What is Chinese Medicine - Acupuncture

Chinese and Eastern Medicine as mentioned before is at least 3,000 to 5,000 years old.   We have written documentation of what works, and what does not work going back at least 2,500 years. What we gather out of this documentation and through the countless practitioners is that there are 12 primary channels within the body and 12 extraordinary channels within  the body.  These can be imagined as very small rivers within the body that form a very complex flow of movement  of something called, Qi.  What is Qi one may ask?   Well, that answer is not easily explained.  Western medical science says it does not exist, but ask any Chinese medicine physician, or someone whose health condition seemingly vanished after having acupuncture if they believe Qi is real.    The easiest way to think of Qi is that it is the life energy that flows through the body. (If my Chinese medicine instructors ever read this, they would have my neck for calling Qi life energy).   This energy is able to be accessed in different ways. It can be accessed directly through both acupuncture and acupressure, and can be felt in the radial pulse of both wrists.   Now, if we circle back to the idea of the channels, we learn that each channel is named after the organ that it passes through in order to come together to form a complete circuit called the Jing Luo.    What this means is that there are different levels of influence each branch or channel does to both the channel and the body.   


 We have the liver channel, spleen channel, stomach channel, and so on.    Also, each channel manifests certain emotions when it is under duress.  For example, the liver channel contains anger and the lung channel contains  the emotions associated with grief.  This is where the Pulse Code,  and other energy psychologies come into play.    More on this later.


On top of the channels, there is another influence that is layered on top of it all.   This next influence is called the Wu Xing of the 5 phases or the 5 elements.  There are many branches of Chinese medicine, and what is going to be presented is part of one branch.   The easiest way to explain the 5 elements is to look at the observable world.   We have elements of the ground or Earth,  Water, Wood, Metal, and Fire.  Each element contains two channels called the Ying/Yang pairs.  Within these elements contain different emotions and patterns  of disharmony that exhibit when one phase or channel needs to be addressed.  These patterns of disharmony are what Chinese medicine physicians address when they use acupuncture or herbs.