Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Class Postponed
The upcoming August 27-28 class Energy Signature and Vibration Techniques has been postponed. I will be in the process of moving my house at the end of August, and taking that weekend for teaching will just not be possible. The class will instead be held September 24-25. Those are the second and third days of Autumn proper. Since Autumn is often a difficult time for clients, as the weather and pathogens change, I can think of no better time for us to get together to talk about the specific seasonal pathogens, the signature they provide when they are lodged in specific acupuncture points, and the best techiques to rid the point of the pathogen that has taken up residence there. I look forward to seeing you at the class.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Point Release and Appropriate Insertion
July 30-31, 2011
Join Zach as we refine our needle technique. This class will cover all parts of the actual needling process, from your mental approach, stance and posture, the ways you direct Qi, physical movements of the fingers, your reasons for selecting needles, and your goals for every point you treat.
We will explore the ways in which different practitioners experience and process Qi, and how the way you process Qi can inform and improve your treatment results. Advanced needle manipulations from many styles of acupuncture have been deconstructed to provide foundational templates from which to work. Methods for adjusting these templates to respond to your clinical needs will be discussed in detail.
This class is an opportunity for students and practitioners of any style and any level of expertise to deepen their personal understanding of the needle techniques they practice.
All are welcome. No prior experience with the Art of Acupuncture classes is required. A selection of needles will be supplied, and you are also free to bring your own.
Join Zach as we refine our needle technique. This class will cover all parts of the actual needling process, from your mental approach, stance and posture, the ways you direct Qi, physical movements of the fingers, your reasons for selecting needles, and your goals for every point you treat.
We will explore the ways in which different practitioners experience and process Qi, and how the way you process Qi can inform and improve your treatment results. Advanced needle manipulations from many styles of acupuncture have been deconstructed to provide foundational templates from which to work. Methods for adjusting these templates to respond to your clinical needs will be discussed in detail.
This class is an opportunity for students and practitioners of any style and any level of expertise to deepen their personal understanding of the needle techniques they practice.
All are welcome. No prior experience with the Art of Acupuncture classes is required. A selection of needles will be supplied, and you are also free to bring your own.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Understanding Points and Vectors
June 11-12, 2011
Come join us and take a new and deeper look at acupuncture points. This class will show you new ways to locate active points, feel the characteristics that define how best to treat the points, and allow you to receive constant feedback on your treatment while you are working.
Come join us and take a new and deeper look at acupuncture points. This class will show you new ways to locate active points, feel the characteristics that define how best to treat the points, and allow you to receive constant feedback on your treatment while you are working.
Every point has one or more angles for optimal insertion, which are called vectors. We will define different depths and qualities of these vectors, and present the methods used to locate them. In addition, detailed topography of acupuncture points will be discussed, and special pulse skills will be shown to help you confirm you point location and treatment choices.
This class is intended for students and practitioners of any style who are interested in developing their palpation skills. There will be considerable practice time allotted in this class, to allow you to integrate the new material being presented.
All are welcome. No prior experience with the Art of Acupuncture classes is required.
Friday, April 29, 2011
How to Improve your Pulse Skills, Part Two
As I mentioned in my last post, there are two things that spring to mind in answer to the question, “how can I improve my pulse skills right now?” Last time I talked about how a pulse journal can help you review and evaluate how useful your pulse diagnosis actually is for you in your work. This time, I want to talk to you about taking stock of how you actually treat people.
During our schooling and through our continuing education work, we are usually exposed to more than one conceptual framework or acupuncture style. There are so many styles of acupuncture out there, I hesitate to even try to make a list. I think it is important when considering styles of acupuncture to keep three things in mind:
1: Most acupuncture styles are based on the same source materials – virtually everyone traces their styles back to one or more of the acupuncture classics.
2: Most acupuncture styles are describing the same things – whatever terminology people use, we tend to all be describing an imbalance in the body, and we are trying to bring the body back into a state of better balance.
