, only two have ever to my knowledge been called "Sensei" regularly by their students. Perhaps the word really does mean "Mister." If we are going to have a term of respect for our senior practitioners and cherished teachers, let's get one that we apply evenly to men and women.

Secondly, "Sensei" is not an English word. There are certain words from Chinese and Japanese that are difficult to translate satisfactorally into English, like "Qi" or "Shen." So while I often will use the word "energy" when talking with clients, "Qi" and "Shen" convey concepts I cannot easily express in Engligh. But I am pretty sure that we have a number of excellent words in our language to appropriately venerate our teachers.

In using our own words, we own the acupuncture we practice as part of our heritage here. There is a balance: we should respect the East Asian sources of our art and be greatful for the teaching that came from China and Japan, and we should also equally respect ourselves as the ones who are carrying this lineage forward and shaping our practice of acupuncture into something that is uniquely American.

The Self is the Guru. The universe will give you help and teaching when you need it, but to truly fly with your life and your art, you have to recognize the wonderful teacher inside you and own your own power. The Self is the Guru - say it with me.

I Ching Class Flyer

I Ching: Understanding Yin and Yang
July 25-26 9:00-4:30 (12 CEU’s)

Every acupuncturist needs to understand Yin and Yang in both theory and practice. The Classic of Change can be used to improve your knowledge of acupuncture philosophy as well as treatment. In this class, we will review the rules that govern Yin and Yang, and show how these rules apply to increasingly complex patterns. We will cover the Ba Gua, or eight trigrams in detail, and show how they develop and expand into the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching.

Participants will begin to develop a personal relationship to the hexagrams, and how to apply this knowledge to both life and treatment. Expect to leave this class feeling confident in your ability to use Yin and Yang, the eight trigrams, and the I Ching in acupuncture and all forms of Qi-based medicine and exercise.

I Ching: Yin and Yang in Action
August 22-23 9:00-4:30 (12 CEU’s)

This second class is appropriate for those who have taken the first weekend, or who have experience working with the I Ching. This class will focus on the deeper relationships that exist among the hexagrams.

We will consider natural flow and how individual choice shapes the direction of change, giving you greater recognition of the power that you and your clients have to change the pattern of energy in the health care process. You will leave this class familiar with the entirety of the I Ching, and with a thorough understanding of how to use the I Ching for assessing prognosis, advising your clients, and anticipating shifts in clinical energy patterns.

Class to be held at: Sage Community Acupuncture
62 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, MA 02420
Cost: $295 for one weekend $525 for both weekends
($250 / $495 for students)

Register by e-mail at thesilverneedle@gmail.com, or by phone at 781-860-8808

Come and learn more about this and other acupuncture topics at
thesilverneedle.blogspot.com

Instructor: Zachary Parsons, Lic.Ac. In 1996, Zach enrolled at New England School of Acupuncture, where he earned a Master's degree in Acupuncture and a certificate in Chinese Herbology. During this time he also trained in Craniosacral Therapy with the National Institute of Craniosacral Studies. Zach has a BA in Psychology from Wesleyan University, and has completed Master's level study in Kinesiology. Zach has taught at New England School of Acupuncture and at Boston Bodywork School of Shiatsu and Complementary Therapies. He specializes in the treatment of structural disorders.

Blog Gua

In acupuncture school, the lessons on Yin and Yang usually stop at the eight trigrams, or Ba Gua. In order to understand the I Ching, it is essential to first understand the Ba Gua, and in the class at the end of July we will be looking closely at the trigrams before we explore the larger hexagrams. Each of the eight trigrams has its own characteristics that will change depending on different circumstances. Once the nature of each of the trigrams is better understood, there are applications for using them in treating the Extraordinary Vessels, taking the pulse, needle technique, Qi Gong, and other aspects of acupuncture practice. We will touch on some of the applications that are possible, and will discuss resources that are available for further study of specific uses of the Ba Gua in treatment.

The trigrams will also be of great use in remembering and defining the hexagrams. As I touched on in the last post, the names of the hexagrams contain information about the overall energy pattern represented and also the balance of Yin and Yang that are present. The names are there to help make the nature of the hexagram more understandable. The truth of the hexagrams, however, is in the symbol. These symbols can each be broken into two trigrams stacked on top of each other. The top is called the "Outer Gua," and it is "over" the bottom or "Inner Gua." When we describe the symbol of a hexagram, if, say, the trigram for Wind is on top and the trigram for Mountain is on the bottom, we say it is "Wind over Mountain." This is a much more useful way of remembering the hexagrams than by the name or number in the book.

There are actually four trigrams that are immediately present in any hexagram, with one or more of them possibly in transition. Going from seeing the two trigrams stacked on top of each other to the four trigrams present in the hexagram requires only a simple progression in conscious awareness. With this new awareness comes a deeper understanding of the movements of Yin and Yang and the ways in which they transform and interact in medicine and in life.

Gender in the I Ching

Last night I went out to see some old friends and colleagues from Japan. The dinner we had did not agree with me, and my stomach woke me up two hours ago. I figured I should channel my discomfort into writing, and and post a blog entry since I wasn't able to put one up yesterday.

