The premise of this seminar is that many of the palpation techniques used in cranial osteopathy can be understood as aspects of the state of the body’s qi, and can therefore be interpreted in the context of a Chinese medical perspective. The insights gained from such palpatory techniques both inform and enrich our understanding of many opaque passages in the classical acupuncture literature, particularly those relating to the extraordinary vessels.

How does one make sense of the acupuncture classics? How can we use the information we obtain through palpation and incorporate it in the clinical practice? These are perennial questions for those interested in both the practice and development of Chinese medicine. How we go about answering them shapes the way we approach acupuncture. The eight extraordinary vessels are a case in point.

Li Shizhen’s Qijing Bamai Kao, (c. 1576) is the seminal work on the extraordinary vessels, combining discussions of acupuncture herbal medicine and internal alchemy. A central premise of this text is that if practitioners hope to realize the extraordinary vessels’ full therapeutic potential, one must have some understanding of their alchemical aspects. From Li’s perspective, this hinges on the skillful use of attentive stillness. The palpatory techniques presented in this seminar are rooted in this very same appreciation for stillness. As such, they provide an invaluable bridge between a fascinating but arcane aspect of the medical literature, and their concrete application in clinical practice.

Upon completion of the seminar you will be able to:

• Explain how to refine the quality of therapeutic contact with patients.
• Describe how to create the conditions for holistic shift or neutral, the foundation of therapeutic efficacy for patients.
• Describe how to use the applications of Li Shi Zhen’s unique perspective on the extraordinary vessels.
• Demonstrate the use of manual thermal diagnosis as a criterion for point selection.in the primary channels and the extraordinary vessels.
• Describe how to expand the use of the extraordinary vessels beyond the master-couple points.
• Describe how to engage osteopathic palpatory phenomema such as the fluid body, mid-tide, and the embryological midline in a clinical practice.
• Describe how to make more effective use of extraordinary vessel pulses diagnosis in clinical practice, based upon the information obtained in the seminar.

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