3: Most acupuncture styles work well – despite strong opinions that may arise during your career about the relative merits of different styles, if a style does not work it does not survive. Anyone who has been in business for any length of time is doing something right.
You may be a purist in a single style, or you may pick and choose from the different methods to which you have been exposed over the years. Whatever you do is ok. What I want you to consider for the purposes of this exercise is what exactly do you do? So I want you to take stock of what treatments you do on a regular basis. And when I say “take stock” I really mean just that – make a big list of every treatment you can remember doing in recent history. Go over your past files, or just sit down at the end of each day or each week and remember what you did for each client. And write everything down.
Once you have this list of treatments, I want you to think about how you take the pulse. I want you to ask yourself if the information you get from the pulse is enough to allow you to make a clear distinction between each of the treatments you have on your list. If the answer is “no,” ask yourself the following questions:
1: Where do I get the information that helps me make a choice between all these treatment patterns? Is it from asking? Abdominal palpation? Facial diagnosis? Smells? Voice patterns?... and so on.
2: Would I like to be able to diagnose all these patterns using the pulse as my primary method of gathering information?
3: What would I need to be able to read in the pulse about the Qi of the body to make this happen?
Once you have your answers, you have several options available for moving forward. Go to your pulse books and your notes from your classes to see if such information is there. Talk with colleagues and teachers to see if anyone can advise you on how to move forward. Necessity is the mother of innovation. Identifying what you are missing and what you WANT to be able to feel in the pulse is a great first step in finding it there.
For those of you coming to the pulse class weekend, I highly recommend keeping a pulse journal for a couple weeks and taking stock of how you actually treat (or think about treatment). One of the goals in Simplifying the Pulse is to help every participant tailor this pulse method to fit his or her unique and authentic way of seeing and treating clients. The pulse CAN be your primary diagnostic method, and you CAN quickly and easily differentiate among all the patterns you commonly treat using the pulse. Many people over the years have told me that they only use their pulse diagnosis to confirm broad-stroke aspects of their diagnosis. If you choose to work this way, that is completely fine. If you distrust your pulse-taking skills and feel that you cannot use the pulse reliably to determine how the balance of Qi in the body is out of harmony, I encourage you to take control, take stock of how you work and think right now, and make changes that help you feel like you are doing the best and most joyful work you can.
During our schooling and through our continuing education work, we are usually exposed to more than one conceptual framework or acupuncture style. There are so many styles of acupuncture out there, I hesitate to even try to make a list. I think it is important when considering styles of acupuncture to keep three things in mind:
1: Most acupuncture styles are based on the same source materials – virtually everyone traces their styles back to one or more of the acupuncture classics.
2: Most acupuncture styles are describing the same things – whatever terminology people use, we tend to all be describing an imbalance in the body, and we are trying to bring the body back into a state of better balance.
3: Most acupuncture styles work well – despite strong opinions that may arise during your career about the relative merits of different styles, if a style does not work it does not survive. Anyone who has been in business for any length of time is doing something right.
You may be a purist in a single style, or you may pick and choose from the different methods to which you have been exposed over the years. Whatever you do is ok. What I want you to consider for the purposes of this exercise is what exactly do you do? So I want you to take stock of what treatments you do on a regular basis. And when I say “take stock” I really mean just that – make a big list of every treatment you can remember doing in recent history. Go over your past files, or just sit down at the end of each day or each week and remember what you did for each client. And write everything down.
Once you have this list of treatments, I want you to think about how you take the pulse. I want you to ask yourself if the information you get from the pulse is enough to allow you to make a clear distinction between each of the treatments you have on your list. If the answer is “no,” ask yourself the following questions:
1: Where do I get the information that helps me make a choice between all these treatment patterns? Is it from asking? Abdominal palpation? Facial diagnosis? Smells? Voice patterns?... and so on.
2: Would I like to be able to diagnose all these patterns using the pulse as my primary method of gathering information?
3: What would I need to be able to read in the pulse about the Qi of the body to make this happen?
