Transcript for:
Lecture on Point Categories

in this video we are going over point categories specifically five shoe transport points yuan source points she cleft points and lull connecting points these are also sometimes collectively known as the antique points so this video was originally broadcast as a live stream so i've taken that recording and edited it down a little bit but it's still pretty long so i'll put some time codes in the description below and also in that description i'll have links to the lecture slides if you want to follow along and there's a practice test that you can take afterwards and as always special thank you to the patreon members for supporting this youtube channel and the website tcm study.net so if you find these videos helpful valuable and you want to give something back consider joining the patreon but let's get on to the video about point categories so again we're talking about these types of points five shoe transport points yuan source points she cleft points low connecting points and lower her c points so before we start talking about points we should probably mention a couple things first of all we should ask ourselves why are we learning this and this is kind of funny sometimes in class i would ask students why do why do we bother learning this and a lot of times they'd be like because chinese medicine teachers are mean and they like to make us memorize things and yes that might be true but in this case learning point categories is actually there to make it easier to learn the points i mean think of it this way there are 361 points on the 14 channels after that we learn like 40 extraordinary points so like 400 points in total but 361 main points if you try to memorize the functions and indications of all of the points you're going to have a hard time so instead we divide these points into categories so if we say uh each of the 12 channels has a she cleft point i know that she cleft points treat acute conditions in pain now i know the functions and indications of 12 points so it's like 12 down 349 to go so that's kind of the point here is that learning these point categories is actually supposed to make it easier to remember the point functions it also gives us kind of a way to prioritize the points i mean like not all points are equal so if you go and ask an experienced practitioner how often do you needle li4 looks like they need li4 like multiple times a day but if you go and ask someone how often do you needle stomach 16 it's like maybe once a year so the categories can kind of give us a way to prioritize the points because if a point has a category then it probably means it's a big point and it's something that we really need to know if we have other points that don't really have categories then maybe we don't use them so much the other thing we should say is before we do this we should admit that what we're doing here is kind of weird because if you're going through a points curriculum like a points1 class basically we start out by talking about the characteristics of the channels when you don't actually know any channels and so now what we're doing is we're talking about the functions of the point categories when you don't actually know any points so if we're going through this and it's like this seems really weird this is really confusing i don't get it i don't get how this is useful that's okay hopefully once we get into the actual points then a lot of this stuff will make a lot more sense so when we talk about point categories basically it's like we have two different types of point categories there are some point categories that exist on every channel and that's what we're talking about today so when we talk about five shoe transport points there are five shoe transport points on each of the twelve channels when we talk about she cleft points there's a chic left point of the lung she cleft point of the large intestine she cleft point of the stomach she cleft point of spleen and so on so these are points that exist on every channel and usually their function has something to do with how the chi is flowing along that channel contrast this we have another type of point category that they're really just collections of points that they're either somebody came up with a group of points that they thought were cool or there's a group of points that do similar things and we just kind of group them together but they don't necessarily exist on every channel so when we talk about things like the eight way meeting points it's not like there's eight way meeting points on every channel there's not an eight-way meeting point of the lung the weight equate meeting point of the large intestine that's just a group of points we put together that are spread throughout the body that affect the different tissues the the bones the blood the sinews things like that or when you talk about the madong young heavenly star points it's not like those exist on every channel that's just a group of points that this guy thought these are the most important points that you should know so we group them together and we call them the mod and yang heavenly star points so what we're going to be going over today are the first type these are point categories that exist on every channel and a lot of times their function is related to how the chi is flowing at that particular point along the channel so you look over these point categories say acupuncture points are grouped into categories based on their common function and so this is what helps us out in terms of remembering the functions of these 361 points we put them into groups to make them easier to remember and then this is what we were saying before certain point categories have a point on every channel so each of the 12 channels has the five shoe transport points each of the 12 channels has a yuan source point low connecting point sheet left point and so on these exist on all the channels whereas there are other categories that are just kind of collections of points so when you talk about front move and back shoe points there's there's not one on each channel they're kind of spread all over the body when we talk about the hue meeting points there are eight points that are spread all over the body tsun tsum yao ghost points madan yang heavenly star points window of heaven points it's not like every channel has a window of heaven but they're just a group of points across the neck so those are more spread across other channels we're going to be talking about the first one the categories that exist on every channel so the first group we're looking at is the five shoe transport points this is probably the maybe the most important but also the most complicated and the weirdest to understand five shoe transport points so again when we say the five shoe transport points we mean that these are points that exist on every channel the long channel has five shoe transport points the large intestine channel has five shoe transport points the stomach channel has five shoe transport points and the way this works is we're creating this image where if we think about the channels starting at the tips of the fingers and moving towards the trunk or starting at the tips of the toes and moving up the leg towards the trunk where the channel starts at the tips of the fingers and toes the channel is very superficial and very narrow but then as it travels up the arm it gets wider and deeper and wider and deeper and wider and deeper until it gets to the elbow and then it's very wide and deep indeed and after that it kind of plunges deeply and you just get this ocean of chi where the channels kind of lose their distinction once they get to the trunk but what we're saying is each channel has this progression up the arm or the leg and because the chi is flowing in a certain way the points have a certain function so so at this point you should be saying wait a minute you're saying that the channels start at the tips of the finger and move forward towards the trunk i thought we said that the channels go chest to hand hand to face face to foot and foot back to chest so some of the channels start at the chest and go down the arm some of the channels start at the fingertips and go up towards the chest now you're suddenly telling me that all the channels start at the fingertips and the tips of the toes and they go towards the trunk what's going on here and the answer is yes that's true welcome to chinese medicine um so it turns out we have these two different viewpoints of the way the channels work one is that the channels flow in this continuous circuit uh chest to hand hand to face face to foot foot to chest another view is we can just say that all the channels start at the tips of the fingers move up towards the trunk or they start the tips of the toes move up the leg towards the trunk and how do we reconcile this well it turns out this is like different chapters of the non of the neijing said different things and so i guess one way we could resolve this is if you look in your wong ju yi he has a discussion about this where he's saying when you go chest to hand hand to face face to foot foot to chest we're talking about the flow of nutritive qi flowing through the channels when you talk about the channels starting at the fingertips and growing up towards the elbow we're not necessarily talking about the literal flow of chi we're talking about the way the channel develops we're talking about the development of function and so if that sounds weird that's okay if you want you can go read about that more in wong zhuyi or we can just say this is chinese medicine we're allowed to say two different things and both things are true at the same time and that's just part of our tcm theory so that we can do that but anyway what we're saying is at the tips of the fingers and tips of the toes the channel is very narrow and superficial and as it moves towards the elbow it gets wider and deeper and wider and deeper and so we can make certain statements about how the points act depending on where they are in that flow and when we talk about qi and the channels one of the common analogies we use is water and so that's what we're doing here with the