2017-11-20
I landed in my first Engaging Vitality Module I seminar a month after getting licensed as an acupuncturist. My primary reason for signing up was that I saw it as a chance to develop my palpation skills. I did not come to this profession with a background in any kind of bodywork. Beyond point location and surface anatomy, palpation was not heavily emphasized in my TCM schooling. So I felt deficient in this capacity as an acupuncturist, and I felt that taking a few Engaging Vitality seminars would help me develop my palpation skills, and that this would then translate to becoming a more competent and effective practitioner. I was clueless when it came to the osteopathic tradition, and I really did not give much consideration as to how it was going to be a part of the Engaging Vitality training. I was only focused on developing my palpation skills.
In hindsight, I can see that there were a lot of other reasons why I needed a training like this. TCM school left me with a lot of gnawing questions. For me, there was an appreciable disconnect between the theory and practice of acupuncture. In our theory courses we learned about the different manifestations of Qi; Yuan Qi, Ying Qi, Wei Qi, Zhong Qi, and Zheng Qi, amongst others. Were these just theories that provided a scaffolding for how we could think about practicing acupuncture? Or did these different manifestations of Qi actually translate into an appreciable palpatory reality in the clinical encounter? Is Qi actually something we can feel in our patients, through our hands? Or does my “capacity to feel Qi” require honing and developing some kind of nebulous, energetically-based, intuitive capacity in myself? Obviously, I had a lot of questions, and I was not sure if this made me a tenacious, curious student or a cantankerous pain-in-the-butt. Probably a little of both.
Suffice to say, I wanted to develop my palpation skills and work through some of my discontent with the practice of acupuncture. I learned the various palpation techniques in Modules I, II, and III. The techniques are not difficult to learn on the surface, but they require a willingness to hang out in a place of “unknowing” and not push an agenda. It is about coming into dialogue with a patient’s Qi. This may sound esoteric, but it’s not meant to be. It’s actually incredibly ordinary. And it was so reassuring to me to learn that the way one gets better at the Engaging Vitality material is by consistently practicing it. It is not about striving harder. It just takes regular, consistent practice. And then something starts to happen. You discover a whole world of information in your hands.
Having worked with the Engaging Vitality material for the past year, I now know that Qi is a palpatory reality, we can feel it in our patients, and we can use it to guide us and give us feedback while giving an acupuncture treatment. This has been a priceless discovery and it has made the medicine come alive for me. And not only that, but the real cherry on top is the chance to continue to study with and learn from high level teachers who encourage deep questioning, skepticism, and rigorous debate. From the beginning, I have never felt like I was learning from three completely inscrutable, all-knowing, omniscient teachers. They are real people who are working with this same material on a day-to-day basis in their own clinics. There is a real sense of being able to have a long, continuously fresh, tremendously interesting and ever-evolving journey with this material. Practicing acupuncture this way is anything but boring. For all these reasons and many more, I am so glad that I came into the Engaging Vitality work, and I am so excited to have more people come along for the ride.