Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Nine

Benefit #9: It lets you go really fast.

With practice, the one-handed turn becomes an automatic movement you make with your needling hand, allowing your palpating hand the luxury of locating the point, determining the direction and type of vector you want to treat, and understand through palpation which needle technique will have the best results at the point. The movements of the needling and palpating hand occur simultaneously, so that as you have finished your palpation of the point, the needle is loaded and ready to insert.

Seirin needles work very well with the one-handed turn, because you can free them from their tubes by twisting the handle with your needling hand, and then use the turn to load them into the tube you are already holding. If you have a package of needles open in front of you, your palpating hand is free to roam over the entire treatment area to find the live points without having to stop and take part in readying the needle. Treatment of multiple points in an area proceeds very quickly in this way.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Eight

Benefit #8: It trains your hands to recognize the needles you use.

As I said in an earlier post, the more you handle different metals, the better your hands become and detecting the differences between, say, silver and steel, or between two different alloys of steel. The one-handed turn facilitates the development of this skill, since you will be handling your needles with a relaxed hand that is ‘open’ to the Qi.

In addition, if you use several different needles in your practice (I use five different needles with regularity), you will learn to feel each needle by its weight and length. This means that every time you perform a one-handed turn, your brain will automatically think, “Aha! Here is a Seirin #1, 40mm!” By the time you have loaded the needle for use, you have already put your mind and intention where it needs to be to make the best use of your needle.

You can try this for yourself: Pick up any needle without using the turn, and put it into position as though you were going to insert it. As the needle reaches where your client’s skin would be, you will have a moment when you feel yourself adjusting for the length of the needle. The turn removes this momentary hesitancy because you will ‘recognize’ the needle as you feel it load with the one-handed turn, allowing you to focus more fully on the treatment point and your needle technique.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Seven

Benefit #7: It teaches your hands positions that are useful in advanced needle techniques.

When you begin to practice the one-handed turn, you will find it awkward to glide the handle of the needle over your fingers. As you practice, and the movements become smoother, you will train your hands to better move in ways you will need to when manipulating the needle during insertion. There are many of the more advanced techniques that become easy to learn if you have practiced your one-handed turn. Even rotation and pecking, however, become smoother, easier, faster, and require less effort after spending time practicing the turn.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Six

Benefit #6: It releases tension in your hands.

Let’s see… better Qi flow to the hands… increased dexterity and strength… what more could we ask? Well, by practicing the one-handed turn, you will also loosen and detoxify the muscles of your hands. You hands (a.k.a. “the most valuable tools in your practice”) accumulate tension while you work. When you only use some of the muscles in your hand, and by this I mean the ones around your thumb and forefinger for most practitioners, you will develop patterns of tension. Most people do not notice it at first, but after about 4-5 years in their acupuncture practice, they begin to feel pain and stiffness in their hands. The one-handed turn will relieve this tension and pain, and keep you from worrying that you might have to find another career just as you are starting to get the hang of this acupuncture thing.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Five

Benefit #5: It strengthens your hands.

In addition to gaining dexterity from working all those little muscles you probably never knew were in your hands, you also gain strength! As the Qi flow to the hand increases, and the muscles get stronger, you will notice that you have much more power in your grip. If you practice Tui Na or some other physical massage in your practice, you will appreciate this benefit greatly. Otherwise, while your newly-found, Incredible Hulk-like grip may not be of any direct use in the clinic, it will mean that you will never have sand kicked in your face at the beach and that you will never need any tools to crack open walnuts.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Four

Benefit #4: It increases general dexterity of the fingers.

Working the small muscles of the hands will improve the overall dexterity of your fingers. And while this will help you with your typing skills and your ability to solve the Rubik’s Cube, you will also notice that you will be better able to locate acupuncture points through palpation. Searching for the point itself, and then the little vectors coming off of it requires nimble fingertips. The more you palpate points the better you will become at feeling them, but practicing the one-handed turn will accelerate the process so you will see faster improvement.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Three

Benefit #3: It increases awareness of the tip of the needle.

Somewhat related to the last post, the more you handle the whole length of the needle, the better your kinesthetic awareness will be, and the better you will be at feeling exactly where the tip of the needle is. That is to say, where you think the tip is will be the actual location of the tip, and not a few millimeters away.

Aside from the benefit of not poking yourself with the pointy end, there are a great many acupuncture techniques that require you to focus on the tip of the needle while it is inserted in your client. The more accurate you are in your sense of where the needle tip is, the better you will be able to sense and manipulate Qi at the acupuncture point. This means that your techniques will work better, and you will be able to get a more complete release in opening up the acupuncture point for treatment.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part Two

Benefit #2: It increases confidence and skill in handling needles.