channels we say like when the water starts out up in the mountain it starts as like a little bubbling spring with just little drips of water coming out but then as it goes down the mountain it forms into a little creek which is kind of narrow and shallow but then that creek eventually turns into a stream the stream turns into a river where it's moving very swiftly and eventually all rivers meet the ocean all rivers meet the sea and we just have this big ocean of chi in the trunk so that's kind of the image that we're using here we're saying at the tip of the finger it's like a well we call it the jing well point as it moves down it turns into a spring as it keeps moving it turns into a stream then it turns into a river and finally it turns into a sea and it plunges deeply and joins this ocean of chi so that's kind of the image we're using as the channel goes up the arm towards the elbow or as the channel goes up the leg towards the knee that it gets wider and deeper and so we just name certain points along that flow jingwell ying spring shoe stream jing river her see and so basically we the this flow is described in the classics we say at the well points the qi flows out at the spring points it slips and glides at the stream points it pours at the river points it moves and that the c points it enters and we say it enters we're saying it's entering deeply into the body so that's what we said in the ling shoe uh the the non-jing says something similar but it slightly reinterprets it where the chi appears where it gushes forth is the wells where it flows as a spring where it rushes down as the streams where it proceeds is the rivers and where it disappears or dives deep is the confluences or the seas and so i think um the one of these was translated by unsure the other one might have been translated by deadman so these are different translations but we say kind of the same thing in these classics that as the channel progresses it gets wider and deeper the way the chi is flowing changes and based on how the chi is flowing whether it's slipping and gliding or proceeding or diving deep depending on how the chi is flowing that means when we needle those points it's going to have a different effect on the body and so that's what we're talking about with these five shoe transport points so we can say the five shoe transport points describe the energy action of the qi as it flows through each of the 12 channels from finger tip to elbow or from the tips of the toes to the knee i'm gonna have problems on my keyboard needling these points can affect the flow through the channel and we can and so we can treat certain uh diseases or conditions basically based on how the chi is flowing at that particular point along the channel and so we name each of these points uh jingwell ying spring shu stream jing river and hsi i think these are the common translations that we see in deadman and machiocha sometimes you do see some different translations so um i know an older copy of unshould in his nanjiang he calls it the wells the brooks the rapids the streams and the confluences so this is just one of those annoying things that um different books will translate chinese terms differently and that's just something we kind of have to put up with when we're dealing with chinese medicine in english and so i think it's easier just to use the chinese names and so we say jingwel ying spring shu stream jing river hussi and just kind of side note um c is actually not a very good translation of does mean more like confluence but nobody actually uses that word in english a confluence is where two rivers join together which is kind of like a c so if you see the confluences that's why i think most people just say see so let's go through the actions um the characteristics and the actions of each of these points so we start with the jing well points so so the jing well points are located on the tips of the fingers or the tips of the toes and so again this is where the channel starts it's where the channel is very narrow and very superficial it's right at the surface and you can even see when you when you press near the the fingernail the skin is not very deep you can't press in very far versus if you press in the elbow you got a lot of meat here here you can kind of feel that the channel's got to be pretty narrow and pretty superficial and so because it's the tips of the fingers and tips and toes it's either going to be the first point on the channel according to our numbers or it's going to be the last point on the channel so since the lung goes from chest to hand it's going to be lung 11 is the jingwell point large intestine channel goes from hand to face so it's going to be large intestine one so it's either when we look at the numbers it's either the first point or the last point but they're usually on the tips of the toes and the tips of the fingers and like we said the chi is flowing in a certain way at these points so at the at the wells the chi emerges it's like the water is popping up out of the ground the chi is popping up uh out of the channel the chi emerges it emanates it appears or it flows out so it's like a starting point so this is the point where the channel is thinnest and most superficial it's where the chi changes polarity when we say polarity we mean from yin to yang so because it's the first or last point it's where the lung is turning into the large intestine so it's going from yin to yang or where the stomach is turning into the spleen it's going from yang to yin so these are the points because they're the first or last point the qi is changing polarity from yin to yang needling these points can have a quick and dramatic effect because it's where the qi is emerging it's where the polarity changes happen so we have a quick effect here so usually when i say this people will then ask the question well then why like why would you not want a quick effect if if the jing wells have a quick and dramatic effect shouldn't you always needle the jing wells because people want to get better as quickly as possible and really what we mean by this is having a quick and dramatic effect this applies to we can quickly clear excess from the body and that's something we can do quickly so if a person has a lot of excess heat we can prick the bleed of doing well and very quickly drain out that excess heat whereas if you have a person coming in with digestion problems due to spleen qi deficiency you can't really address that situation quickly there's no quick way to tonify qi if a person has kidney essence deficiency you can't really quickly tonify kidney essence that's something that takes time so we say a quick dramatic effect we're quickly clearing excess so say a person has strep throat they have this red swollen sore their throat is on fire we can prick the bleed and we can very quickly clear out that heat and they can get some immediate symptoms some immediate relief of those symptoms so that's what we mean when we say a quick and dramatic effect so because of because of the nature of the channel because of the nature of the way the qi is flowing we can make certain generalizations about how these points will act when we needle them or what effect they'll have on the body when we needle them so applications the gene well points clear heat like we said quickly clearing things specifically excess and heat they can also restore consciousness and rescue a person from collapse so if a person is young collapsed or cheat collapse or a person has fallen unconscious because of this change in polarity we can kneel these points and that will kind of hit the reset button and will cause them to wake up so again this is one of those things where it's like technically in the classics this was listed as a function of the jing well points in modern practice if a person is unconscious don't needle their jing well points if a person has collapsed and has fallen unconscious call 9-1-1 don't stick needles in people without their consent but this is something that we will see when we start looking at the point functions as pretty much every jingwell point will list this function of revives consciousness or restores consciousness so that has to do with a the superficial nature and the change of polarity doing well points often treat the uppermost end of the channel and so basically the opposite end it's usually stuff in the face so these points are located on the tips of the fingers but they treat things in the head and face or these points are located on the tips of the toes they treat things at the upper end of the channel so that's why we'll see things like a jingle point of the lung channel will treat throat things because that's the upper end of the channel jingle points on the stomach channel will treat things in the face because that's the upper end of the channel so we're treating the opposite end of the channel with these jing well points they also treat fullness below the heart we'll talk a little bit more about what that means later and they can treat disorders of the spirit and this is maybe related to um clearing heat clearing excess if a person has a lot of excess heat that can cause some shen disturbance if the person has collapsed or fallen unconscious we consider that shen disturbance so we say treat disorders of the spirit that's kind of related to those other functions of clearing heat clearing excess so those are the the wells the jing well points next after that we move up the we start the jing wells where the channel is very superficial very narrow as we proceed up the channel it gets a little bit wider and a little bit deeper and those are at that point we call it a spring so the ying spring points are usually the second point on the channel or the second to last point on the channel depending on how the numbering system goes and they're usually distal to the metacarpophalangeal joint so it's like if you have the knuckles they're usually just distal to the knuckles or on your feet you have the feet knuckles they're usually just distal to that or sometimes they're along the palm but basically they're the second point or the second to last point along the channel and here we say the energetic action is