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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Movie Time!

The first of the teaching videos have been posted!  Videos of the Parallel Variation and Side Variation of the One-Handed Needle Turn are now available on the blog and at TheSilverNeedle channel at You Tube.

Watch for the companion text for the two Variations over the next couple weeks.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

War... HUU... Good God, Y'all...

The term “Jaki,” or “Xieqi,” is often translated as “Evil Qi.” When I began my practice of acupuncture, this term always brought to my mind the image of the Wicked Witch of the West (the movie portrayal, not Elphaba of the book and play) – a twisted, hunched, green-skinned malevolent being. “Pathogens” seemed to me to be sinister forces with an almost conscious desire to destroy the body by invading through the Six Stages or Four Levels. To help my clients deal with such forces, I felt it was my duty to go to war with them.

The problem was that when I started working using this mindset – of killing or destroying the pathogen and saving my client from Jaki – it did not work as well as I would like. At the time my treatment results were good, but not as good as I wanted them to be.

And then one day I saw a picture in the newspaper of a war-torn country. What struck me most about the photo was the condition of the land. The land was devastated. Houses were torn down, crops were savaged, and everything was in ruin. It occurred to me that in going to war with evil pathogens, the landscape where the battle would rage was my client’s body.

I realized that no matter how well intentioned I was, the way in which I was working was not honoring my client’s body. When my intention was to destroy, that intention was Jaki for my client, and had to be processed and dealt with like any other Jaki. When I had this realization, I began to change the way I worked.

It is much more descriptive of the behavior of the pathogen to call it "Inappropriate," rather than "Evil" Qi. Pathogens and Upright Qi are both part of the landscape – part of the client. Pathogens are the voice of dissent and change in the body – some of the body’s Qi does not agree with the rest, and is not working in harmony with the Upright Qi.

One of the great strengths of America is that we tolerate dissent – heck, our whole country is founded on the idea of that toleration of dissent makes for a stronger, happier, and better place to live. As an American acupuncturist, I have to apply the idea of tolerance to dealing with the Inappropriate Qi of the body. If it is wrong to destroy people because they disagree with the direction in which our country is moving as a whole, how can I think it is right to try to destroy Inappropriate Qi because it disagrees with the direction in which the body is moving as a whole? After all, the goal of treatment is health, and that means making the body the strongest, happiest, and best place to live that it can be. What I want for my country, I want for my clients, too.

Dissent is resolved through dialogue and understanding. So here is my advice for today – the next time you find Jaki in your client, take a breath and calm the thoughts that rise to the surface that Jaki is something other, and to be despised. Open your heart instead, and look at it as a part of the whole – a dissenting voice of the client’s own body. Work to resolve the difference instead of punishing it. Coming from this place, the treatment will work better than you can imagine.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Can I Get a Witness?

Every breath taken is one perfect moment that will not come again. Breathing is the clock by which we count out our days of life. To be allowed to be present with our clients, to really see them and be with them as they inhale and exhale, and to offer them a place of peace to process and make sense of what they have encountered and known in their lives, is a great gift. It is a gift for our clients, and it is a gift for us.

Living energy systems naturally move from a state of imbalance toward a state of balance when they are witnessed. We can call this a State of Grace, or simply a State of Healing. Witnessing is terribly important in acupuncture, and in fact it is one of the great privileges our profession grants us. It has been said, and rightly so, that having someone to witness your life – to take note of the comings and goings of your daily activities, and to validate and give worth to your existence merely by caring enough to really look at you – is the reason why people come together in the first place.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics was simplified for most of us when we learned about it in high school. To say that entropy means that things fall apart, and that there is no avoiding, it is not correct. The Second Law applies to isolated systems, meaning things that are not interacting with their surroundings. Acupuncture allows us to witness our clients, which means that they (and we) are not alone, and that means that there is no isolation. When there is no isolation, decay and decline is slowed. The term “quality of life” is really about feeling isolated. To offer our clients the best quality of life through our treatments, being present to them and witnessing their lives is more than good business, it is good medicine.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Recap of the Virtues

The videos of the One-Handed Turn did not make it up to YouTube this weekend, as I had hoped. I was feeling a little guilty about not getting this done in the time I had wanted, but as a wise friend said, “weekends are meant for rest.” You can see the “Video” bar at the top left of the page, which is already linked to my currently empty TheSilverNeedle Channel on YouTube. The videos are coming. And if all works as I hope it will, there will be many videos to follow.

I remembered something as I was writing up the virtues of the one-handed turn. Many years ago there were several of us who all learned the parallel variation of the turn at the same time. We began to show it to members of the community and, as I said, there was a class for a couple years at NESA in which I spent a good deal of time teaching the turn. Not long after, there was a rumor going around that one could not be a good acupuncturist without knowing the turn. This was followed by a bit of backlash from those talented acupuncturists who do not use the turn, some of whom dismissed it as a mere parlor trick that was not worth studying.

As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Certainly you do not NEED to know the one-handed turn to become a skilled acupuncturist. The nine posts I made about the virtues should not be taken to mean that it is the ONLY way to reap these nine benefits. However, there is so much to be gained from it that I really can’t recommend a better single addition to your clinic routine that regularly practicing and using the turn.