Decocting herbs on a warm full moon night with an eclipse...how auspicious!

Me having pulse taken and Warren doing his thang
Five packets of herbs, decocted three times each, 15 days of herbs :)

Herbs close up with formula. You can work this backwards to the diagnosis, if your some kind of genius..!

Today I booked in for a practitioner consultation at the herbal clinic. Taste test coming up and mind boggling ingredient soon! The good thing about this is a special deal on the raw herbs, getting to know the lecturer a bit more, experimenting and finding out more about the herbs and then checking them all out as the packets are prepared in the dispensary and so on. I must admit having an extra 8 pairs of eyes on you, all the students join in the consultation, is at first a bit daunting. But no one is judging you-simply finding out more! Especially about you- but anyway! Everybody took my pulse and Warren, the lecturer and practitioner for herbs, asked me a few questions and everybody looked at my tongue as well.
I must admit I have had herbs before. This load I’m drinking now is ok. Think of coffee without the milk, less bitter with richness and fruitiness. Actually this one is quite drinkable and I’m enjoying it as I’ve got more of an idea why I am drinking it and what supposed to be happening. Maybe he let me off easy on my first consultation!

It’s a great time to check out and experiment too. As my herbs were made somebody got a brew on and we all watched as some kind of seed thingo that was placed in the hot water surprisingly expanded to much bigger than its first size. That lead to the comment of different ingredients in herb mixtures and somebody stated they actually had drunk BAT DUNG as part of thier herb decoction..!

Acupuncture first needling

Sydney harbour last week...

Sydney harbour this week...

Feels like the beginning of Spring today, went for swim in the harbour after uni. Beautiful sunset.

First practical acupuncture workshop today! That means the first time for inserting needles…
Was a bit hesitant, as I must admit I do not like needles-who does? But medicine is not supposed to taste good if you know what I mean. We tried on ourselves first. Interestingly we were told to find a non-acupoint. Suddenly challenging as everything before that has been acupoint orientated even though there’s more skin than points! Pain-not as bad as I was worried about. At one point we were told to rotate the needle 360 degrees a few times. No pain. However try removing it- you cant! It gets stuck due to wrapped muscle tissue. Nothing worse than having a needle you feel as though can’t remove! This problem is solved by waiting a short time before removal. Another person told me they had practiced already: “On who?” I asked, her dog…
Anyway we progressed to pairing up and needling three points on some one else. Glad to report the whole process was zero drama and a lot easier than I had imagined.

“De Qi”, BTW, is the arrival of the Qi. This is the sensation felt with needling by the patient. A practitioner should notice it before the patient reports it and should be able to differentiate from any pain sensation!

Finally our lecturer, the ever up beat and non-cynical ( sarcasm) , he who must be obeyed ( own words, deserving of his own blog entry at some point) left us with this quote from one the greatest practitioners of the Qi “ Do or do not, there is no try”. Yoda.

Got to love spontaneous massage

Also today…
At lunch some kind of festival of culture spun into UTS. Wu Wei (the UTS Chinese Medicine Club) had a stall and a spontaneous massage event was created. Wu Wei means the art of non-doing doing, sort of a natural flow of a creation BTW. On the stall are examples of herbs, Demet is massaging wearing a styled up Wu Wei t-shirt and James is looking cool, right before he rips off Michael's arm…Tsering, in the background, is meditating…as she is Tibetan...

Tongue Diagnosis-Strong Heart Qi, front end tongue flip

Talking about tongue diagnosis this happened today: the 180 degree front end flip. Sophie, fellow TCMer, amazed me with this. I thought I’d seen heaps of variations, but never even heard of the front flip before today. “ Manifestation of healthy HT Qi …the tongue having a red body and being free in motion” ( Garvey 2007, p49.). Red and bendy, congrats on having the best HT Qi in the southern hemisphere, if not the world.

Ref:
Garvey, M., 2007, Chinese Medicine Foundations 2: Course Notes: Semester 2, 2007. College of TCM, UTS, Sydney.

Tongue Diagnosis-intense Heat, possible Liver Fire...

It was nice that in my Western Science practical lecture today we cross referenced to Chinese medicine tongue diagnosis. Lucky to be in such an open minded place. Apparently western science is taking more note of it and doctors will examine a tongue with more of those principles in mind.

We checked out this tongue diagnosis link:

http://www.giovanni-maciocia.com/tonguegallery/default.html

Incidentally Giovanni Maciocia is definitely Italian! I must admit I was surprised when I first saw his name amongst the books in the library, however he has a lot of Chinese Medicine experience and his books are well known. In fact I picked up a book today called Chinese Materia Medica Combinations and Applications, written by Xu Li and Wang Wei and he'd written the forward for it! I didn't even think twice about it until I was writing this. That's inspiration for non-Chinese back ground people!!!

Fire Jar Cupping

That's burning hot fire aimed at my shoulder...Or Small Intestine 11 to be more confusing...

After a slide show of burns and abrasions on people's backs that looked as though they had been created that day: " this picture taken...10 years after excessive cupping...". We were given the command go forth and burn my children.

What it does: releases "excess "or "Shi" or "fullness" or "repletion" or angst. Basically gets rid of heat in the body-got a fever? But can be as far reaching as gynaecological issues, to stroke.

The flame in the cup removes all the oxygen and the is placed on the body and sucks up the flesh. Then you can do the real crazy stuff-move the sucked on cup all around the body.

Actually is quite a pleasant sensation considering all the drama involved. And finally I was given a great massage by Alice-the flame thrower in the pic. Not bad for a rainy Monday morning...

More Herbz-Goji berry buzz

Goji berry is being marketed hard at the moment. Been watching the build for a while now: from flyers on lamp posts, street press magazine adds, market stalls and gradually to the super market. Names are Himalayan goji berry, Wolfberry etc. Pharmacological name is Lycium Barbarum. DO NOT BUY the $50 litre juice-which is mainly apple... or worse water, I reckon. Simply head down to China town, where its been the whole time, and buy a kilo for ten bucks. Eat raw, make a tea brew ( the pic above) or sprinkle them on your breakfast in the morning." the berries... enjoy a time tested, documented reputation for enhancing vitality, beauty and longevity"!!!!! (Holmes 2002, p 290).

Ref:

Holmes, P., 2002, The Traditional Chinese Medicine Materia Medica Clinical Reference $ Study Guide, Snow Lotus Press, Boulder,USA

Herbzz

I have to know 155 of these at the moment. What each does in the obscure world of chin med ( eg Dispel wind heat etc) , the Chinese name, some characters and the pharmacological name too ( mainly bloody latin) . Still there's something romantic about raw herbs and the latent power they possess. In this photo is the pin yin names and dosage for each. Can you match them? I can only do one at the moment...

Bubbles-love it

UTS ( University of Technology, Sydney) is not the most beautiful campus, voted most ugly building in Sydney last year I think, but it does have its nice bits-someone blowing bubbles in the sunshine on the green. Incidentally the interior of tower one was designed so that when sitting in the class room you couldn't see outside. This was to prevent distraction from study. Unfortunately some of the best views in Sydney are obscured therefore making it fairly ugly and straightforward on the inside too. You get to see an inspiring glimpse before you sit down, and then when you leave...

1st of 365 points

This is my first acupuncture। The acupoint is LI 4 ( the 4th point along the meridian). It is stated that this area has the largest Dai Qi or energy pull of all the points. Great practice spot. Wasn't too sore.

You, Me and Chinese Medicine

Welcome to my Blog on Chinese Medicine and studying and participating in it all.
Maybe it should be called ChiMedlog? Anyway check out my diary, insights, ideas and pics ======================================>