Taster from my Teach Yourself Five Element Acupuncture Manual

I am working on completing the English version of Teach Yourself Five Element Acupuncture for Acupuncturists, and Mei is busy translating the Mandarin version.  We hope to send this to Nanning in time to have enough copies ready for those attending our April seminar there.  I have also asked our book designer, Sarah Harmer, to design a format for the English version to match that of the Handbook of Five Element Practice which the Teach Yourself book will be based upon.  So there are a lot of things going on at the moment.

As a taster, and to whet the appetite of anybody who wants to take a quick glance at what the manual will be offering, I reprint below something from it which introduces my approach to point selection.  In the manual itself I will be following this with a list of the points I like to use.  This makes a total of about 60 points, apart from command points and points to clear blocks.  Other practitioners will, of course, choose different points and perhaps include many more, but each practitioner has to develop their own approach to point selection.  This manual will offer mine.

 

The extract below describes the different point groupings I think about at different stages of treatment:

“Group 1: Points to be used at any stage of treatment:

a) Command points on the Guardian Element’s two officials plus the two AEPS (back shu points) relating to these officials.  The command points are:  source, tonification, horary/seasonal, junction, points used for energy transfers, (plus sedation points – infrequently used in five element acupuncture).

b) Points to be used to clear the following blocks:  Possession, Husband-Wife, Entry-Exit blocks

Group 2:  Points not on an element’s officials which can be used for all elements early on in treatment: 
These points are: CV 8 (and/or CV 14), IV (Ki) 24, III (Bl 37-39) (42-44) 

Group 3:  Points not on an element’s officials which can be used for all elements at later stages of treatment:

These points are on the CV and GV meridians, Kidney chest points, Outer Bladder Points, plus one other point, Heart 1.  The alarm points should also be considered.  They relate to specific officials and therefore have a particular relevance for their respective officials. 

Group 4: Non-command points on an element's officials to be used later on in treatment:
This group includes the additional points which I use most frequently in practice, and forms a group of just under 60 points.  The list of points for each official is given below.  The group of points called Windows of the Sky should be added to this list.”

I’m afraid those reading this blog will have to wait a little longer until the Teach Yourself manual is printed before you can see the list of these 60 points.