Episode 1: Placing Channels within Applied Channel Theory

I don't know how to begin this, but this is our first trial at doing this kind of series of discussions on applied channel theory. The goal is to just have a lot of discussions between talkrooms, different apprentices. So we're talking with hopefully all the apprentices outside of China and maybe some of the ones in China too, just discussing different cases or different topics related to applied channel theory. So this is the first one, part one, the first episode of this, I don't know what we're going to call it, discussions, Jason. Yeah, discussions on applied channel theory. So this is number one of it. So we're the first discussion today, so Jason Robertson, who's in Seattle and I'm in Beijing. And where our idea was, we were just talking about this is like, I introduce yourself, of course, is Jonathan Chang in Beijing. Jonathan, yeah, in Beijing. Right, go on, sorry. So today, the main goal is like, well, I was interested in asking Jason, was like, what was your Eureka moment that got you attracted to a doctrine system of applied channel theory? Like, either what maybe what you observed or maybe from your own experience, what made you like attracted to this system? Well, I think like so many people who start studying applied channel theory, what was jumps out at anyone as one of the most unique things about the approach Wang Ji used in the practice of acupuncture was that he was running his thumbs along the distal channels, looking for diagnostic clues in a very rigorous and methodical way, which is kind of different than the way you see a lot of other acupuncturists work. And I was actually watching him in the clinic in Beijing, and I'm not sure which clinic we are in, I just remember him doing it. He was palpating very, very carefully in a dermatology case. It was actually like a systemic psoriasis case. And he was palpating all along the channels. And he didn't just like jump right out to like, you know, using liver five or, you know, clear toxin from the blood or, you know, using even lung five or gallbladder 31 or points. Sometimes we think of his dermatology points. He was going through this process that looked like there was a lot going on in his head that was combined with what he was doing with his hands. And that was the first thing that got me really interested. I saw, you know, this obvious manual skill that I didn't have. And that was the first thing. I don't know, John, what about you? I mean, you were, I think you first met Dr. Wang in fact as a patient, right? So you were receiving this palpating skill. Right, right. I was completely new to the system. So I think from you, when you were, when you saw Dr. Wang, when you came to Beijing, right, you were, had already practiced for a year or two, like you had finished. Yeah, I practiced for a couple of years, but then. So I think you're, your perspective would have been completely different from mine. Because when I, yeah, when I first met Dr. Wang, I was a student. I'm not a student. I was his patient getting like needle due 19 for the first time. Not having any clothes going on. But then later, then, you know, when I got into it, I think you even had a puncture before that a long time ago, I had with my dad, you actually studied some acupuncture back in the 1970s in Taiwan. I think this acupuncture on you. Yeah, he did some acupuncture on me, but it was like with like electric stimulation and things like that. So it was very, not a classical approach. So it was all new to me. But when I remember like later when I became a TCM student and then studying with Dr. Wang, the reason why I studied with Dr. Wang is like kind of like, I think there were some American students there and they were always like, oh, you guys studied with Dr. Wang because, because of palpation. Like that was the only thing they focused on is like, because you have to learn his channel palpation. And then like what you're, I think you're, what you're alluding to is that what later, what I realized was that, you know, over the years, I studied with them was it's not just about channel palpation, right? It's this entire system. That's very complex and quite comprehensive. But like channel palpation or channel examination is one aspect of it, one very important aspect of it. And I think you and I have noticed that in the process of teaching this material, you know, in China or around the world, often especially acupuncturists, I think, have been in practice for a little while. They kind of go in the same direction. I did, I think when I first met Dr. Wang and you figure what you want to do is just learn this palpatory skill and that's really what you're trying to learn. And it took, it actually took me a long time to realize that it's, it's, you know, the palpation is just a part of the diagnostic process, let alone the theoretical underpinnings of how you go about choosing points or conceptions of what the channels are. And I mean, are you having that same issue in China? You guys are teaching it, I guess, pretty methodically there. But maybe it's more acupuncturists sometimes you see this. Yeah, I think that's, I think when a lot of people, and even when they talk about Dr. Wang in China too, I think, at least the people we have met, I think is the way that we have been, like the first course we always teach is always channel examination, right? How to physically palpate the channels. So I think for a lot of people that's a lot of their first focuses on like hoping that, you know, that this will give them immediate results in the sense that they will really once they palpate the channel, so know exactly what's going on with the patient. And know exactly right away, like which points to use and so on and so forth. And you'd be able to immediately tell, you know, like how many dreams they need. And like they