Qiological Podcast

We tend to think of movement in mechanical terms. How this muscle contracts, how blood perfuses a certain kind of tissue or how tendons and bones allow for particular kinds of movement.But beyond this we we can see that movement is a kind of vocabulary of the body. It has nuance or not. It has a range of expression or not. And just like micro-nutrients are vital to our metabolism, so to micro movements are vital to our physical wellbeing and nervous system.Today’s conversation is not about taichi or qi gong, but about another kind of “kung fu” another kind of attentive focus on movement and movement practices that can help us to heal ourselves and our patients.Listen in to this conversation on how a modern perspective on movement goes hand in glove with our traditional medicine.Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

Inflammation is a popular topic in the worlds of both alternative and conventional medicine. It’s a pathologic process that is the result of certain disease processes and the generator of others. It is also something that can be treated very well with East Asian medicine.In this episode we explore how the fundamentals of the Liver/Spleen relationship, the Heart/Kidney axis and digestion in general all can contribute to treating lingering heat in the body.We also take a look at lingering pathogens, and discuss how herbs with opposite effects are useful in treating these kinds of conditions as they help to reestablish dynamic equilibrium to the body.Listen in for a conversation on the power of harmonization in the treatment inflammatory conditions. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

The best teachers are perpetual students. They are ones who when things don’t work as expected don’t say the medicine doesn’t work. These people dig into finding out why they don’t yet know how to make it work. While aspects of medicine can be taught, there is much more than can only be discovered. Discovered anew within the experience of each generation. And it is those teachers who can help us along in that this kind of learning to learn who set us off on a life-long voyage of discovery. In this conversation we listen into one practitioner’s apprentice experience with Dr Wang Ju Yu and the path of practice that it opened up.Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

It’s easy to think there is one way to take the pulse, and natural to fall back on the habits that formed early on in our learning to attend to this vital aspect of diagnosis and prognosis.Pulse is something our teachers help us to orient toward, but it is our experience and patients who help to understand and learn to trust what we feel.In this episode we have a research scientist’s eye view of the pulse. And how outward beauty is an expression of inward strength and balance.Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

Sa’am has a good backstory. The meditative attainment of a Buddhist monk sparks a stream of acupuncture that can be taught to simple monks to help alleviate the suffering of the world.It is a good story.But, more importantly this is a perspective on acupuncture that gives some penetrating insight into the connections between the six levels (六經) and the five phases (五行). This method can help us to work with our patient’s constitutional, physiological and psycho-dynamic process all at the same time.It is easy to use in a wide variety of settings as it primarily relies on the transport points of the arms and legs. It does not require a lot needles, and the effects of correct, or incorrect treatment are readily apparent.In today’s group discussion a couple of practitioners who have recently begun to engage the Sa’am method bring their questions to Toby Daly.If you have started to use this method, or mulling over in your mind how it works and how to use it, then you’ll enjoy today’s nuts-n-bolts discussion based on actually clinical cases.Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

There are basics, principles, fundamentals, some building blocks of how the matter and energy of creation interact and transform. Over the centuries, through wildly different ideas of illness, health and workings of the human body, doctors have applied these principles to the challenges of their day to relieve suffering.As practitioners, we too are part of this stream. We use the ideas and perceptions of those who came before, and do our best to see how these fundamentals play out in our clinical work.In this conversation we explore how the basics have been both useful and effective in treating degenerative eye conditions such as macular degeneration and retinal tears. Our guest takes the fundamentals we all share, and applies them as seems appropriate in his clinical work. The result is a deeper understanding of how “incurable” illnesses can respond to the principles of medicine we all share.Listen in for a conversation on how to learn from your patients.Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

Liver qi constraint might be one of the most common diagnosis in the modern Chinese medicine clinic. But the role of the Liver has changed over time, and at one point it was even considered to be part of the neurological system.In this episode we take a nuanced look at that wide and slippery constellation of symptoms that falls under the general rubric of “stress.”Listen in for a conversation about Chinese medicine from a historical, anthropological and clinical perspective. And be prepared to be surprised!Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

We trace our medicine back to the Nei Jing, but most of our actual practices come from a more modern perspective.Going back to those roots is not easy. Even for native speakers of Chinese, reading the 文言文 wen yan wen, the classic Chinese is difficult. For those of us in the modern West, these ancient texts are challenging. They require not just language, but a minset that views the world from through a completely different set of lenses and prisms than Cartesian and materialistic science offers to us.Immersion in this ancient material changes us if we allow it. Gives us hints at seeing how matter and energy interact in ways toward which modern medical science is blind.In this conversation we listen into how the Nei Jing gives another way of approaching acupuncture, the 脈 mai, channels, and helps us to understand our bodies as fluid based ecosystems. Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

Like hitting black ice, suddenly all sense of traction and stability evaporate into a gut wrenching vertigo. Adverse reactions of our patients to acupuncture can trigger this kind of disorientation. And this is when we have an opportunity to learn something that we didn’t previous know. Adverse reactions could be due to a botched treatment, we were thinking one thing, but did another. Or our diagnosis was off. Or maybe it was on, spot on but the patient’s processing of the treatment gives rise to a frightening amount of discomfort and sends them scurrying for a quick pharmaceutical fix to calm their fear and anxiety. It requires a certain amount of maturity the part of the practitioner to hold steady in a moment of deep uncertainty. And degree of personal development on the part of both patient and practitioner to not let unforeseen reactions stop what might be an important turn in a patients healing process.In today’s conversation we consider adverse reactions to acupuncture, how to tell the difference between an uncomfortable healing process and an unskilled treatment, and how uncertainty is part of the game when practicing medicine.

It’s easy for us to think that because we have a darned good English version of the material medica that the centuries of herbal knowledge is at our finger tips. But there is a lot of back story to the medicinals that we use everyday in our practicesWhere herbs come from, how they are cultivated, how different plants have been used over the centuries; there is a lot we take for granted. Or simply trust our suppliers to have worked out the details of identification and quality. The medicinals we use regardless of whether they are granulated, tableted or raw have a natural history.  This includes not just the process of growth and harvest, but also various kinds of processing as well. In today’s conversation we look at the identification, cultivation and processing of the plants we use everyday in our clinical work.Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview.