Part of the acupuncture curriculum involves, over the course of our 3-4 years of study, needling all of the points AND having most (if not all), of the acupuncture points needled on us. How many surgeons can say they’ve had the surgeries they’re performing performed on them or how many psychiatrists know what it feels like to be on the pharmaceuticals they’re prescribing  (yes, I know that’s different, but it’s worth a thought nonetheless)? This is a way for us to know know what our future patients are experiencing, and we serve as practice dummies for each other.

Today in class amongst the points we needled were L.I. 15 Jianyu and S.J. 14 Jianliao. These two points are at the origin of the deltoid (shoulder muscle) and needled into the shoulder. We have a great teacher who does a really good job demonstrating and guiding us through the process, and what was amazing, where the affects of needling the point. The shoulder completely relaxes is opened up. My needling partner gained around 30 degrees of range-of-motion with about ten minutes of needle retention. I have pretty flexible arms as is, but really felt my shoulder joint relax and open up. This has me looking forward to learning about needling more of the areas where I (and/or my loved ones) tend to hold a lot of tension.

It’s amazing what the body will do when poked in the right direction…