Hacking Chinese Medicine

Total CPDs: 1

IVAS (1), Standard Certificate (1), NCCAOM (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

Your key to unlocking the secret codes of Chinese medicine. A very literate Chinese speaker has no more idea what is meant by “Lung Phlegm in the Liver” than does the average English speaker. For that matter, the word “wiry” and the concept of “Spleen pulse” don’t mean anything to the average Chinese speaker. The words we use in Chinese medicine are not words, per se. They are code. “Liver,” as you well know, does not mean liver. For that matter, “Yin,” in the context of medicine, does not mean Yin. Damp certainly does not mean Damp. And Spleen Yang is present in the smallest, single-celled organism – an organism that does not have a spleen. Your patient might tell to you, “I know all about Yin and Yang. The moon is Yin, males are Yang…” But these Taoist meanings have almost nothing to do with the way these words are used in the Chinese medicine code. What does Yin and Yang mean to a Korean musician? To a traditional Taoist? To a Feng Shui practitioner? And all these different meanings are different still from what Yin and Yang mean to a TCM practitioner! If you understand the way these code words work in TCM, and what they actually mean in plain English – which is not what you think – the whole world of Chinese diagnostics will suddenly make a whole lot of sense. It will even become something you can explain to your patient, using simple, obvious English. Just knowing how the vocabulary actually works, something I never learned in my years of school, has made all the difference in my practice. I understand what I am doing. I am no longer just blindly following the dots. This first class covers material in the first three chapters of Hacking Chinese medicine, and will introduce you to some of the more common usages of the “secret codes of Chinese medicine."

Total CPDs: 1

Standard Certificate (1), IVAS (1), NCCAOM (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

Qi is a code word. It can take years for a student of Chinese medicine to begin to understand all the variations and permutations implied by the word “Qi”. Even so, many practitioners of Chinese medicine fling this word at their patients. The imprecise and even incorrect use of the word “Qi” can lead to grave concerns on the part of patients who go home frightened by their “Qi deficiency” or puzzled about their “Stagnant Qi.” By learning the ancient roots of this word, by reviewing the derivative forms of this word (Gu Qi, Zhong Qi, and so on), a practitioner can be reminded of ways to communicate with his patient in a manner that isn’t mystical or alarming. By putting key Chinese medical words into English – and by knowing the historical origins of these words and understanding what they actually meant historically as well as in light of western understanding of physics – a practitioner can come up with far more helpful treatment plans, and also empower his patient.

Total CPDs: 1

IVAS (1), NCCAOM (1), Standard Certificate (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

When’s the last time you were helped by the carefully memorized statement: “The Lungs go up and out?” This class explains how, in our modern times, the words “Channel Qi” have been intentionally omitted, rendering many of our lessons senseless. For example, most of the aphorisms and axioms that we learn in school refer vaguely to “Qi” or specific organs. These axioms are so vague as to be meaningless in many cases. By re-inserting the words “Channel Qi” into these “rules” of TCM, we can see how these axioms are helpful and provide constant reminders that we are supposed to be aware of the flow patterns of our patients’ channel Qi, using that information diagnostically and in guiding our treatment choices.

Total CPDs: 1

IVAS (1), NCCAOM (1), Standard Certificate (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

We are often taught that a symptom is “caused by” some Chinese medical term. Very often, the medical term is simply a translation of the symptom onto Chinese medical code. Knowing this can help both doctor and patient and prevent much confusion. Likewise, books that say “This acupoint ‘treats’ a given problem” or is “indicated” for a given problem, as if all symptoms have the same origin, completely miss the point of how acupuncture works and why each person’s symptoms might have a somewhat different origin, requiring individual-specific treatment. When you get past this sort of point prescription magical thinking and understand what the point indications really mean, you’ll be ready to learn how to choose acupoints that will give brilliant results.

Total CPDs: 1

NCCAOM (1), IVAS (1), Standard Certificate (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

In ancient times, Chinese medical terms were often words about the weather. They were used literally and metaphorically. Words like Damp, Wind, Heat, Cold, Sun, were often used to explain how someone’s illness came about through over­exposure to some climatic situation. If a problem was not, in fact, due to the weather, the climate words were used anyway. In these cases, the words were metaphors and euphemisms. In these cases, they don’t actually help with our understanding of what’s going on. These words are great for putting together a pattern diagnosis and choosing a treatment out of the pattern-code box, but they often do not help us understand what’s really going wrong, they don’t help us know what’s happening with the channel Qi, and they very, very often do NOT lead us to effective treatment. Today, very few of our patients are suffering from health problems associated with climatic excess. However, we still use the same old weather based words to codify the treatment patterns. Very often, this makes our diagnoses and treatment names misleading, not useful, or even stupid and ludicrous. This talk will explain how to work around the limitations and misunderstandings that come about through using these old terms, and suggesting some better ways to communicate with patients about the underlying causes of their problems.