see it as like this kind of magical kind of method of not just examination, but like completely guiding you along, like as giving you like a kind of guidebook, like a recipe, kind of telling you how the patient should respond and everything. And I think so that we do encounter patients, not patients, I mean students who hope, you know, that like, oh, if I find a nodule at lung five, that means the patient has this illness, but usually we have to tell them that no, that's not the case, right? It's more complex than that. So hopefully, like what we're trying to do in China, I think what we're trying to do now overseas is trying to teach you more systematically, right? Like using channel examination as the first step to like an entire series of courses that goes like with each course going deeper and deeper into this is. And it does bring up kind of two sides to this discussion about it being more than palpation. I mean, I absolutely over this time have appreciated that I needed to get the understanding of the whole system in my head to get much better clinical results. But on the other hand, people who have experience, even just palpating can help shape whatever acupuncture approach you have. So I mean, it's like it's hard to kind of find the right angle on this because for people who come probably in China, even they some people, I'm sure, just come for that one course and end up not coming for some of the follow up courses and they take that away. So that is part of it. But for anyone who's kind of just getting into this material, you can use it, I guess, kind of immediately, but just know that there's so much more out there to learn. And there's, there's, you know, and I think really what it comes down to is this, John, I'm sure you notice, I mean, you and I have been doing this now long enough where we kind of absorb this and we forget to tell this to new students sometimes is pretty quickly when you're doing palpation, you're overwhelmed by finding too much information. Yeah. So that's really where you need to get a lot of the other information, the other kind of theoretical underpinnings and Dr. Wong's way of thinking in your head because you can't just put needles on all the channels where you find changes. Like, it's pretty, by the end of those weekends you're teaching, the students are feeling too much often. Don't you notice that? Yeah. Yeah. And then they, then what at least is like over analysis is overthinking, over philosophizing about like each individual case, like, well, I think it's a tie in and yaming in the shawian and shawian. And then you become more confused, right? But then there's like, Dr. Wong has a very clear way of trying to like clarify your way of interpreting what you're finding. And that's, you know, like we talk about like, it's matching your book too, like methods of like, challenge differentiation, methods of channel selection, and so on and so forth. Well, that's the way to clarify your interpretation. Yeah, that's interesting. You said that. That the temptation is to think there's all four channels or three channels going on at once and try to make a beautiful story. And over time, I've gotten, and I definitely have fallen into this and still do sometimes. But what it, it seems like the most effective thing is just to make yourself come to one channel in your diagnosis. And then think of it as like it's unfolding and the other channels may show up. For that week, that's the channel. And that's where you have to go through the kind of the mental process that Dr. Wong described. It really helps you get to that one channel more quickly. Right. Yeah, so that that tendency to have multiple channels in your head is, you phrased it really well. I hadn't thought of that. But I've realized that's something I've struggled with two of the years. Yeah, I think something we all run into, right? It's like, because I think for me, it's also like the one is overthinking and also is like not having enough confidence to be like Dr. Wong to just choose that one channel system. Maybe he's tying and that's it. And like to trust that, you know, these four needles or these are that's enough, that's all they need. Or like, you know, that's for me, that's the develop that confidence in the believing that, you know, just regulation, this one channel system will be enough for that patient who seems to have a very severe illness. I think for me, it's a process. I think it's a process. Yeah. And that process is a good way to put it. One way to get past that is to remember that you're just doing one channel this week and that you still might even perceive that there's other channels going on through your palpation and diagnosis and that you kind of have to have a more methodical approach where in multiple visits, then you can even address the other things you're seeing, but just not trying to do it all at once. And that's a challenge for me and I'm sure it's a challenge for everyone throughout the history of acupuncture. It's just trying to do too much at once, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Like I recently, we just went to Guandro and we're teaching a bunch of nurses, like nurses who work in TCM hospitals. But these nurses, I think, they're not allowed to use acupuncture. So they're using what they call wider fab, which is like external TCM methods. So the main method they have been using is guacha. When I get the original, like I met some of them before they took the course. So usually when they do guacha, they just do guacha on all the channels all over the body. So if you look at the person's body, they're all bruised. Look at their purple. They're just purple. They're just wrapped there like purple and black. Are they also doing distal channels? Are they doing pretty much everywhere? See, like front, back, arms, legs. And not differentiating for this case, focusing on this stuff. Don't even, right? No, no. So now, like I've for like that more rigorous students, that people have been really interested in this, this, you know, dog-drawn channel theory system. They've been focusing more on just like one channel system or two channel systems. Or they do still do more, but like they're reducing it compared to like using all 12 channels or every channel. And they also are more accurately locating the channel system. So for them using guacha, they get much better results 'cause they're locating the channel's better. But there are-- Some of them, they've all, like you went recently. Yeah. And then some of them have studied with you before I noticed that it makes a difference to kind of focus on. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. This is our second time to Guantanso. So we met some of the older students from the previous course this time too. But it's interesting though that like, 'cause their approach is different from us as acupointures. We're an acupointure. We're just trying to pick within that channel that one point or two points, right? That we're going to regulate. But for them, they're just regulating the entire channel system, like those do one five all the way to long nine, right, all the way to like maybe even long 10 that region. So everything is being regulated. But then they get really good results, like at least from what they've been reporting to us and being training lots of illnesses. Well, that does bring up one interesting thing that I've noticed over the years is a broad concept is that there are, you know, if, you know, maybe we're getting a little bit off our original subject here. It's OK to maybe go there for a few minutes because we're trying to talk broadly today. There are certain cases, maybe it's a new patient, maybe it's a chronic illness, maybe it's just a strange illness, where if we think of the acupointure channels in the way Dr. Wong described is essentially river systems, moving within the spaces of the body, fluid systems. And I use this metaphor even when describing to patients what we're doing in the clinic. There are certain situations where like the whole river is full of silt, like the whole river is just unresponsive. And there's an argument, especially maybe for the first couple of treatments, early stage to kind of just dredge the whole river open. And you know, that's, you know, is you remember when we watched Dr. Wong work, sometimes he would be palpating on the lung channel for five minutes, you know, like we would think as he's facing out or what's going on. And he was just working that channel. And I think what he was doing in a lot of ways was kind of like what you're saying with Bwasha, he was dredging the entire river as a step before he got to needle it. And so you can see, I mean, sometimes I spend a little more time palpating. And I've even had a couple cases. I haven't done this a lot, but it does bring up what you're saying is even a very light cup with some oil on the channel on a certain visit and then come to the needling or something. So this idea then of the channels as rivers helps you get to maybe Wai Bwasha, especially in early stages or difficult cases, might be a great way to start so that the river is open and then the individual points seem to work better. I don't know if you've noticed that or if you've had other students there to talk about it that way. I think they're like those-- we've also met in China a lot of these like Tweina doctors now too, who they're doing like channel Tweina. So they use like-- there's this one guy who's been doing just doctor on his palpation technique as a massage technique. And instead of us, usually we'll just palpate the channel like a few times, right? And then we'll go into the next channel. But for him, he'll use it as a treatment method. So he'll palpate that one channel for like 20 minutes, just going back and forth, up and down, up and down, up and just doing that. So for him, I think it really-- And really be the river. Yeah, yeah. And like dredging and blocking, moving, trying to get rid of the lumps or nodules and stuff like that. And he claims that he's getting very good results too. And there's that other guy that you guys know that Lil Jung, with the humongous thumbs, like the biggest thumbs of the river. Yeah. And he has his own special technique of mass-- channel massage down, especially down the taya pathways on the back, right? First and second lines. He says he presses and moves his way down the channel space along the foot taya on channel. But for him, he describes it like he's moving the chi. Like, he can actually feel the chi moving down the channel space. He's partially blind. So he is very sensitive hands. And he can feel like the fluids are-- I think what Dr. Wong called the body fluids are not. They're moving down those little channel spaces too. So he feels like he's like regging it, moving it down. And then he feels like once it gets to certain areas, which he calls-- I forget what he calls it-- but pretty much when it reaches a certain acupuncture point, then that blockage will be released, or that chi will be released from that point, and exit point. So that's how he describes it. So I think it's kind of a similar idea of like, drenching downwards. And you get pretty-- you get really good results, see that thing. So this-- again, coming back to what we were saying at the beginning then, it's this delicate statement we want to make to-- you guys are listening that palpation and going through the channel rivers, or dredging the channel rivers, or I have really want to think about it, is absolutely a crucial and important part of applied channel theory. But there's like-- there is a-- there's a kind of-- I don't want to say another level, but there's just that reality that often there is too much going on when you palpate. You