that she slips glides flows the chi is swift so it starts it's just kind of bubbling out of well and now it's starting to pick up some speed and get deeper and so these points can also be fairly quick and dramatic because we're still kind of near that polarity shift and they're especially good at clearing heat so that's going to be one of our main functions of the ying spring points is they clear heat we also say according to the negeng they treat changes in color and changes of complexion and i think maybe we can actually just relate this back to saying they clear heat so when we say uh diseases that manifest as a change in the complexion basically if you have a lot of heat your face is going to turn red meaning spring points clear heat so that's that's kind of what we're saying here you also say they treat diseases of the young channels and the yin organs and remember here we make a differentiation between the channel and the organ so if a person has tennis elbow that's a problem of the yang ming large intestine channel if a person has explosive diarrhea with foul smelling stool that burns the anus that person probably has a problem of the large intestine organ so we can differentiate those so sometimes we'll see this come up so easying spring points on the yang channels they treat the channels on the in they treat the organs and that might be something we can we can discuss a little bit later i would say the main thing to remember here is ying spring points think they clear heat after that we started at the wells it got a little bit wider and deeper and became the springs then it gets a little bit wider and deeper and becomes the streams so we say the shoe stream points so these are usually the third point along the channel the third point or the third to last point the one exception to this is the gallbladder channel and that's just the gallbladder channel is weird on the foot so don't worry about that too much usually shoe stream points are the third point along the channel and so that's usually just means it's going to be on the proximal side of the knuckle or the proximal side of your foot toe knuckles but it's the third point or the third to last point and here we say the chi pores the chi rushes down and so at this point the flow is there's a greater flow and it becomes deeper the channel is able to transport things along with it that's why we say shoe stream the word shoe actually means transport so it's able to transport things along with it that's why it has a name where uh exterior pathogen pathogens get transported deeper in the body and this is also where the weight she gathers so that's kind of a thing that gets mentioned in machiocho where he says pathogens get transported deeper in the body this is where the wage he gathers and so that's kind of an interesting fact and that may come up on a test i've seen some people ask questions about that about where does the weight she gather well it gathers at the shoe stream points honestly i'm not sure if that has a lot of clinical application that when we start looking at the point functions the fact that the shoe stream points over the weight she gathers that doesn't really come up when we start looking at point functions when in terms of treatment principles i've never seen anybody say oh this is where the weight she gathers things are getting transported we better needle right there i haven't actually seen that come up in point combinations point functions point indications so it's something to keep in mind but in terms of the applications i'm not sure that that comes up a whole lot what we do want to say is that the shoe stream points treat heaviness in the body and pain in the joints so what does that sound like that sounds like dampness when a person has dampness their body feels heavy pain in the joints maybe you haven't heard of this but we have a thing called b syndrome which is like arthritis type pain and that's a wind cold damp pathogen is in the joints and is causing pain in the joints so you see heaviness in the body and pain in the joints that's like dampness for shoe stream points and here we say disorders of the yang channels and the yin organs i think that's similar to before i'm not i'm not again i'm not sure that comes up a whole lot and then we say diseases manifesting intermittently and i think this usually refers to malaria and i think back in the day treating malaria was a big deal i'm not sure that we treat a whole lot of malaria with acupuncture anymore so in terms of shoe stream points the thing that i would remember is heaviness in the body and pain in the joints and that has to do with dampness after that is jing river point so we started the jing well uh the channel started out very narrow and superficial as it goes down the arm it gets wider and deeper it gets wider and deeper to the shoe streams and now we're at the jing river points and so the jing river points are the kind of annoying ones that you have to memorize that the the wells are the first or last point the springs the jingle ying springs are the second point the shoe streams are the third point jing river it's not necessarily the fourth point it could be the fourth fifth sixth it could it's pretty much anywhere in here could be the june river point so this one you kind of just have to memorize and that's why we don't really like jing river points because we just have to memorize their location there's not a pattern to it like there is with the other channels so here the qi flows like a current so here it's a river it's pretty wide it's pretty deep and it's moving along pretty good it flows like a current this point the channel is bigger wider and deeper exterior pathogens are deviated towards the joints bones and sinews hence the rim jing means to pass through jing i think this is actually the same character as channel means to pass through and so again here we're saying external pathogens are deviated towards the joints why would this happen because we don't want external pathogens to go to the organs if you have an external wind heat when cold we don't want it getting into the organs that's really bad so at the jing river points we can deviate it and push it into the joints rather than hitting the organs and causing serious problems but again this is something that we say according to the according to the theory this is true again i'm not sure that this comes up clinically i've never when you when we go through deadman and go through the point functions i've never seen a point function where a jing river point is being used to push the pathogen push an external pathogen into the joint so again it's kind of an interesting thing an interesting concept but if you don't see that coming up clinically or if you don't see that coming up in the point functions i wouldn't be too worried about it but in terms of the actions of these points these points are good for cough shortness and breath and fever and chills so cough shortness and breath that sounds like a lung thing fever and chills that sounds like an external attack which is also a lung thing so it's kind of like these jing river points are treating lung things and so cough shortness of breath fever and chills we also talk about diseases manifesting as a change in the patient's voice and again you can kind of think about this as like cough and shortness of breath that the person starts to get sick they start to feel really hoarse and there will be a change in the voice sometimes we mean other things this can also mean like shen disturbance can cause a change in the voice but maybe an easy way to think about it for now is if a person if their lungs are being attacked they have cough shortness and breath and they have they have they're sick they have a fever they're probably going to have a change in their voice too they're going to get hoarse and scratchy so that's what we mean when you say the voice and also diseases of the sinews and bones so that's something we'll kind of see when we look at the point functions as well sometimes these jing river points are good for again stuff going on with the tendons and bones and joint type of stuff so that's another thing we'll see with jing river points as well after that we get to the c point so these ones are located on the elbow the channel started out very narrow and superficial as it moves up the arm it gets wider and deeper and wider and deeper and eventually when it gets to the elbow it gets wide and deep indeed the river joins the sea and so we say the sea points where we say the confluences a confluence is where two rivers meet to form a larger body of water so that's what's going on here at the sea points these uh the the rivers are meeting and so so these are pretty much all located near the elbow or knee i think the confusing one maybe is like stomach 36 but anyway these are all near the elbow or knee and here we say the chi disappears what do we mean the chi disappears it's not that it vanishes is that it's diving deeper into the body so we no longer see it it's like a little uh in colorado we have a prairie dogs it's like a little prairie dog is jumping into its hole and it disappears it didn't actually vanish it's just going deeper into the system it enters inward goes deep is what we mean when we say disappears so at this point the channel is vast and deep the qi comes together and joins the general circulation of the body like a river joining the sea the effect of these points are not as dynamic as the jingle points but it reaches a deeper level so again when we talked about the jing well points they said we said they have a quick dramatic effect because they're very narrow superficial the qi is changing polarity from me and to young so they have a very quick dramatic effect but we can't have a very deep effect they can have a quick dramatic effect on the upper end of the channel so if you want to clear heat out of the face they can have very quickly clear out that heat but they can't affect things at the deep level if we have a person with spleen qi deficiency then we might go to the sea points because that can affect that at the deep level if we have a person with um yin deficiency blood deficiency or things that are happening deep in the body we're probably going to needle into these c points to have an effect deeper in the body and we can kind of see that based on the tissues as well where it's like in a gene well point you can't needle very deep there's not a lot of tissue there you have you have to needle superficial at the dream well points when you get to the elbow you have a lot more meat there so you can actually needle deeper into the body because there's more tissue and it will have a deeper effect in the body as well so that's what we're doing with the c points so c points are good for rebellious cheese so think about uh rebellious lunchie cough things like that rebellious stomach chi nausea vomiting they're also good for diarrhea and disorders of irregular eating so chi is coming up cough wheezing nausea vomiting or diarrheas like the chi is sinking down and disorders of irregular eating these also treat disorders of the young organs and so this is something we were talking about before the difference between the channels and the organs when when our other points uh treated the young channels but the yin organs here we're treating the young organs so these treat diseases of the young organs buffoo and there are going to be a couple exceptions to that which we're going to bring up later when we talk about the lower c points but that's a little bit weird we'll talk about that later but again here we're having a deeper effect on the body and that means we're treating things at the organ level because these are deeper points and let's talk about these um on the young channels they treat diseases of the skin i think they call this the yang of the yang and so that means the surface of the skin again that comes up sometimes not always the thing i would really remember is rebellious g diarrhea and disorders are regular eating i think that's an important one so how do we remember the functions of all these points because that was a lot of information on all those slots what's an easy way to remember that well when i was in school we had a mnemonic device that we used most sane families are against insects so this is one that i learned in school i'm not sure who came up with it it was just my teacher or if they existed before that um i always thought it was kind of funny because like most same families are against insects that just sounds kind of weird uh later i i talked to one of my teachers and he was like yeah when i was in school it was most sane families are against incest but turns out that wasn't a very nice thing to say and so they thought to me to make it a little bit more family friendly they said they changed incest to insects so you can do either one most sane families are against incest or most sane families are against insects because i mean when like when you look at the mnemonic devices for the cranial nerve they're they're like quite dirty so this one is at least a little bit nicer so or i've had somebody suggested most sane families are actually insane i think that's another good one but you anyway basically a mnemonic device is we're just looking at the first letters of each word to help us remind uh to remind ourselves what these points do so we divide it up like this most saying we say most sane m s stands for most superficial so this can remind us that the gin well points are the most superficial and that means they have a very quick and dramatic effect when we needle them and they can treat the upper end of the channel because they're the most superficial we say families family the f means fire so the jing well points or sorry the yin spring points clear heat so families means fire fire means heat the ying spring points are good for clearing heat r means arthritis so when we get to the shoe stream points remember we said they're good for pain in the joints or heaviness on the body pain in the joints is like b syndrome we kind of say that's kind of like arthritis so r can remind you of arthritis and that can maybe help you remember that shoe stream points treat pain in the joints but also heaviness in the body against we have two a's the first the first r has an ar arthritis has an ar here against means asthma so remember that the jing river points treat cough and shortness of breath and so a asthma can remind you of cough wheezing shortness of breath insects or incest or insane the i n means intestines so you can remember that the c points treat intestinal things like diarrhea we just also have to remember on top of that they're good for rebellious chi as well so this is one way to remember some of the actions of some of these points i feel like i'm not totally a big fan of this mnemonic um it's like i feel like there are too many letters and it doesn't encompass all of the actions of some of these points so like we don't say anything about rebellious chi we don't say things about treating the upper end of the channel but it's kind of one way to remember some of the functions of these points so just remember that this isn't quite all inclusive that we might have to go a little bit further into recognizing the functions of these points so another thing that happens in chinese medicine usually whenever we have 5 of something we also have the 5 elements or the 5 phases so we have five of something five phases and we put them together and we call that a five phase correspondence so in this case each of the five shoe transport points corresponds to one of the five phases and so that's called our five phase correspondences the thing that makes this difficult though is it turns out that the five phase correspondences are different on the yin channels versus the yang channels so on the yin channels like the lung the jingwell point corresponds to the wood phase but on the yang channels like the large intestine the jingle point corresponds to metal and so this is something we're going to have to pay attention to is it's actually different depending on whether we're on yin or yang channels so let's start by just looking at the yin channels it goes wood fire earth metal water so first of all if you're good with your five phases you might notice that this is going along according to the shung cycle or the generation cycle so if you remember your little circle we say that wood generates fire fire generates earth earth generates metal metal generates water and water back to wood when you water the ground the tree can grow so water generates wood so we're going in the order of the shung cycle and what we want to remember here is that we're starting with wood so why do we start with wood well it's like this wood the wood phase is associated with the eastern regions and with spring and so wood represents beginnings so the east is the direction of the rising sun it's when the day begins it's when light is growing in the sky so wood represents beginnings in terms of the four seasons wood corresponds to spring spring is the season when all the animals come to life the flowers start blooming the trees start growing and so in spring everything comes to life so spring is about beginnings the wood phase is about beginnings so we do the same thing here when we talk about the five shoe points jing well points are the beginnings and so that's why they correspond to the wood phase now when we get back down to the her c points her c points correspond to water and water is associated with winter that's the time when things end things die the plants die the insects die the bears go into hibernation and so just like we say the chi disappears it dives deeper it's the same thing the bears are going deeper into their cave to hibernate and so water represents endings or going deeper and so that's why we start with wood and we end with water and so that's how it goes along the yin channels so here we have a chapter 63 of the nan jing and this is just something that sometimes when i mention things i like to have passages from the classics because not everybody gets classes in the classics you don't necessarily take a non gin class so sometimes when these things come up i like to mention them within our fundamentals lecture so this is basically what i just said and it says uh in the sequence of points uh it always starts with a well or with wood why is that and it says well it is like this the wells are associated with the eastern region and springs that's the season when things come to life when the chi insects start to move when the jouer insects start to breathe when the juan insects start to fly when the wand insects start to wriggle all things that must come to life will come to life in the spring so the spring the phase of wood is about beginnings and so the beginnings in terms of the development of the channels we begin with the wood phase and then it eventually goes up and it ends with water and i think that's that might be in chapter 65 he talks about it ends with water when things when it's winter things die things dive deeper and go into hibernation so we start with wood and with water so that was on the yin channels though on the yang channels it's actually a little bit different um in the young channels we're still going along the shung cycle metal generates water generates wood generates fire generates earth so we're still proceeding along the shung cycle it's just now that we're starting with metal and so why is that well it turns out that comes up in chapter 64 of the non-jing and the this explanation is a little bit weird but it basically says uh why is it that the five phase correspondences on yin channels and yang channels are different it says it is like this this is a case where hardness and softness are matched with each other and then it goes into another explanation about the the ten stems the heavenly stems and branches which i don't know a whole lot about you may not have studied that but we can basically say that there's this pairing of hardness and softness so metal is more hard where wood is a little bit softer uh water is more substantial where fire is a little bit more ethereal wood is kind of more solid and it can dig through the earth things like that so there's always this pairing of hardness and softness we have to pair yin and yang like husband and wife so there's always this pairing that it has to be different that's maybe not a very good explanation but that's the one they gave in the non-jing but something else we can point out here is that when we look at the relationship between the yang channels to the yin channels that relationship exists along the ku cycle or the restraining or controlling cycle so if you remember your circle with the star in the middle you might remember that metal controls wood metal chops down wood water controls fire water puts out a fire wood controls earth the roots of a tree can break through the earth fire controls metal fire melts metal earth controls water earth builds up a dam and stops the water from flowing so these are all going along the k cycle so it's almost like the yang channels are controlling the yin channels so maybe that's another way you can remember about how these phi phase correspondences are different and so um that's the way i remember it is basically i just remember that the wood represents beginnings so the jing well points are wood and they go towards water and they just go along the shung cycle and then i remember this thing about the ku cycle that may be kind of weird and maybe you're not so familiar with the shang and the ku cycle and that might be hard to remember so sometimes another way to remember it is go to the second point go to the ying springs and think about fire and water so normally you would say water is yin fire is young flip em so if you're if you're ever ever having trouble remembering the five phase correspondences maybe on a test you have to take out a sheet of scratch paper and write them all down jing well ying springs you stream you can just go to the second one think about water and fire are yin and yang and then switch them and then you can just go along the shung cycle to get the rest of them that fire generates earth earth generates metal metal generates water water generates wood so um that's maybe an easier way to remember these five phase correspondences is go to the second point and again here we're in chapter 65 and aging and again we're saying where the ch where the chi appears as the wells means that the wells are associated with eastern regions in the spring that's where life begins um where the chi disappears is the seas that means that the seas are the associated the northern regions ends with winter that that's when things die that's when things go into hibernation they go they dive deeper and so this is just another statement about how we can explain these five phase correspondences on the yin channels at least so chapter 63 64 and 65 of the non-jing are all talking about these five phase correspondences with the five shoe transport points and what's interesting is basically some of these functions of the five shoe transport points seem kind of weird or they don't really go together and the reason for that is we're actually pulling these functions from different places it's like there's one chapter in the negan where it lists some functions of the five shoe points there's another chapter where it lists some more points there's another chapter where it talks about how to needle them according to the seasons and then the non-jinn goes and does something completely different so we had those tables before we were actually kind of combining compiling these functions from our different classical sources and so the way the ne jing says it is like this and this is actually how i remember the functions of these five shoe transport points the the most same families thing doesn't really do it for me but if i remember the five phase correspondences on the yin channels then that's what helps me remember the functions so the non-jing straight up says what kind of things can we treat with the five shoe transport points what kind of diseases or conditions can we master through knowing how to needle these points and it says through the wells one can master fullness below the heart through the springs one can master body heat through the streams one can master a heavy body and pain in the joints through the rivers one can master panting and coughing as well as alternating spells of cold and heat alternating spells of golden heat means fever and chills and through the seas one can master chi proceeding contrary to its proper course so rebellious chi or counterflow chi as well as diarrhea these are the illnesses that can be mastered through the wells spring streams rivers and seas so this is uh chapter 68 of the nanjing and to me this actually makes more sense because if we look at the five phase correspondences or at least on the yin channels we can begin to make some connection between the element and the disease it treats so if the jing wells are associated with wood and we say that treats fullness below the heart when we say fullness below the heart what's below the heart the liver so when we say fullness below the heart we're kind of talking about liver tea stagnation so the jing wells are associated with wood wood is the phase of the liver and so we're treating fullness below the heart because the liver is below the heart ying spring points are associated with the fire element or the fire phase so of course they clear heat it can kind of make this relationship to herbs that the fire the fire element is associated with the bitter flavor what do bitter herbs do they clear heat and drain fire so same thing the fire points clear heat and drain fire shoe stream points correspond to earth on the yin channels remember earth is the spleen the spleen is about dampness so he said body heaviness and pain in the joints that was dampness so we have shoe stream earth earth is spleen spleen is dampness body heaviness and pain in the joints is are manifestations of dampness jing river points are associated with the metal phase metal means lung and so long we have things like panting and coughing fever and chills those are conditions of the lung diseases that manifest as a change in the voice that's condition of the lung so jing river points are metal and they treat lung disorders hussy is water this is a little bit weird because um hussy mean is water water means kidney and they treat diarrhea i think normally in uh kind of our more modern schools we we talk about uh diarrhea we relate it to dampness on the spleen spleen she deficiency is going to cause diarrhea and so really in the non-jing it says all diarrhea is related to the kidney so maybe that's kind of a weird connection to make so maybe you can think that hussy points are water it's good for watery diarrhea sometimes i use this phrase watery diarrhea that the water metabolism of the kidney is not functioning properly and so it's coming out with the stool so those c points um watery diarrhea and then qi flowing contrary to its proper course again that's kind of weird i kind of think of the chong mai but don't don't worry about that too much so c points water diarrhea or counterflow chi so to me this is maybe a little bit easier way to remember it it's maybe it's more complicated in the beginning but after a while it became more easier that i can think of the five shoe transport points the corresponding element and then what how that element what kind of diseases can be treated through that element or through that organ and again this is just on the uh we're using these correspondences of the yin channels on the yang channels the five phase correspondences are different but we can still treat the same the same sorts of diseases so that's maybe another way you can remember the functions either way when it comes to the phi issue transport points you're going to need to know what things they treat in terms of most same families that they treat fullness below the heart they treat the upper end of the channel they clear excess ying spring points clear heat you need to know the functions of each of the five shoe transport points you also need to know the five phase correspondences and you need to know that they're different on yin channels versus yang channels on the yin channels we start with wood because wood represents beginnings on the yang channels we start with metal because metal chops down wood and the yong channels are controlling the yin channels so we need to know those five phase correspondences and those five phase correspondences are going to come up later in life when we start talking about things like tonification and sedation points when you talk about harare points when we talk about korean four-point needle technique you're going to need to know the by phase correspondences so for now if it's you have to get out a sheet of scratch paper and write it all down jingle in spring shoe stream jing river hussi and then write down the five phases you can do that after a while it starts to become second nature that shoe stream points are are um earth on yin channels so that's just something you're going to have to remember from now for the rest of your life so that was the five shoe transport points let's uh let's move on to our next one so after the five shoe transport points we can talk about yuan source points so again these are points that exist on each of the 12 channels so each channel has a point called a yuan source point so there's a neon source point of the lung yawn source point of large intestine you want source point of stomach you want source point spleen and so on and so each of the 12 channels has this and this is where the original chi or the source qi or the yuanji where it surfaces and lingers so based on the flow of the channel this is where the source chi is kind of coming up to the surface and lingering and so we can needle these points where this source g is lingering we can needle those points to have a certain effect on the body so on yin channels the one source point is the third point or the third to last point and again if you're paying attention to our five shoe transport points that's going to mean that these are going to overlap with the shoe stream points on the yin channels so we talk about the lung the lung channel goes from lung 1 down to lung 11. so the third point lung 11 10 9 lung 9 is going to be a shoe stream point so it's good for