One of the first things you will notice when you see a talented acupuncturist working with needles is how adeptly the needles are handled. Confidence and skill with needles comes with practice. In the beginning, we all fumble awkwardly as we try to force a needle handle into the tube with both hands. There is almost an appearance of fear, as though the novice is afraid of being stabbed by the needle point.

The one-handed turn forces you to move the whole length of the needle across your hand, protected and sterile in its tube. With frequent practice, you develop a kinesthetic awareness of exactly how long the tube is. With this awareness, you will rapidly move through your own apprehension in handling needles and get rid of any awkwardness in your needle technique.

Virtues of the One-Handed Turn, Part One

I am back from vacation and getting ready to teach the I Ching. I had hoped to post a few more entries over vacation, but the water was oh so nice and my nephew was oh so talented at picking up the magic tricks I was teaching him. Now that I am back, though, let us get into the one-handed needle turn. As I said on July 6th, I will be posting videos of the turn for those that have not learned it. For those who have learned it, but who have not been practicing it, I will count down the Nine Not-So Ancient Virtues of the One-Handed Needle Turn. Every time I have taught this, someone asks me why they should bother learning the movements. So in no particular order, I will begin ticking off the benefits of making the turn a daily part of your acupuncture practice.

Benefit #1: It brings Qi to the whole of the hand.

The mind leads the Qi, and the Qi leads the body. One of the virtues of practicing the one-handed needle turn is that repetition of the movements brings Qi to all parts of the hands. When you begin practicing the different turns, you will find that some of your fingers will not respond the way you intend, and will feel “empty,” “heavy,” or “hollow.” This is the feeling of deficiency and stasis in the body – something that is not desirable in the hands of an acupuncturist. As the one-handed turn becomes a part of your daily life, you will notice this empty feeling begin to recede, and it will be replaced by warmth in your hands.

There are two main variations of the one handed turn. One ends with the needle held in a parallel grip (the handle being almost parallel with the thumb) and one ends with the needle held in a side grip (the handle being at 90 degrees with the orientation of the thumb). Each of these variations has its place, and I recommend practicing both of them. While it is certainly possible to simply switch your grip on the needle, from the standpoint of increasing Qi flow, you will notice that the parallel variation increases the flow to the index finger and thumb, while the side variation increases the flow to the middle, 4th, and 5th fingers.

Vacation Post

It is vacation time for me, and I am at Truro on Cape Cod with my family. I was just showing my sister the blog. She read the post “The Self is the Guru,” and we were talking about the importance of being self-empowered in one’s area of expertise. As she looked over the rest of the blog page, she noted that the term “Followers” on the left side was probably not in keeping with the spirit of my posts. I agree with her wholeheartedly, and have changed the title of that section to “Community.” It is definitely the better term. As we are fond of saying at our clinic, “we are all in this together, and health is better when it’s shared.”

The Jimmy Fingers

Some people have the “Jimmy Legs” in that they twitch their legs when they sleep. I have the “Jimmy Fingers,” although not so much when I sleep as when I am awake. I have a constant need to move my fingers, tap rhythms, and trace geometric patterns on any available surface. I have learned to minimize this unconscious activity over the years – mostly because the constant drumming and pattern tracing has become very annoying to my loved ones – but I still have a sense of comfort when my hands are engaged in patterned movement.

8 years ago or so, I watched someone do a version of the one-handed needle turn. I was immediately hooked. Here was something related to acupuncture that I could use to keep my fingers occupied for hours of practice. And it looked so darn cool! I admit that the cool factor was a big part of my initially wanting to learn it. A few years later, I was taught a second, cleaner, way of performing a needle turn. Since that time, I have used the turn to load almost every needle I have inserted in my clinic, and have found that several needle techniques are easier to learn if you have first practiced your needle turn to good proficiency.

Several years ago, I taught a class at NESA where I could spend a good 90 minutes over three weeks teaching the movements slowly. It is possible to learn the movements in a single sitting of about an hour and half, but for most people the movements are more easily digested in clumps, with time in between for the hands to catch up with the brain. So since I am not going to teach the turn in a continuing education class, it is a perfect topic for the blog. I have scripted a video, which I hope to have up on the web in a few weeks. In the meantime, I will be talking about the turn, and enumerating the many virtues of this wonderful skill. If you know the turn but are out of practice, take this opportunity to give it some attention again. And if you haven’t learned the turn yet, stay tuned!