Once you have your answers, you have several options available for moving forward. Go to your pulse books and your notes from your classes to see if such information is there. Talk with colleagues and teachers to see if anyone can advise you on how to move forward. Necessity is the mother of innovation. Identifying what you are missing and what you WANT to be able to feel in the pulse is a great first step in finding it there.
For those of you coming to the pulse class weekend, I highly recommend keeping a pulse journal for a couple weeks and taking stock of how you actually treat (or think about treatment). One of the goals in Simplifying the Pulse is to help every participant tailor this pulse method to fit his or her unique and authentic way of seeing and treating clients. The pulse CAN be your primary diagnostic method, and you CAN quickly and easily differentiate among all the patterns you commonly treat using the pulse. Many people over the years have told me that they only use their pulse diagnosis to confirm broad-stroke aspects of their diagnosis. If you choose to work this way, that is completely fine. If you distrust your pulse-taking skills and feel that you cannot use the pulse reliably to determine how the balance of Qi in the body is out of harmony, I encourage you to take control, take stock of how you work and think right now, and make changes that help you feel like you are doing the best and most joyful work you can.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
How to Improve your Pulse Skills, Part One
The pulse weekend approaches! And some of you out there are probably itching for something to do right now to improve your pulse skills! There are two things that spring to mind as things that you can do on your own to really improve your pulse-taking ability – either in preparation for the class weekend, or just because there’s nothing on TV and you need a new hobby.
The first thing is to keep a pulse journal for a set amount of time. A month is great, but even two weeks will do very nicely as well. In order to journal pulses in a useful fashion, the key is to be regular and thorough. If you are seeing clients, do this independently of your clinical work. When you are working you have other things on your mind besides pure appreciation of the pulse. I recommend that you actually use a physical journal which is earmarked for this purpose only as well, so you will have all your pulse logs in one place.
You should aim to take at least 3 pulses a day, each with the sole purpose of recording everything you can feel going on in the pulse vessel. Note who's pulse you are feeling, the date, the time, the location, what is going on around you, what the person ate or did recently, any emotions that are up for the person at the time, as well as any other environmental factors that seem relevant. Then feel the pulse as fully as you can, and make note of everything you find. If you have trained in different systems of pulse diagnosis, indulge each of them separately and chart the whole of what you find.
If possible, try to regularly chart the pulse of one or more person repeatedly - every day or often over the time span. Taking your own pulse is a valid and excellent choice for one of the 3+ people. You will be able to watch how changes in daily life affect you or the other person over time. This honest assessment of how mood, travel, life rhythms, food, etc. affects a person will be of great value to you in helping you recognize pulses in the your clinical work.
Also if possible, ask someone who you respect or who is a teacher for you to take a look at your pulse journal after you have filled it out a bit. What you are ideally looking for as feedback is habits or trends that the other person sees in how you are taking the pulse, and whether the person sees any bias in your work that appears unbalanced to him or her. Examples of such bias might be noticing that you find a pulse to be slippery and wiry in almost every case, or that your 6-positional diagnosis comes up liver 90% of the time. While such things are possible, they are unlikely. Another set of eyes can help you see areas where you might be misreading the pulse. Likely causes for misreading the pulse are imprecise use of pulse definitions (in which case you can review those used in whatever pulse system you have studies) or uneven tension in the fingers (in which case, you can be more mindful of this in the future).
Even if you do this exercise on your own, you will find it of great benefit, as it will help you clarify exactly what you look for in the pulse. If you know what information you are getting from the pulse on a daily basis in your work, you can think about how completely this information fills your diagnostic needs, and whether you might want to search for something else in the pulse vessel to make your choice of treatment strategy easier.
The first thing is to keep a pulse journal for a set amount of time. A month is great, but even two weeks will do very nicely as well. In order to journal pulses in a useful fashion, the key is to be regular and thorough. If you are seeing clients, do this independently of your clinical work. When you are working you have other things on your mind besides pure appreciation of the pulse. I recommend that you actually use a physical journal which is earmarked for this purpose only as well, so you will have all your pulse logs in one place.
