A Self Testimonial, lol.

So I don't know how ethical it is to essentially write a self-testimonial, but considering I am not charging for my services yet and almost illegal for me to practise anyhow I conclude it is ethical, it's just an honest reflection anyway. Although I sure have faith in my trade, sometimes if I think too much about it, it is still pretty amazing just how efficacious and immediate it really is...

3,2,1...Berk!!!

It's 1.58am and I am all dopey-eyed cos I was so exhausted I crashed into bed at 9:10pm then my innate little "gross, you haven't brushed your teeth" sentient being made me wake up to rectify the situation...feeling especially guilty after consuming loads of my latest junkfood discovery...IKEA chocolate!! [100g of bonafide made in Germany chocolate for $1!!! It's pretty damn good (and oh so affordable :) ]

In any case then I felt extra guilty about not having drunken any of the health giving herbal brew I spent ages boiling up....three days ago!!! So I spent the last hour laboriously trying to down <200ml of the Black Stuff!

Overzealous Needle Maniac E also subjected me to 13 needles on Wednesday- actually she was trying to bully me into 16 (but with the help of limited time available) I was able to draw the line. Honestly, I felt quite drained after...I am very much of the belief that being a human pin cushion is not necessary. I really don't agree with the western medicine style approach where a needle becomes like a drug targeting each specific symptom...I think acupuncture should stick to its holistic approach and amount of needles be considered very carefully so that the treatment is a harmonious and potent combination that works together seamlessly to target the whole....in my view less is more.

Apart from that, I also ended up with a painfully blue tempular bruise where she punctured my vein :p (however it is recovering nicely with magical Chinese liniment ZHENG GU SHUI which is a must have for every martial arts enthusiast or anybody that is subject to a lot of bumps and bruises and broken bones).

I am not looking forward to later today when I subject myself to more random guinea pigging to more Gungho amateurs...and this class is reputed for one thing....FIRE NEEDLES!

I think I'll have to pass...no thanks - Call me sensitive...Some of us just scar and feel pain more easily than others :(

Adrenalin Junkies, Take Note!

It is not necessary to spend $300 or more to go get your adrenalin rush.

Every week, my heart starts palpitating, my stomach gets knotted and beads of sweat start forming on every conceivable pore: the feeling of FEAR sets in...

and the best part? It's all FREE!

What am I talking about?
Acupuncture clinical practicum of course!

Amateurs with dubious needling technique wield rough and cheap needles in almost every conceivable bodily crevice.

Each week all our pain thresholds get tested and the sense of danger is all too present as vulnerable little compulsory guinea pigs...especially when a certain needs-to-dig-for-gold teacher gets his hands on the needle... in this case, even the biggest, boldest most macho man is not spared the shame of displaying tangible fear- with very loud expletives known to emit from mouths!

For the amateur practitioner there is also a very real danger of being kicked in the face if you hit something sensitive like a nerve, tendon or bone.

oh, too fun :P

p.s for more fun stories check out my tcmstudentlog - the posts just got more interesting...

Realisation: The Hidden Benefit of Wearing Heels

So it's Winter and I look around and see all these crazy young girls (and women) wearing mini skirts and tights and barefoot ballet slippers and shivering in the cold...all Fashion Victims!

Meanwhile on cold days I am draped in a coat that could also double as a single bed blanket haha...I'm a fashion victim too- a victim of Practical fashion!

In any case because it has been unusually cold and wind ice chill lately, I've gotten out the boots...the thing is due to a former incarnation in the corporate world my boots have heels so that the nice pants don't drag on the floor...

Since my accident I haven't worn heels much but now I'm regularly back in them due to the cold, I realise Heels have a really rather useful hidden benefit!

Basically what I've noticed is that wearing high heels are Very Grounding especially if you actually walk in them all day...basically you can really feel the earth and the ground connecting under your feet. The Chinese Med view on this is that it is stimulating your Kidney1 point which lies on the sole of the foot basically in the centre of the crease that forms if you flex your toes forward... vertically it is on a line with the line between your second and third toes a little less than a third of the way horizontally up your foot...okay now you understand why point location can be a little challenging with or without scientific terminology!

In any case this point is very effective for bringing ones energies down and "grounding"- I've found this a most effective point (from guinea pig revelations) to target reiki into especially with people who have way too much happening in their heads. Massage is also great either do it yourself or if you're lucky your hubby/partner can do it for you :) Mmmm...Foot Massage that's what every hardworking woman deserves!!

Reflections on TCM...

So it's almost been three months since I've been back into the unique and challenging lifestyle of full time slog...

So I thought it was time for some trademark "reflection"...since it recently came to my attention that I still have another 900(!) or so days to go!!!

That figure is pretty daunting....I'm just so glad that TCM is Such a Passion - I am also incredibly grateful for such wonderful teachers and mentors that are so readily accessible and who have so much dedication in sharing their knowledge - the quality of the teaching here has been absolutely AWESOME- it is so great when you actually get taught by people who are passionate about what they do- it just makes for such a refreshing and amazing learning experience!

Strangely, in contrast to many people who dream of not ever having to work, I've always had an utter craving for a) an autonomous career b) job/career satisfaction and c) that what I do has meaning in that it serves some purpose to the wider community.

I'm SO GLAD I'VE FOUND IT! As I go further and further into the real-life application of my craft, it just gets better and better and more and more satisfying...I love how everyday is unique, interesting and challenging...and how there is so much scope for me to engage in problem solving and creative thought, and the best feeling of all...when you get Results!!!

Recently, despite still being totally enamoured with herbs, I've come around on the acupuncture and am getting quite comfortable and confident in stabbing people and enjoying formulating my own point prescriptions...which is good because it's still more popular and widely accepted within the western community being a drug-free means of therapeutics...and at the end of the day when you're starting out, it's the acupuncture that's going to be paying the bills!


I'm still hating massage though - I don't feel this is likely to change-it's completely physically exhausting and brain numbingly repetitive: I'm still liking the "import big burly men from China" instead idea...

One drawback with the manual therapies though is when you're trying to treat yourself...it gets a little tricky with many points in unreachable areas and you kind of need to be a bit...ambidextrous. So for my own health I still tend to..."self-medicate" using herbs. As I was putting together my herbs this afternoon, it suddenly occurred to me...what a cool and powerful tool it is to have a) access to the herbs and b) this kind of knowledge...it sure beats an hour wait in a GP's waiting room where you inevitably catch some bug and get sicker, just for a simple prescription!

It also occurred to me...hmmm, perhaps in "self-medicating" I am no better than a druggie?!

Because we think of all of this stuff in terms of "tonics" it was never readily apparent that I'm still ingesting...drugs! And...everyone does it...we're such a vitamin and herbal supplement taking culture...now I have a whole new understanding for how our conventional medical system is so drugged up- you can't expect people to be able to actually be awake and functional doing back to back 16 hour shifts at strange hours without a little "help": THAT'S unnatural!!!

Play Day :-)

WARNING: Longest post in the history of my blogging...hence just skim the bold to get the gist if you're actually interested but not THAT INTERESTED! *LOL

Thursday is usually my one Dedicated Day Off!^^ Usually, it necessitates spending almost the entire day getting the house back into a decent living state, doing my organic groceries, cooking, and catching up with admin stuff like attending to mail...

But today...was All PLAY! :-)

Met up with E over a bowl of warm congee in Chinatown to catch up on girly goss. Inspected her latest TCM induced war-wounds: was horrified to hear of the latest application of guinea pig acupuncture with literally burning needles!

...arghhhh! It's torturous and inhumane and I stubbornly refuse to attend that class when my turn comes...cos I don't intend to practice in China and I don't need any more pain or scarring and really, I don't see why such ancient methods are either necessary or applicable today. Yeah call me a wuss, but I do have a point!

Meanwhile as I sat eating my congee, a small cockroach ran across the table and the waiter pleasantly got a napkin and squished it right between the bowl and me!...Seriously not impressed...dodgy Chinatown restaurants...you always wonder why it tastes so good?! :-P

In any case, I don't know whether it had anything to do with the treatment of infertility with TCM talk we went to last night, but not only is E starting to seriously consider marrying a guy she was going to dump a few months ago but she's also freaking out like a typical girl on my behalf that I'll be sad and alone and all dried up at age 40 because of my "pickiness"!

It's sad that once you hit your late twenties, society (possibly more so when you're in medical circles) bludgeons into your head the whole biological clock ticking factor...this possibly reflects the numerous engagements and weddings I have heard of in the past week alone and the fact that the vast majority of girls I know have openly admitted they would "settle" by a certain age...

Things like this don't really phase-sorry faze- me though mostly cos I believe in what's meant to be will be but also cos that is one area where TCM really excels and is arguably superior to conventional medicine especially if you don't have the spare $7000-$10000 required per IVF attempt!!(No doubt why the popularity of our practice is burgeoning in this area!)...The other ‘en vogue’ application bringing customers running lately is cosmetic acupuncture - which is significantly cheaper than botox treatments...this area of practice and the type of clientele it attracts SO doesn't interest me though, even though I know it would be an easy money spinner!

Today, the other main highlight I managed to squeeze in to a packed day was an alternative/spiritual/natural/hippie festival cos my mum managed to score me a free ticket! Sheesh, conventional types think I'M such an alternative-hippie-rebel...I had nothing on those there! But it was definitely an interesting couple of hours...and I did get pretty loose-fingered happy- between these kinds of festivals and healthy fine food/natural health stores, I'm pretty uninhibited...hence the $ damage was pretty major today but at least I’m 100% happy with my unplanned :P purchases...(notice how as the day wears on purchases got bolder and bolder...)

1) some tangerine dairy free chocolate(couldn’t resist the ‘festival’ special price!)
2) some chia seed chocolate mud cake fudge(cos not only is the chia good for you but it was irresistibly tasty!)
3) a sparkly sunstone
4) aromatherapy oils
5) an egg-shaped Himalayan salt lamp - LooooooVE!(they generate negative ions and emit a pleasant calming vibe so much so that they can be found in the kids wards of certain hospitals!)
6) a Nada Chair (which my lower back is so grateful to have discovered!)

The most interesting part of the day for me however, was coming across a guy who took photos of auras- I was so fascinated, having read about Kirlian cameras before! This aura taking camera was a further development: not only able to detect the electromagnetic fields emitted by a person by measuring the energy in the meridians, but it also then converted this information to the corresponding colour frequencies in the UV spectrum! Very techy, but VERY COOL! The cost of one of these fandangly contraptions is...$12000 – not so bad but still, how many people could that sustain in starving communities in the developing world?!!

The other mentionable part of the day was being preyed on to do a “stress test” by a member of that ‘infamous Hollywood celebrity religion’! I had to hold these weird silver cylinders that was attached to some severity dial kind of contraption- I think the woman was getting really annoyed cos it just wasn’t working on me...and I even tried really hard to think of people that stress me and stressful situations. I had to apologise: “Sorry I’m just going through a really good time in my life right now- I’m just not stressed!”

I think it peed her off even more cos while she was trying her best to get a verifiable stress reaction from me, the DJ I met a few weeks back happened to happen by: in any case I was buoyed to reflect that I actually randomly BUMP into people these days!! Before I could easily go whole months without Ever bumping into ANYONE such was the sad fact that I never knew people with the same interests as me and did not know a whole lot of people to start with...so maybe I’m making progress so that is good! And then because I was so distracted by said lady and crazy cylinders, I didn’t even have my usual pathetically shy antisocial (that comes across as rude) reaction to the unfamiliar stranger DJ so that was good :)

So that was my most interesting day in a while!

On the study front, things are picking up: I’m starting to settle more, casting away the incredible restlessness that I have been in the grips of these past few months...I’ve been a lot more able to FOCUS(thank you, Si Jun Zi Tang!) and been feeling a lot more motivated which is good cos I figure if you’re going to bother doing something, you may as well do it WELL! (At first, in the interests of not stressing out, I came with the thought of “Stuff it! good grades don’t make a good clinician!” but then it occurred to me they would probably have significant weight when trying to convince the best practitioners in the business to take you on for training!)

...I think I’m just really slow adjusting to change and no doubt life has been really dynamic and probably just a wee bit TOO stimulating and exciting!