heaviness in the body and pain in the joints but it's also going to be a yuan source point so in this so in this case points can have more than one category and so this is a case where the categories overlap on the in channels yuan source points are the third point same as issue stream points but again it's different on the yonge channels on the yang channel it's the fourth point so the fourth point in or the fourth most distal point so in the large intestine channel it's going to be we go from large intestine 1 to li 20 it's going to be li1234 li4 is the yuan source point because it's on a yong channel and again the gallbladder channel kind of screws things up gallbladder 22 kind of came in and threw off the pattern but don't worry about that too much for now we can worry about that when we actually get to the gallbladder channel and so what's going to happen is because this is where the source qi surfaces and lingers when we needle these points it's going to have a certain effect but again the effect is going to be different whether we're on a yin channel or a yang channel so on yin channels the yuan source points tonify the organ and so again we are talking about the difference between channels and organs here we're talking about tonifying the organ on the yin channels so lung not like i said lung nine is the yuan source point it will tonify the lung organ so if i have lung chi deficiency lung yin deficiency i can use lung nine to tonify the organ on the spleen channel the on source point is going to be spleen three so i can use spleen 3 to tonify spleen chi things like that it's going to go to on the yin channels it's going to go to the organs but it's going to be different on the yong channels on the yang channels they treat excess conditions and expel pathogens so when we get to li we said li4 as a yuan source point li1234 oi four don't really tonify the large intestine most people you know it's like most people don't have large intestine qi deficiency that's not a thing so instead we're going to use it to expel pathogens so this is going to be a really good point for releasing the exterior if somebody has an exterior attack of wind cold or wind heat it's really common to needle li4 to release the exterior and push the pathogen out so that's what we mean when we say they treat excess conditions and expel pathogens and so this is one this is maybe a little bit weird because i do know that there are some teachers who just say yuan source points tonify um i i think one of my five elements teaches like yuan source points tonify regardless of yin or yang and so there are some people that take that point of view but at least when we're talking about like when you look at the functions and indications in deadman we don't really see that a whole lot we see it with the yin channels yuan source points definitely tonify they tonify whatever is appropriate to the organ and what i mean by that is the one source point of the lung channel tonifies lung cheat it confines lung in does it tonify lung blood no there's really no such thing as lung blood whereas the one source point of the liver or the non-source point of um let's say the the spleen conify spleen chi does it tonify spleen yin we don't really have much splenium so it tonifies everything that can be tonified in the organ but when we look at the functions and indications um on the yang channels we don't really necessarily see at least classically we don't see a lot of tonification instead we see these things about expelling expelling pathogens and treating excess because again it's like what are you going to tonify in the large intestine organ you don't really tonify large intestine chi you don't tonify large intestine blood that's not really a thing but you can clear excess that is a thing same thing we get to the stomach channel that's going to be like clearing stomach heat expelling excess not necessarily tonifying stomach yin or something like that so it tends to be more about excess and expelling pathogens so those are the yuan source points and again sometimes when we talk about certain topics i like to bring in the nan jing just because so you have some classical reference of where this information is actually coming from uh so here it's talking about is like this the cheese moving below the navel and between the kidneys is the the original chi or the yuan chi or the source qi and it's the sanjiao channel that transports the source qi around the body and um you're saying that the the yuan source points are the place where it comes to the surface and lingers and so we say that when the organs have disease we can always needle the respective yuan source point and it doesn't say this but i think at least in deadman we say very specifically that on the yin channels it tonifies the organ on the yong channels it treats excess and you can maybe think about this as that's the nature of the yin and yang organs the yin organs are solid and so they they suffer from deficiency whereas the young organs are hollow things are meant to pass through them so they're more likely to suffer from excess and so maybe that's a way you can think about it uh treating deficiency versus excess so that's where it comes from in the nanjing and so here's the list of the yuan source points again this is going to be either the third point on the channel or the third to last point on the channel with the yin channels and on the yang channel is going to be the fourth or the fourth to last point and our only exception is the gallbladder because the gallbladder it's 44 43 42 41 40. it's the fifth point um so the gallbladder channel is a little bit weird gallbladder 42 kind of screws things up in our pattern um and then so these are the the 12 uh the 12 primary channels and then machioche talks about the yuan source points of the gao and the huang the gao the the connective tissues and the fatty tissues i don't want to get into that right now but maybe that's something you need to know um i don't know what it's like in your school when i was in school we kind of said that you don't actually need to know these points until we learn the points but if you're in your first semester and you want to look ahead these are the the 12 yuan source points after that we get into the she cleft points the word she means cleft so that's why i call it the she cleft points we say cleft crevice hole or opening so the she cleft points are points where the chi and blood gathers before going more deeply into the channel well i guess it's kind of weird we kind of all already said that about the fossil transport points but this is another one we're saying that uh chin blood gathers and then it goes deeper into the body so this is another point where it happens it's a cleft so it's like it's falling into this hole and going deeper thing to know about she cleft points she cleft point treats acute conditions and pain and so if you're if you use deadman as your textbook whenever you get to a she clef point one of the functions is going to be moderate acute conditions i think machiocho might just say straight up treats acute conditions in pain but the deadman phrases moderate acute conditions so if you ever see the phrase moderates acute conditions you know we're talking about a she cleft point and then again we have this difference between yin and yang channels all she cleft points treat acute conditions and pain but on the yin channels there's an additional function that on the yin channels they're treating blood disorders and i guess that sounds kind of weird because if i just say normally blood disorders if you're more western minded you're thinking like oh is that like mercury poisoning or is that like sepsis no when i say blood disorders i mean the tcm conditions of bleeding or blood stagnation so one or the other or both and so that's what we mean when we say this so on the yin channels they they also treat acute conditions in pain but they have an additional function of treating either blood stagnation or bleeding and so we're going to see this where like on the on the spleen channel the chiclef point of splen8 it's really good for treating menstruation problems so painful menses uh menses with a lot of clots uh dark purple blood those are signs of blood stagnation and so that's the way you can treat it on the lung channel the shea clef point is lung six and it's going to be indicated for things like nose bleed or coughing up blood because those are bleeding conditions hopefully it's usually an acute condition as well hopefully you're not chronically coughing up blood so it's like an acute condition but it's also a bleeding condition so she cleft points each of the twelve channels has a she cleft points all of the chic left point channels treat acute conditions and pain and deadman that's going to say moderates acute conditions on the yin channels we have an additional function of treating either blood stagnation or bleeding so those are the she plus points yeah moderates acute conditions is a phrase that deadman uses so again here are the she cleft points each of the 12 channels and again then with these there's no pattern to them we just have to know where they are they're usually somewhere between the wrist and elbow or between the ankle and knee but we kind of just have to know where they are there's no pattern to them and maybe we can talk we'll talk a little bit more about that later about there's technically no pattern but we can use a process of elimination sometimes to figure it out so that but this might be another one where we talk about the big picture you might just have to memorize this and i think this is our last one the wall connecting points the wall connecting points uh the point where the lura connecting channel branches off the primary channel is called the dual connecting point so when we went over uh the secondary channels uh remember when you talk about secondary channels we we first talk about the primary channels uh that's where the points are but then we talk about the secondary channels like the sinew channels the divergent channels we also talked about the rule connecting channels and one of the things we said is the lure connecting