by Shawn Kirby, L.Ac.

"By nature, men are nearly alike - by practice, they come to be far apart."  Confucius

I received a phone call yesterday from a customer who told me that they enjoy my blog.  As I was thanking him for his kind words it suddenly dawned on me that it's been awhile since I've posted anything.  In point of fact, I've been so busy here at work that a number of things that I enjoy doing have started to slide - one of them being practicing my needling and moxa skills.

Just as there is always room to improve our knowledge base and learn more about the medicine, there is also always room to improve our needling skills, get better at working with loose moxa etc.  Practice makes perfect, and when it comes to hands-on physical skills I try to strive towards what I know is possible - and I know I have a long way to go.

My mentor, Ted Hall, told me that his teacher, the late Nakazono Sensei, was so adept at using 1/2 rice grain sized cones of direct moxa that he could set one cone, light another and snuff out a third in a matter of mere seconds, working his way down the back-shu points.  Ted said that watching Sensei's hands at work was like watching someone doing the shell game at a carnival.  And his technique was painless and perfect every time.  I have run drills to work on this on an old work bench.  Needles to say, my hands are far from blinding.  Skill like this is possible, but only after years, or more accurately decades, of effort.

But while drills are good for hand eye coordination, its always best to work on a real person - and nobody will ever give you better feedback on your technique than you.  Treating yourself is extremely important.  Treating yourself is one of the best ways to get an accurate gauge of what you are really doing and also what your patients are really experiencing.  (After all, if you hate your own needling, how do you think your patients feel?)  Always remember, owing to transference, most patients will avoid criticism of uncomfortable or inappropriate technique to keep you happy.  You can't really rely on them for accurate feedback.

Treating yourself is also a good way to gauge the efficacy of one technique over another.  Years ago when I was a student suffering with recalcitrant insomnia I was given the recommendation of doing moxibustion at Kidney 1 to help me go to sleep.  I took the opportunity to try all the different types of moxa techniques I had learned to get a feeling for the flavor of each technique and what it could do.  Over the course of a week I tried indirect moxibustion, direct moxibustion in the Chinese style, direct moxibustion in the Japanese style and needle-top moxibustion (ouch!).  Surprisingly, the delicate 1/2 rice grain sized direct Japanese moxa had far and away the best effect.   I have theories as to why this is the case (perhaps the topic of another blog) but the experiment sold me on that technique and I continued with it for one month.  After years of herbs and other approaches, this techinque resolved the problem from then on, and my wife can attest to the fact that these days I'm usually asleep before my head hits the pillow (and snoring like a buzz saw if I've enjoyed an IPA that night).

As this example clearly illustrates, treating yourself each day can be good for you.   Shudo Denmai needles himself each day, both to hone his needle technique and pulse diagnosis, but also to promote his overall health and well-being.  Ted set a goal of performing direct moxibustion on the source points on his feet for one year, perfecting his technique as he got stronger.

Blue Poppy author Lorraine Wilcox has written extensively about self-moxibustion in her book Moxibustion: A Modern Clinical Handbook.  New moon moxibustion to nourish life is dealt with at length.  Lorraine and Felip Caudet also post excellent information at their facebook page - just log in and search for "Moxibustion: The Power of Mugwort Fire".   (There's a fabulous video that was recently added of Mizutani Sensei at work - make sure and check it out!)

And now, in light of the fact that it is currently 0 degrees outside, I'm going to stop writing and set fire to my feet.  :D