You should aim to take at least 3 pulses a day, each with the sole purpose of recording everything you can feel going on in the pulse vessel. Note who's pulse you are feeling, the date, the time, the location, what is going on around you, what the person ate or did recently, any emotions that are up for the person at the time, as well as any other environmental factors that seem relevant. Then feel the pulse as fully as you can, and make note of everything you find. If you have trained in different systems of pulse diagnosis, indulge each of them separately and chart the whole of what you find.
If possible, try to regularly chart the pulse of one or more person repeatedly - every day or often over the time span. Taking your own pulse is a valid and excellent choice for one of the 3+ people. You will be able to watch how changes in daily life affect you or the other person over time. This honest assessment of how mood, travel, life rhythms, food, etc. affects a person will be of great value to you in helping you recognize pulses in the your clinical work.
Also if possible, ask someone who you respect or who is a teacher for you to take a look at your pulse journal after you have filled it out a bit. What you are ideally looking for as feedback is habits or trends that the other person sees in how you are taking the pulse, and whether the person sees any bias in your work that appears unbalanced to him or her. Examples of such bias might be noticing that you find a pulse to be slippery and wiry in almost every case, or that your 6-positional diagnosis comes up liver 90% of the time. While such things are possible, they are unlikely. Another set of eyes can help you see areas where you might be misreading the pulse. Likely causes for misreading the pulse are imprecise use of pulse definitions (in which case you can review those used in whatever pulse system you have studies) or uneven tension in the fingers (in which case, you can be more mindful of this in the future).
Even if you do this exercise on your own, you will find it of great benefit, as it will help you clarify exactly what you look for in the pulse. If you know what information you are getting from the pulse on a daily basis in your work, you can think about how completely this information fills your diagnostic needs, and whether you might want to search for something else in the pulse vessel to make your choice of treatment strategy easier.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Pulse and Herbal Diagnosis
I remember when I was just starting out in my studies of acupuncture, I visited an herbal pharmacy in Boston's Chinatown. In the back, an older gentleman sat at a card table and took pulses. He spoke no English, and just took my pulse for a few minutes. Then he jotted down an herbal pharmacy in Chinese characters and handed it to me. I took the paper over to the several people who were busily measuring out raw herbs and handed it over the counter to them. They quickly made me up an herbal remedy, handed it over to me, I paid them, and I left. And the herbs worked quite well for me!
At the time, this seemed like magic. How on EARTH could someone just take a pulse, and from that alone come up with an herbal formula - without asking any questions?!? Now, many years later, I understand how such a thing is possible. It requires only 3 things, and the most elusive of them for many practitioners is a reliable system of pulse diagnosis that expands with the needs you place on it so that you can get as much or as little information as you NEED for clients presenting with patterns of greater or lesser complexity. The system presented in Simplifying the Pulse will do just that, and can be used equally well with herbal diagnosis as with acupuncture diagnosis.
By request, I will be covering the basics of how to use the pulse this way during the upcoming class. The principles discussed can be applied to different styles of practice so that you may set up a patent, powder, or raw herb formulary to complement the work you are already doing, with the pulse being the central diagnostic method. One common difficulty faced by practitioners who are trained in both TCM and meridian-therapy styles is how to easily use herbs in their meridian-therapy style practices without having to shift mental gears and do a full TCM-style intake. I will discuss ways to overcome this problem and how meridian therapists can set up a pharmacy to complement the patterns they see and treat in their practice. However you think about your acupuncture work, you will learn how to feel the qualities in the pulse that will allow you bring herbal medicine, dietary supplements, and food prescriptions seamlessly into your existing practice.
For meridian therapists who have special interest in this facet of pulse diagnosis, I suggest picking up a copy of the book The Practice of Japanese Acupuncture and Moxibustion, by Ikeda Masakazu, as recommended reading before the coming weekend. While I do not find everything in this book applicable to my own practice or suitable for my clients, it is one of the best sources for expanding what is usually taught as meridian therpay in this country and understanding how to translate between traditional acupuncture meridian patterns and more modern herbal categories of treatment.
