Hands-on workshop: Applied Channel Theory, Advanced Students, Point Location, Channel-Palpation and Application Intensive

Course description

From 2002-2017, groups of students from around the world traveled to Beijing to study with professor Wang Juyi (王居易).  Dr. Wang would give lectures four mornings each week, break for lunch then see patients for three of the afternoons.  Other afternoons, students would practice point location and palpation techniques.  Recordings from these events were compiled, arranged and translated to create the text Applied Channel Theory in Chinese Medicine (2008). Crucial to the creation of the text was the spirit of dialogue between teacher and student during lectures and the chance to see theory put into practice.  In the seven years since Dr. Wang passed away, it has become apparent that preservation of the long-form study intensive will be important for keeping his highly effective clinical vision alive and growing.  

In the spirit of the Beijing study trips, this four-day intensive will recreate one of Dr. Wang’s ‘advanced’ classes for students already familiar with the core concepts of Applied Channel Theory.

This will involve a deep discussion of point combination and location drawn from Dr. Wang’s clinical experience. Participating students will find that a return to the ‘basics’ of fundamental point categories can lead to a quantum leap in clinical results. Specifically, this class will involve discussion and location practice for the five transport points (五輸穴 wǔ shū xué), source points (原穴 yuán xué), cleft points (郗穴 xī xué), collateral points (絡穴 luò xué) and eight extraordinary vessel confluent points (八會穴 bā huì xué). This course will be appropriate for both new and experienced students of this system. The goal will be to replicate Dr. Wang’s teaching style which always strove to go deeper into core concepts. New students will develop a detailed understanding of the system and will develop skills for integrating channel palpation with clinical reasoning, treatment strategies and advanced problem-solving skills in acupuncture.

Advanced students will further refine point location, palpation skills and clinical strategy. The class outline below will include time for questions and additional discussions drawn from student participation.

Class Details

Day One

• Pattern Diagnosis in Applied Channel Theory
  For the first half-day, students will review and practice Dr. Wang’s method of diagnosis and clinical reasoning. This will include a detailed presentation by Dr. Robertson of how he works with this material in his busy Seattle clinic.  Students will explore exactly how a modern acupuncturist can utilize palpation skills in the perception of symptom-pattern-structure (症候结构 zhèng hòu jié gòu). This type of systems thinking in Chinese medicine provides crucial tools for moving beyond protocols and symptom-based approaches to acupuncture. This will include a review of Channel Differentiation (辨經 biàn jīng) and Channel Selection (選經 xuǎn jīng)
• Five Transport Points（五輸穴 wǔ shū xuè）
  Portions of the next three days will include discussions of the most effective points in acupuncture.  Based on the traditional point categories, the curriculum will describe the general personalities of the various categories.  Included in these discussions will be examples of common clinical applications and representative point combinations. There will be ample time for very careful instruction and practice of precise point location strategies. Handouts will be provided.

Day Two

• Five Transport Points （五輸穴 wǔ shū xuè）continued
  Lecture, hands-on location practice and clinical application
• Live Case Demonstration

Day Three

• Yuan-source（原穴 yuán xuè）and Luo-collateral（絡穴 luò xuè）Points
  Lecture, hands-on practice and clinical application
• Live Case Demonstration (if time permits)

Day Four

• Xi-cleft（郄穴 xī xuè）points
  Lecture, hands-on practice and clinical application
• Eight extraordinary vessel confluent points (奇經八脈八會穴qí jīng bā mài bā huì xué)
  Lecture, hands-on practice and clinical application
• Student practice diagnosis, treatment and needling

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of acupuncture and Chinese medicine; Knowledge of the applied channel theory of Dr. Wang Juyi (see the eight-part video recording over 28 hours).

Certificate

All participants will receive a certificate of the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Klassische Akupunktur und TCM e.V.”