Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Meridians

There are some patients who say that they feel something moving down to the leg, though the needle is applied on the abdomen, or "electricity running" and so on.

This means that the patient has something irregular down the leg. It is very common to perform needling on the limbs or back though, for example, the patient has a headache.

Especially the feeling as if the electricity is running in the body is like the lightning streaks down the ground. The path such the electricity runs is expressed as "meridian" in Oriental medicine. As the lightning is called as "electricity", the power, qi, is running the all over the body.

Such responses of meridians were used to be very common long time ago, but now people have lost such senses, so this is not what everybody can feel. However, the fact that applying the needle on certain point can actually cure the disorder which appears far away from the point. This is understood as the qi is transferred from the point where the needle is applied, through the meridian and reaches at the affected area, in other words, the unbalance of qi is adjusted.

However, does the qi really run through the meridian that you expect?? There is no way to prove it, so this is quite uncertain. Because, it is also common that the lightning streaks through the meridian that you never anticipate. Even the qi runs through the meridian, it is very modern point of view (!) to think that the qi runs where one expects.

Rather, it is more practical to think that the symptom, such as a headache, is one of reference points indicating the unbalance of qi of the whole body, in other words, as the tip of the iceberg.

The movement of qi is more open and generous. It is the power to move all over the body, not limited only via the path of certain meridians.

*This is translated from the article by Kobayashi sensei, "Taishido Times Square" vol.16  

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Listlessness and heaviness of the body

There are three types of feeling listless chronically, mentioned below.

1. Feeling listless from waking up and during the morning.
2. Feeling listless in the afternoon and the evening.
3. Feeling listless the whole day.

When you feel weary only one day today, you can guess its cause thinking back what you did the day before.

The case when one feels dullness of the body from waking up and during the morning chronically is the type that one can accumulate the qi of the body by being active. One does not move the body during the night and the air becomes cooled down, so his/her power of qi gets weak in the next morning. This is the reason why one feels listless in the morning,.

Likewise, the case one feels listless or heaviness of  the body in the afternoon and evening is the type one exhausts the body qi because of the daily activity. For this type, one has not to exhaust the energy during the night.

The third case, feeling listless the whole day means it is the more severe case than these two cases. The vital energy is getting weak overall, one exhausts the qi of the body by daily activities and he/she cannot fill the energy up during the night.

If one finds out the cause of such weakness of the body qi, one has to eliminate it. For example, the practitioner has to find out if the person always goes to bed after the midnight, he/she has enough sleep, whether the amount of the foods he/she takes are too little or too much, if he/she takes any medication regularly, if he/she is overwork, if the work environment is too cold, if he/she has excessive sexual life, if she is too active during her period, and as a matter of congenital qi, if one's family member or relatives have similar conditions.

Ultimately speaking, the dullness of the body means slackness of body tissues, namely, the density of the body qi gets loosened. This brings the coldness into the body, and makes the body movement more dull.

All types of listlessness vary in terms of the extent of symptoms and they are not the same.

The expression that the body is heavy, is often used when one feels the weight on one's limbs and difficulty to move them, but sometimes one feels the whole body is heavy. Both of them are regarded as more serious conditions than feeling listless.

The heaviness of the body is sometimes felt even if one's weight is light. This means that the power of qi of inner organs cannot reach at extremities fully, so the movement of qi of extremities gets dull. Basically this occurs when the power of digestive organs becomes weak.

Here, the problem lies in the core where the body gets the acquired qi, but limbs are what makes such power of inner organs more active, so if one cannot use limbs freely, it is a fatal problem.
As recommended countermeasures, one changes the quality of the diet, ie. vegetarian foods that is more light to the body, and eats less.

*This article is translated from "Yamai hitokuchi Memo" p. 160-2, written by Shoji Kobayashi, 2005.

So, the green outside of the clinic was "the gourd"!!
It grows so fast!!


NAJOM November 2012

There are three articles about Shakuju Therapy in the newly published NAJOM (November 2012)! Please check it out!

"Thoughts on Japanese Acupuncture" by Shoji Kobayashi
"Shakujyu Therapy: Case Study" by Cynthia Quattro
"Seminar Report: Shakuju Therapy, Hawaii, Spring 2012" by Ehrland Truitt


Saturday, July 7, 2012

Intake forms

In the advanced course, we have learned about "intake form".

When talking with staffs and students, the most of them ask technical questions, such as how to treat in which conditions and want confirm the skill, for example, the way to check the pulse and how to palpate with fingers.

Not so many people have focused on what to ask in interviews with patients. Shakuju therapy is performed with the ultimate etiology, the deficiency of Jin-qi and the efficient skill to tonify it, so it might look very simple at a first glimpse. So there are many misunderstanding.

For example, there is a patient with lower back pain. If I ask the practitioner what the cause is. The answer will be "the deficiency of Jin qi". However, does the patient understand with this answer? Maybe no. Then, I ask why the deficiency of Jin-qi occurred, not so many people can answer this question. In any treatment, there is a cause of diseases, so there should be causes that the Jin-qi diminishes. To look for the cause is history taking. In interviews, you have to ask when the deficiency of Jin-qi started, in which extent Hie is serious. In this process, what plays an important role is an intake form.

"The cause of your disease (the cause of your deficiency of Jin-qi) is blah blah, so let us change this with treatments, and please take care not to do blah blah any more..." Not so many people can explain such an ordinary thing to the patient. Even though you change the treatment form or  acupuncture points, or furthermore you add how to use the consciousness, if you continue treatment without understanding the cause, what can be healed does not heal.

How can the fat person who is eating too much lose weight with only acupuncture treatments without controlling his/her diet? Furthermore, if you explain the reason why he/she is fat is the deficiency of Jin qi..., it just becomes chaotic.

When you get skill of interview and using intake forms, the treatment effect will change dramatically. Do not depend only on your techniques, acquire the knowledge as well in your everyday clinic!





* This article is translated from the Japanese Shakuju Association blog.