need a theoretical underpinning so that you can untie the kind of difficult clinical knots. And that could even be internal cases, or even musculoskeletal cases that are chronic as well. So yeah, so it's-- yes. So for those studying, yeah, learn the palpation, of course, and you can use it individually, but don't stop there. I guess it's kind of a big point we wanted to make, I think, for this first little bit. I think what you're talking about is very important, too, because I think for a lot of cases where if you use, for example, for acupuncturists, we might just decide if you feel a lot of stagnation along the channel, we might just use a hostie point just to dredge and to move things. I think what Dr. Wong would always emphasize is that we still have to do proper symptoms pattern differentiation, right? So even though you might feel a lot of nodules going all the way up the channel, it doesn't mean that for every case, you just use the hostie points. You don't just dredge all the time, right? Because they could have signs of deficiency. In those cases, we don't. We're not going to use the hostie points all the time. Sometimes, he's still at their tone finds that. So I think that's where it gets more complex. So that's where I think the beauty of Chinese medicine and medical theories comes out, right? Yeah, well, that brings up another thing that I think new students encounter is we're also not trying to just figure out what's channel is bumpiest, and then treat that channel. That would be a temptation. And cases of excess and certain types of relatively simple musculoskeletal conditions that might be an appropriate way to start. But what you're saying, when there's deficiency, often you're stunned by when you go to treating the underlying emptiness that the excess begins to resolve on its own. You kind of upregulated the whole body's system. So it gets rid of those channels that are very congested without such gross manipulation that we're saying like cupping or guashah. So that's two sides of this deficiency is a whole trickier thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause recently I had this patient with a back pain, and it's chronic back pain for 25 years, but the way she described her pain at the beginning was very sharp pains, so I thought it was excess mainly. And she had lots of foot tion channel changes, lots of nodules, lumps, and all that stuff, going all the way up the channel. A lot of those little stagnant blood cladros or whatnot. So I was doing bleeding and some tion points, like bladder 65 points like that. And she was getting better. And that was the way she was getting better. And she mainly felt pain, which was lying down, like after regularly the time. But then I did this one treatment where I still regularly at the time, but their symptoms got worse again. And then I realized I was actually like, there was like this on the surface, or you could say there was excesses deficiency together. So once the first few treatments actually got probably got the excess moving, I got rid of it. But then on their lying deficiency was just there that I'd ignore. So when I still tried to like, drag and drain, it made everything worse. Because she said too much deficiency in the root. So then once I switched to regularly the kidney channel, like kidney three, kidney 10, then her symptoms started to get better. Even bruved significantly. So I think for me, that was a case where like, based on paltation, if I only focused on tia, then it probably would only have achieved a certain amount of effectiveness. So by switching to like that, it's paired like each out to tone fight. That's when everything started to show significant improvement. Which I think brings up. It brings up such an interesting idea that this is a debate I think probably throughout the history of Chinese medicine about when you have excess and deficiency together. There's certain approaches where you treat the deficiency first. But I found clinically kind of like what you're describing. Thank you. In most cases, maybe it's modern patients or like a little more just excess in general or overtonified by nutrition or something that, gardening, it's often better to start with excess, like ripping out the weeds and plow it under. And then you get that like 70, 80% improvement where you might need to go to the deficiency second. And so I don't know if you found this to be the case and maybe the patient population's different, but I generally treat excess first in the case, and then deficiency later if it's needed. Of course, there's all kinds of exceptions and it depends, et cetera. But yeah, that's a cool case. And using kidney three and kidney 10, too, using the sourcey combination. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then also Rin six, like 'cause at first, I was really thinking that like I should just only need the local back area where she had the pain, but realizing that was helping it was actually making worse. But once I went to like helping that lower down area and finding this huge lump at Rin six, like down and like pressing on it, she was like, "Ah, and then you don't like it." And then doing some mox, so like she got much better. So I've, you see these cases every day, right? And the clinic where like you can't stick to very rigid approaches, right? Like I think that's why I think the beauty of child palpation, too, helps to give you a lot of different options to treat a patient. It opens up, you know, like, I don't know, it gives you a deeper understanding versus individual constitution, too. I think. - Yeah. - And with that idea of again, treating one thing at a time if you can, too. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think like, yeah, just like, like with this case, especially like if I had only focus on the tie-on, and because there's so many significant nodules, I probably, I don't know if it would have, in the long run, I don't think it would have helped there as much. So I think like, well, where is it? - Hi there. - It's like the proper, the comparison differentiation, channel differentiation is really important. - Well, I mean, this could be an interesting place in this first discussion about just the very basic concept of not only focusing on top patient, but using this as a way in for whatever diagnostic, or whatever skill and acupuncture you already have, and then trying over time to weave in more of Dr. Wong's theoretical understandings so that you can approach more difficult cases over time. - Can you answer one, my second part of my question, that your own eureka moment, like the first time that you used this, and you were like, oh, this is amazing. Or maybe not, maybe you didn't have that. (laughing) - Well, I mean, you know, the thing is, I would say, I mean, the first year I was studying with Dr. Wong, I was watching him treat, and I wasn't treating my own patients, 'cause I was in Beijing, and Dr. Wong wasn't letting me needle his patients at that time at all. So I had a, I had like a lot of it grow in my head before I had a chance. Like I was already kind of convinced that I was needed to do this before I got back to the United States to see my own patients. So I can't right now come up with that eureka moment. That's, I wish I could like lay it out there. I mean, I, of course, every day now I have moments where I was thinking one thing, and I was convinced I was gonna do this or that, but that reminds me of that patient. And then I start palpating, I'm like, no way, I'm totally going the way. So it definitely checks your own tendency to overthink things when you start palpating. It gets you again, like I love to say, and I know you've said too, probably, is get out of your head and into your hands. And so it's been, and I tend to get in my head way too much. So it's good for me that way, but I can't remember right now the eureka moment because I saw so many cool cases, but Dr. Wong before I got back, I was already kind of on board. - Right, right, right. So it's like kind of like you already had this, like absorption, daily absorption of like the benefits of using this entire system right when you were studying with it. - Well, I had the benefits of actually you're right to ask that, because I had the benefits of using the palpation. But even after that first year with Dr. Wong, it really took another three years for me to get further into the theoretical background of what was going on in his head. And I think part of it was, Dr. Wong at that time was like, really at the beginning of being able to explain what was going on in his head. And so I think, although he had it in his brain, and it was the way he was working, his ability to describe it to students kind of grew in those first few years. And so my approach at first was in a way, just using the palpation without as much of the theoretical background. And then I kept going back to Beijing and studying with Dr. Wong. And I think he was just spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to describe this to students, to take us through the door, to get into an experienced clinician's head. And thank goodness he took the time to try to lead people through the door to kind of get in his way of thinking. And so yeah, at first I was, I made the same mistake. I think a lot of new students in this material do, is that I only focused on the palpation. Of course, another mistake that new students often do is to only focus on the point pairs and think if they just learn all the point pairs and don't focus on what the channels are and careful differentiation of patterns and location of points, and they're going to get those results as well. And that could probably be a whole other discussion we could have as well. - That's a big, big discussion too, definitely. - Yeah. - Just a side note, like Doc Marl always told us, like later on, after you had returned to the States, everything, he always told us that like, it's like when you guys started going, coming to Beijing in like the early 2000 period, like you were the ones that inspired him to continue to get deeper and deeper into the Plychanthary too. So it was kind of like, that inspiration for him to continue doing his research was started, you know, I was not started, but it was like, you know, further inspired by like, your visits and bringing all those students over. I think that's like, I mean, I think about it. - Yeah. - I mean, now that you and I are trying to learn to teach this material and sing patients on our own, and developing our own clinical experience, imagine if someone told you, all right, you got a group of 12 students coming, they're going to be with you for two weeks, and you're going to have to give three hour lectures or four hour lectures every morning for two weeks. I mean, that must have been intense pressure. I haven't thought about how he kind of laid it on him there. Of course, he had it in his head, but still the pressure to make a curriculum. - Yeah, it was really cool. And only now that I'm on the other side of that bridge a little bit and teaching myself to I realize how that was a lot of pressure on him to make him explain it. But thank goodness, right? Because I think he was of course glad he did it too, like you're saying. - Yeah, especially, yeah, definitely. Because like he always said that he learned a lot, like the students, the questions they asked of him, also learned a lot from that experience teaching too, right? Like for him, it was a great way to develop his own like understanding of trying to channel theory too. - Yeah. All right. Let's ask the viewers to potentially join us for another one of these discussions and we'll stop here for today. Thank you guys for being here. - Yeah. Thanks. (laughs)