I want to start out talking briefly about two definitions that are important when studying the I Ching. The first word is "Feminism," meaning the view “that women and men are equal politically, socially, and economically." The other word is "Ching" (or "Jing," depending on how the Chinese is written in English – as in the Tao Te Ching, the Nan Jing, the Huang Di Nei Jing, and the I Ching). This word is translated as "classic." Or, as one of my teachers once explained it to me, "If you disagree with this book, you just don’t understand it well enough." Certainly a little glib, but classics do tend to be full of deep meaning that takes some time to absorb.

As we read the I Ching, we see gender showing up in the text in ways that can be difficult to relate to for a modern reader. Women are sometime spoken of a objects of ill-omen or things to be feared and shunned in the text. I have wrestled with this over the years, trying to find a common ground between the what I consider the truth of "Feminism" and the possibility that I am missing something when reading a "Ching.”

There is a contrasting negative male reference as well, which is that of a man who is overly aggressive, and this is the key to understanding why women get such a bad rap in parts of the I Ching. Confucius’s commentaries aside, any reference to “male” or “female” in the I Ching should be read and understood as “Yang” or “Yin” by acupuncturists. The “fearsome strong woman” and the “foolishly aggressive man” are both allusions to an inappropriate and potentially destabilizing Yin or Yang energy, when looking at the overall balance of the hexagram.

Equating Yang with “masculine” and Yin with “feminine” is the conceptual point at which using labels really starts to limit our understanding and appreciation of Yin and Yang. I encourage all readers of the I Ching not to take gender references literally if you want to actually make use of this text in a meaningful way.

Most translations of the I Ching tend to venerate the Yang more than the Yin, so the disparaging of the Yin is more common. However, if we keep in mind that this is a book about concepts that were (and are) difficult for most people to fully grasp and apply, and that the majority of commentary and translation has been written by men, we can move beyond this unpleasantness and develop a close understanding of the symbolism that will be of such great use in the acupuncture setting. It is the symbols that are the heart of the I Ching.

The translation I prefer for people new to this study is “The Complete I Ching” by Alfred Huang. The book has several good and bad points if you compare it to other translations, but on the whole I find it very accessible and more useful than other texts in understanding the character and Shen of each hexagram. But if you pick up this book and flip to, say “The Marrying Maiden” as you leaf through it, just remember that it is about the relationship of the Yin lines to the Yang lines in that hexagram – their overall balance and placement. So cringe, as I do, and then as you ponder this hexagram you can always think of it as “Thunder over Lake” instead.

First Class Coming Soon

I am itching to put palpation and needling classes up to teach, because I have a lot to say on those subjects. But I am not going to start with them. The first class for 2009 that I am teaching is on the I Ching. Now, I know you may be asking, “What the heck does the I Ching have to do with acupuncture?” And the answer is, “A lot.”

The I Ching is the go-to book on Yin and Yang. As acupuncturists, we learn a good deal about the relationships of Yin and Yang in school, and most of what we do with Yin and Yang is use them to make comparisons based on agreed-upon correspondences (like hot and cold, excess and deficiency, and interior and exterior) to understand our clients’ physical and meridian health.

Yin and Yang are also the guiding forces behind all changes in the world around us and in states of health. The hexagram format (six lines of Yin or Yang in specific configurations) allows for an extremely sophisticated way to apply the relationships of Yin and Yang in any situation. This gives us better understanding of the treatments and choices we can offer to improve our clients’ wellbeing on a deeper level.

As much as I am looking forward to teaching palpation and needle technique, I am even more excited to lead off with this class. Actually, there is too much to learn about even the basics of the I Ching to fit into one class, so there is going to be a second class about a month after this one to finish up with the whole book. I should have all the links and dates in place by the end of this weekend.

A Place for Sharing

When I was an acupuncture student, my childhood acupuncturist told me, “Never marry an acupuncturist. You will be spending your days in the clinic helping people with sadness, pain, and suffering. When you get home, you want to have a wife who will take your mind off your day and fill your home with laughter and song. If you marry an acupuncturist, all you will ever do is talk about acupuncture.” He was correct about that last part. My fiancée, Rachel Hartstein, and I have been together now for almost 9 years and most of what we talk about is acupuncture (although our home is full of laughter and song).

What my acupuncturist did not know was that it is a blessing to have someone close to me who truly understands what I do and can share in my work. And so, for the past almost 9 years, Rachel and I have been developing theories, refining techniques, and discussing all parts of our field, from daily readings from the Nan Jing to comparing the pros and cons of different needle brands on the market.

We used to teach, but took a break about 4 or 5 years ago and started focusing much more closely on building our practice and refining every aspect of how we work. We have also been writing down everything we have found along the way. The trouble is that teaching is something that I have missed terribly, because teaching brings me great joy.

Rachel turned to me a few weeks ago and told me that I should gather together all the information that I thought an acupuncture school graduate would need to know in order to work in our clinic with my blessings. This was particularly good timing, since we recently took on a fabulous intern and have started training her. I sat down and outlined the information and set it into continuing education class format. I came up with 19 classes, but I know there are several small things that are really important, but do not fill a whole class. I thought a blog would be the perfect way to share all of these thoughts that might one day fill part of a book but do not fill a class right now.

As we start to teach classes, I will post descriptions and dates here. I will also be posting thoughts and details that are significant for upcoming classes, as well as those little things that are not going into a class right now, but could be of use to the thoughtful and creative acupuncturists who I invite to join me here, and who I am so happy to call my community. As we are fond of saying at our clinic, we are all in this together and health is better when it’s shared.