channels always begin at the wall connecting point and so for example when we talked about the long wall connecting channel it started at lung seven and then spreads over the thenar eminence that's the pathway of the channel but it started at a point on the primary channel lung 7 which is the wall connecting point that might have been really confusing but we have lower connecting we have lower connecting channels and we have lower connecting points lower connecting channels always begin at the lower connecting points so what are these lower connecting points do well when we call them law connecting points we're implying they're connecting what are they connecting they're connecting yin and yang paired channels that's again something we said about the dual connecting channels they connect yin and yang paired channels or interiorly exteriorly related channels so long and large intestine spleen and stomach heart and si kidney and ub they're connecting these channels so that means when we needle the points the low connecting points because there's this connection to the yin yang pair we can treat disorders of the yin yang pair and so if we needle the li6 the lower connecting point of large intestine we can treat disorders of the lung when we needle stomach 40 the low connecting point of the stomach we can treat disorders of the spleen like dampness and phlegm things like that when we when we needle ub 57 low connecting point of the ub we can treat disorders of the kidney and so that's something we'll see in our point functions when we start studying the points they also treat disorders uh in the regions reached by the wool connecting channels so again like we said up here we have something called lua connecting channels they begin at the wall connecting point so with a with a long channel you start at lung seven the channel goes the dual connecting channel goes up and spreads over the thenar eminence that means when we need a lung 7 we can treat pain in the cnr eminence because that's where the lower connecting channel goes with the liver the low connecting point of the liver is liver 5. the liver rule connecting channel goes up the leg and goes around the external genitalia so liver five is a little connecting point we can treat things like itchy vagina or itchy scrotum depending on the patient but that's because that's the pathway of the law connecting channel so when we start going over our points or when we start going over our channels each individual channel long large intestine stomach spleen we're going to talk about the pathway of the primary channel but we're also going to talk about the pathway of the rule connecting channel and the other secondary channels and so that's something we'll learn when we talk about our channel theory and that's going to help you understand the functions of these wall connecting points that they treat disorders along those channels so that's something we'll be one we'll want to be paying attention to and then we can also say they treat certain mental emotional or psycho-emotional disorders and this is just um a thing that we'll see pop up that when we start looking at the functions we'll see they treat certain shen problems shen disturbance mania depression um traditionally the the traditional language is kind of funny we talk about things like mad laughter ascending to high places and singing pulling at invisible strings those are all kind of mental disturbances mental emotional disorders but it can also treat things like sadness melancholy crying things like that so we'll see that kind of pop up pretty often when we talk about rule connecting points and so that's another thing when we start going over the point functions that'll be something to look for when you look at lung seven does it treat certain mental emotional problems when you look at li6 does it treat certain psychological disorders so those are the functions of the dual connecting points so again each of the um 12 primary channels has a low connecting point but if you remember when we talked about when we were in the channel theory video we talked about there are 12 primary channels and 15 rule connecting channels or 15 network vessels means little connecting channels so here these are the 15. we have one for each of the primary channels we also have one for the ren and the do and then there's an extra one called the great wool of the spleen and i think that's something we'll get to when we talk about either the secondary channels or we can get the actual channels themselves so there are actually 15 dual connecting points one for each of the 12 plus extras for the render and great wall of the spleen and again there's really no pattern to these it's not like they're the fourth or fifth point or anything like that it's just they're usually located somewhere between the wrist and the elbow and but it's kind of like we just have to memorize them so but i guess maybe something we can say in regards to that is how do we some of these points uh it's hard to remember which category they belong to something that we could say is remember we said that yuan's source points on the yin channels they overlap with shoe stream points so yuan source points and shoe stream points overlap on the yin channels other than that none of the categories we talked about today they do not overlap so what that means is a jing river point is never going to be a loyal connecting point a little connecting point is never going to be a she-clef point a she-clef point is never going to be a c point so sometimes that can maybe help us that we can use a process of elimination where it's like if i know that lung eight is the jing river point then i know it's not the little connecting point it's not the sheet clef point i need to look somewhere else in this area so they're usually between the wrist and the elbow i think the exception might be stomach 34 but they're usually between the wrist and the elbow and these categories generally don't overlap so if you're like on a test and you're getting really stuck maybe you can like try to use a process of elimination where it's like um don't remember the lung channel i don't remember which one's the shea clef point but i know it's somewhere between the wrist and elbow so it's somewhere between uh lung five and lung nine no it's not lung 9 because that's the source point no it's not lung 8 because that's the jing river point i know it's not lung 7 because that's a little connecting point well the only one that's left is lung 6 that's the shea clef point so maybe you can use a process of elimination there maybe that's i just made that more complicated but um again with the with the yuan source points there's a pattern it's either the third or fourth point depending whether it's on a yin or young channel with the wool connecting points and the sheet clef points there's really no pattern so you kind of just have to memorize it so once we get uh once we know the law connecting points and the on source points we can talk about something called the host and guest method so this is something that's discussed in the beginning of deadman in the introductory chapter so a lot of times in classes we talk about this i'm not sure how often people use it in clinic but just since we're talking about these categories it's kind of an interesting thing to mention and so the idea with the host and guest method is basically this is a point combination technique that was described in the great compendium of acupuncture which is a cool sounding name for a book and it's basically we're combining source points with rule connecting points of the paired channel so let's say you have a disease of the channel we can say the ion source point on the affected channel is connected with the rule connecting point of the yin yang pair for example let's say you have lung deficiency oh that's a disorder of the lung if i have lung deficiency oh makes sense i'm going to kneel the yuan source point lung nine because you know like said you want source points to tonify the organ so we're going to use the yuan source point of the lung channel makes sense well for the guest host method we can combine it we can kind of amp it up we can kick it up a notch by using the dual connecting point on the yin yang pair so li6 so this would be a point combination we could use for the lung we use the yuan source point on the affected channel lung nine and we use the dual connecting point on the yin yang pair li6 uh the yuan source point is the host and law connecting point as guest that's why they call it guest and host method and um and so sometimes this comes up and you see oh we're we're trying to expel a pathogen well we can use li4 because it's the yuan source point on the large intestine channel yawn source points on young channels are good for expelling pathogens let's kick it up a notch by adding in the lure connecting point of the yin yang pair add in lung seven and so that's that point combination becomes more powerful we've kind of amped up the action of the yuan source point so that's a way of thinking about and then we do this sometimes with like spleen 3 stomach 40 i like to use ub 57 kidney 3 as a guest host thing that kidney 3 is the yuan source point so it's tonifying the kidney if you want to kick it up a notch we can add in ub57 as the lull connecting point of the yin yang pair so that's the host and guest method i'm not sure in modern practice how often this comes up but it's usually something we talk about because it's in the introduction to deadman so we talk about it there and finally we can talk about something called lower huh c points this is something i was kind of avoiding sometimes i don't really talk about it here because it might just get confusing with the other things sometimes i wait to talk about it until we get into the actual points but we can just talk about it now just so you know what it is the lowercase c points if this is really really confusing just forget everything i said and then when we start talking about like the li channel and the stomach channel we we talk about it again and it'll make more sense there but basically lower hussy points the concept goes like this if you