At the time, this seemed like magic. How on EARTH could someone just take a pulse, and from that alone come up with an herbal formula - without asking any questions?!? Now, many years later, I understand how such a thing is possible. It requires only 3 things, and the most elusive of them for many practitioners is a reliable system of pulse diagnosis that expands with the needs you place on it so that you can get as much or as little information as you NEED for clients presenting with patterns of greater or lesser complexity. The system presented in Simplifying the Pulse will do just that, and can be used equally well with herbal diagnosis as with acupuncture diagnosis.
By request, I will be covering the basics of how to use the pulse this way during the upcoming class. The principles discussed can be applied to different styles of practice so that you may set up a patent, powder, or raw herb formulary to complement the work you are already doing, with the pulse being the central diagnostic method. One common difficulty faced by practitioners who are trained in both TCM and meridian-therapy styles is how to easily use herbs in their meridian-therapy style practices without having to shift mental gears and do a full TCM-style intake. I will discuss ways to overcome this problem and how meridian therapists can set up a pharmacy to complement the patterns they see and treat in their practice. However you think about your acupuncture work, you will learn how to feel the qualities in the pulse that will allow you bring herbal medicine, dietary supplements, and food prescriptions seamlessly into your existing practice.
For meridian therapists who have special interest in this facet of pulse diagnosis, I suggest picking up a copy of the book The Practice of Japanese Acupuncture and Moxibustion, by Ikeda Masakazu, as recommended reading before the coming weekend. While I do not find everything in this book applicable to my own practice or suitable for my clients, it is one of the best sources for expanding what is usually taught as meridian therpay in this country and understanding how to translate between traditional acupuncture meridian patterns and more modern herbal categories of treatment.
Monday, April 11, 2011
The Evolving Art of Acupuncture
This groundbreaking system will guide you through a progression of deepening connections to the energy physiology of the body and help you uncover YOUR unique gifts as a healer!
Join us as we take an entirely new and nuanced look at the acupuncture system of medicine. First, we’ll break down the pulse to make diagnosis effortless with our clear, comprehensible system. We will explore the topography of the body and elucidate proven methods to find the best points for optimal treatment. We’ll discuss the angles called vectors at each acupuncture point, and how harnessing their intrinsic potential can multiply the efficacy of treatment. And we will enter a world of needle techniques that will enhance your practice way beyond just “tapping” insertion to an elegantly simple, gloriously effective skill. Upon completion, you will appreciate Qi not just academically, but through your direct connection and embodied experience.
With plenty of opportunities for Q & A, as well as considerable practice time, you will be amazed at how easy it is to integrate this material into any style of acupuncture you use.
“A system that we can use right now in our practice…simple and very user-friendly! I highly recommend taking a class with Zach. He is extremely knowledgeable and presents the information in clear, precise, and fun ways. Thanks Zach!”
-Adrienne Martin, Lic. Ac.
Click links below for class descriptions:
Simplifying Pulse Diagnosis: Saturday, 5/14 & Sunday, 5/15
Understanding Points and Vectors: Saturday, 6/11 & Sunday, 6/12
Point Release and Appropriate Insertion: Saturday, 7/30 & Sunday, 7/31
Energy Signature and Vibration Technique: NEW DATE: Saturday, 9/24 & Sunday, 9/25
Non-Inserted Needle Techniques: Saturday, 10/22 & Sunday, 10/23
Your tax-deductible investment: $295 practitioners/$250 students
+ 12 CEU/PDA points for each weekend
** Attend four classes and get the fifth one FREE!! You save $295 and learn a whole lotta good stuff in a joyful, supportive atmosphere **
All classes will be held from 9:00 - 4:30 at 62 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, MA
To register, email: thesilverneedle@gmail.com, or phone: 781-860-8808
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