Total CPDs: 1

Standard Certificate (1), NCCAOM (1), IVAS (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

This class covers some code words that have been mistranslated into English. Our use of these words makes this medicine even more cryptic than it needs to be. Also, by using mistranslated words, we inhibit our ability to really understand what we are talking about when we use these words as if they made sense. Even worse, if we use these words with our patients, they are left with very wrong ideas about what is going on inside their bodies. If you use the correctly translated terms, not only is this medicine easy to explain, but your patients can be empowered by knowing what is going on in their own bodies. Oppositely, using mistranslated words makes our diagnoses and treatment names misleading, not useful, or even stupid and ludicrous. Also, most of the encoded Pattern names have left out the term “Channel Qi", which was always understood to be the underpinnings of this type of medicine. This talk will give the correct translation for some of the most common terms, offering a better way to communicate with patients about the underlying causes of their problems.

Total CPDs: 1

IVAS (1), Standard Certificate (1), NCCAOM (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

If you are an English speaker, you may have a very incorrect idea of what is meant by the Chinese colloquial phrase “Balancing Yin and Yang.” Loosely translated, this phrase means anything from “let’s mix things up” to “let’s make things better.” Then again, the phrase means something very different in classical Taoist Chinese, where it means the same as the ancient Greek idea of the same era: “balancing body and mind.” Which refers to lifestyle choices, and isn’t something that we can treat using medicine. Learn more about this history of this concept and what it means for us in the field of Chinese medicine. This lecture is the last of three that address common mistranslations from the Chinese into English. After a discussion of Balancing Yin and Yang, the lecture makes a foray into a new field altogether: channel theory and it’s applications, starting with an example of treating asthma.

Total CPDs: 1

IVAS (1), Standard Certificate (1), NCCAOM (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

The course provides an introduction to some of the electromagnetic properties of fascia, and why western researchers are now suspecting that electrical flow in fascia corresponds with the “mysterious meridians of Chinese medicine.” This course covers: Conversion from one type of channel Qi to another, and the locations of these conversions; how channel Qi creates organs, and not the other way around; how we can learn to feel the differences between one channel and another; how different types of channel Qi might be responsible for the development of the various sensory brain cells; The importance of always bearing in mind the sequence of the channel Qi flow when diagnosing a health problem. The case study demonstrates using channel theory to track down the very unexpected, multiple, channel blockages causing the patient to have thirty years of chronic migraines, weakness on one side of her body, and why her knee, ankle, neck, and 6th rib on her right side were always “popping out of place.” None of the traditional Pattern diagnoses helped her condition - tongue and pulse showed weakness, but didn’t help show what the problem actually was; this course will illuminate the processes used to solve the issue.

Total CPDs: 1

IVAS (1), Standard Certificate (1), NCCAOM (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

Some classic theory doesn't actually work. In school, we are taught this theory as if it works, but it never has and never will; an example of this is, 'Ear ringing is Kidney Yin Deficiency.' Treatments that Tonify Kidney Yin do not get rid of ear ringing. This course discusses why false theory is kept in the canon (hint: tradition) and also how to successfully treat some of the problems for which we've learned false theory. The opposite law is also true. We learn in school that certain health problems are incurable. Usually, this is because western medicine has deemed them incurable or because the false theory never works. In the presentation, examples are shared of 'incurable' problems that are actually quite easy to treat.

Total CPDs: 1

NCCAOM (1), Standard Certificate (1), IVAS (1)

Access Period: Lifetime

Course Length: 1hrs

Course Notes: There are no notes provided with this course.

This course will cover concepts about Channel Qi and outline the importance of Qi direction in making an accurate diagnosis. Feeling Channel Qi is easy. Although many practitioners feel it is difficult, the instructor will review how it can be acquired in practice. In detail, the theory of how to use and diagnose Channel Qi including the proper use of hands will be shared. Different concepts involving currents and the sensations given off by the Channel Qi will also be outlined. The words that students have used to describe the sensations given off by the Channel Qi will be included.