remember when you talked about the five shoe transport points we said the c points the points on the elbow these are the points where the channel is very wide and very deep so we can needle in deeply they treat diseases deeper in the body the hussy points this is where the cheek disappears where the bear is going to hibernate they're disappearing by diving deeper in the body the c points on the young channels treat the foo organs so the hussy points on the yang channels treat the young organs that's something we said 50 slides ago when we talked about for c points it turns out there's an exception to this this is not always true the exception to this is the three young channels on the arm the three young channels on the arm are the large intestine channel the sanjiao channel and the small intestine channel so for the three yang channels on the arm there's an exception here there's a problem the problem is like with the large intestine channel the large intestine huh c point is in the upper body the large intestine organ is in the lower body or in the lower jaw so basically so we have a c point up here the large intestine organ that's supposed to affect is in the lower jaw turns out it's just too far away there's just too much distance it can't reach the organ and so what we do in the cases of the three young channels on the arm when it comes to the c points we have to designate an additional point not on the channel that does treat the young organ that might have been really confusing maybe maybe this this will make more sense li11 is the huh see point of the yangming large intestine channel normally we would say that hussy points treat the organ so normally we should say li11 treats the large intestine organ it should it should treat constipation because it's a c point and hussey points treat the organs turns out li11 does not treat constipation if we if we look in our in our dead men and in our machioche li 11 does not treat constipation it it's just the point is too far away to have an effect on the organ so instead we have a different point on the leg stomach 37 stomach 37 is the lower huh c point of the large intestine and stomach 37 does treat the organ so stomach 37 does treat constipation because it's the lower hc point of the large intestine and so this is something that really just applies to the yong channel so the the large intestine small intestine and saanjal all have an additional point on the leg called the lower husky point when it comes to the stomach channel the uv channel and the gallbladder channel those only have one c point that's already it's already lower it's already on the lower body and those are able to treat the organs it's just the young channels on the arm we had to come up with a different point that does that performs that function um i'm sorry i guess this is what we said normally you say the whoa c points on the yang channels treat the young organs the exception to this is the three young channels on the arm the channel is traverses the upper body the channel traverses the upper limb but the organ is in the lower jaw and because of this the c points on the elbow just can't reach the organ they're just too far away li11 can't reach the large intestine organ the hussy point of the small intestine channel can't treat this the small intestine organ so what we do is we designate an additional point not on the channel that can affect the organ and we call that the lower huss c point and so basically we have these three the large intes the lower hussep and the large intestine is stomach 37 so if you want to treat constipation or disorders of the large intestine organ we're probably not going to use ll-11 we're going to use stomach 37. if we wanted to treat the small intestine organ which i'll be honest doesn't happen a whole lot but if you have if you have testicular pain due to small intestine chi tide or you have borborygmus and lower abdominal pain due to cold in the small intestine organ then we would go to stomach 39 if you have heart heat pouring into the small intestine we can go to stomach 39 because it's the lower hussy point of the small intestine and then same thing with sanjiao uh is ub39 so these are all points on the lower leg below the knee those are called the lower c points so those were the points that exist on every channel when you talk about the five shoe points each of the 12 channels has a five shoe points when you talk about yuan source points low connecting points g clef points each of those points each of the 12 channels has a yuan source point a sheet clef point and a low connecting point so sometimes people refer to those as the antique points just because they're the old points that are talked about in the classics and they're the the point categories that exist on every channel so maybe we'll just say something else really quickly because we were talking about the five shoe transport points remember when we talked about the five shoe transport points what we said is the channel starts off very superficial and narrow as it goes up it gets wider and deeper it gets wider and deeper until it gets to the seat it's very wide and deep indeed after that we say that she disappears it dives deep all these rivers are coming together together to form a great ocean and so we said that each of these points has a specific function based on how that chi is flowing kind of another implication of this kind of an interesting consequence of this is we can say something that there's a difference between the points on the arm versus the points on the trunk and so what i mean to say here is when we talk about the fingertips to the elbow we're saying the channel is very superficial and it's very narrow and that means the channels are very distinct from one another so that the the lung channel is very separate from the large intestine channel and so the points are very different so kind of what we what we can say is when we're talking about a point about points from the elbow down when we're talking about points on the leg from the knee down the point functions tend to be very specific and very specific to the channel it's located on what do i mean by that when we say when you talk about elbow to wrist or elbow to fingers points on the lung channel treat lung disorders they're very separate from points on the large intestine channel points on the spleen channel from the knee down treat disorders of the spleen channel things like spleen she deficiency dampness and things like that so the points from the elbow down and the knee down are very specific to the to the channel that they're on and the organ they connect to however once we get above the elbow once we get above the knee and we start moving towards the trunk the channels are less distinct we said all these rivers are coming together to form a great ocean so the channels are less distinct and what that means is the point functions have less to do with the channel that they're on and more to do with the area of the body where they're located and what i mean by that is when we start looking at point functions it's like points on the face are good for the face points on the chest are good for the chest points over the middle jowl are good for the middle gel points over the intestines are good for the intestine points in the lower jaw benefit the lower jaw and so it's not really not about the channel it's about where it's located so when we get a little we look at like kidney 25 unbinds the chest spleen 16 unbinds the chest or sorry stomach 16 unbinds spleen 18 unbinds the chest it doesn't really matter what channel that they're on really what matters is these points are on the chest so they unbind the chest same thing on the face points next to the nose are good for the nose whether it's the stomach point or a lie point it's good for the nose points around the ear are good for the ear maybe it's a small intestine point maybe it's a sanjal point maybe it's a stomach point points next to the year are good for the year it doesn't really matter what channel they're on it matters where it's located on the body and so that's kind of a trend we're going to notice when we start looking at these point functions and we can kind of relate that back to that concept we talked about with the five shoe transport points that when that when we're below the elbow or below the knee the channels are very narrow they're more superficial and they're very distinct from one another and so we can affect the flow of the chi dynamic of that channel and the corresponding organ but once we get to the elbow the chi disappears the chi dives deep the rivers come together to form this great ocean of chi and it's less about the channel and more about where it's located on the body so that's maybe another trend we can look at that doesn't really necessarily have to do with point categories but that's maybe something that can help you remember with certain point functions as once we get onto the trunk just think about the location points on the chest are good for the chest points over the uterus are good for the uterus points on top of the intestines are good for the intestines things like that so that's another thing we can say about point functions so that was part one of our video about point categories like i said there's a practice test on the website if you want to check that out and then stay tuned for part two of this video where we talk about the other point categories things like front move and back shoe points the gaowoo command points madonyang heavenly star points eight-way meeting points and more and once again thank you to everyone who supports the youtube channel and the website tcm study.net these videos and educational resources are brought to you for free and adri thanks to the support of viewers like you so if you'd like to support the channel and website there are a couple ways you can do it you can join the patreon and that's like giving a monthly pledge you can do a one-time donation through buy me a coffee or on the website we have a merchandise store with t-shirts mugs pillows and totes and so that also supports the website as well but that is all for today thanks and we'll see you next time