Editor’s Note: Part 1 of this three-part article ran in the November issue.
As acupuncturists, we are very aware of the close relationship between fascia and channel theory. For example, An Introduction to Classical Fascia Acupuncture says, “The fascia of the human body is a continuous sheath of tissue that moves, senses and connects every organ, blood vessel, nerve, lymph vessel, muscle and bone”;5 while A Manual of Acupuncture states:
“There is no part of the body, no kind of tissue, no single cell, that is not supplied by the channels which penetrate the zangfu and the extraordinary fu in the deepest levels of the body and connect with the skin, muscles, flesh, tendons, and bones, the head, body and limbs, and the sense organs, linking all the tissues and structures of the body into an integrated whole.”6
In qigong, especially those practices influenced by the internal martial arts, we repetitively spiral through the whole body. Spiralling means twisting and lengthening at the same time, like grasping both ends of a wet towel and wringing it out while pulling the ends away from each other.7
As acupuncturists focusing on clinical practice, it is easy to relate to points or channels as isolated entities and forget that the body is an integrated whole. Elastic spiralling in this way activates the entire channel network at once – the web of primary channels, Extraordinary Vessels, Divergent, Luo-connecting and Sinew channels, Minute channels and cutaneous regions.
3. Needling
I first studied acupuncture in Dr. van Buren’s school in the U.K., qualifying in 1978. Not only were students forbidden from needling until after they qualified (go figure), and had only ever watched from the sidelines, but the needling method applied in the school also involved tiny, hair-thin needles barely popped under the skin. When they invariably fell out, this was explained as the point “not needing” them any more.
By contrast, when I worked in a hospital in Nanjing in 1981, I saw the needle used as a powerful tool, often penetrating deeply into the body and inducing intense deqi sensations. (At first, when I was allowed to needle patients, they would complain loudly that the sensation wasn’t strong enough.)
Chinese acupuncture books at that time wrote about the need for acupuncturists to develop “finger force” and there were illustrations of various exercises to help achieve it. The aim was a swift, painless insertion (without resorting to guide tubes) and great skill in evoking and directing deqi.
I am not a believer in the idea that some mysterious qi flows from the practitioner through the needle into the patient, but I do feel that aligned posture, warm hands, agile and strong fingers, and a kind of warrior-like intention can all add to the power of treatment, due to both their direct and indirect (patient confidence) effects.
When your body is not aligned,
The inner power will not come.
Align your body, assist the inner power,
Then it will gradually come on its own.
– Nei ye, Inner Training, 4th century BCE8
Six channels start or end in the fingers and when we practice qigong, one of the many things we cultivate is open, alive, sensitive hands, penetrated by awareness, as well as a rooted stance, body alignment, strong (liver and gallbladder) intention and openheartedness.
Author’s Note: A free video (“Hand Exercises for Acupuncturists”) is available at peterdeadman.teachable.com).
References / Footnotes
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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