Learn a complete traditional system to assist in the reversal of chronic degenerative diseases with Ann Cecil-Sterman, author of the acclaimed textbook Advanced Acupuncture: A Clinic Manual.
Attend Live, or Register for Recording Access
Melbourne CBD, August 6th-8th, 2026
22 CPDs
All local, interstate and internationally registered participants gain lifetime access to the recording
Perhaps you've encountered this troubling pattern:
• Your patients arrive with chronic health conditions—a jumbled constellation of symptoms that seem unrelated
• You find yourself uncertain about how these symptoms connect, unsure of the most effective strategy
• And then you start to question your own competence.
It's extremely unfortunate because one of two things happen:
First: Practitioners then begin to believe that Chinese medicine can't really make sense of these combinations of things.
Second: Their results don't satisfy the potential they believed they had
Many practitioners therefore jump from style to style, buying into modern techniques and Western medical integrations. But classical acupuncture is complete. It is a stand alone, powerful modality if the practitioner has access to all its channels.
The problem? The training you received in modern educational institutions—what we call Traditional Chinese Medicine—is a truncated version of the medicine, including only 12 of the original 68 channels of acupuncture.
This abbreviation gravely limits the effectiveness of treatment:
• you might feel that you can only help with symptoms and not even all of them.
• you might feel that you cannot significantly help patients suffering with chronic degenerative conditions
• you might feel the disappointment of patients who arrived believing healing was possible for them
My purpose is to help restore the complete, original, classical practice to the profession. When you have the complete channel system at your fingertips, the results are limitless, and my students have found this to be true.
You are warmly invited to join us for a three-day masterclass on the theory and practical application of the Divergent Channels, with over 12 live patient treatments. Held only once every five-years in Melbourne, registration is open to participants worldwide.
This live training in the Divergent Channels will increase your confidence in:
• …assisting with the reversal of chronic degenerative diseases
• …working through complex cases with calm presence and clarity
• …practicing with the resonance of a lineage
• …the limitless potency of Acupuncture that satisfies all your unanswered questions
This workshop was a beautiful experience for me and my practice, and in ways I had not expected.
My intention in coming was to learn more about the complement channel system and see firsthand Ann’s treatment and needling techniques. All these things occurred and more. The workshop’s surprise center that has fundamentally redirected me was highlighting the necessary context of looking at pathology through the lens of disharmony with spirit. I have often brushed past people’s psychology, preferring to leave it to their therapists. Ann’s masterful modeling of a discovery process and explanations of how these disconnections to spirit become the root of illness have served to reorient my entire approach to practicing this medicine. It is the secret hidden in plain sight that, once pointed out, seems embarrassingly obvious and essential. All my sessions have been different and deeper since getting home. This workshop was remarkable in every way. Deep bow!
- Sharon Kraus
Meaning and joy have come into my clinical practice. Results from this medicine are potent and profound.
I feel excited each day to use the Complement Channels. Words are not enough but would include amazing, wonderful, awesome, incredible, enlightening, inspirational, deep, and profound. To say how hugely grateful I am to Ann for her incredible teaching would be an understatement. It has enriched and enhanced my life and my practice, created a close community, and above all continued the ripple of this exquisite healing medicine out further into our world. I would do it over again in a heartbeat.
- Lisa Gordon
Registration
Free Teaching
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Do you struggle to understand how your patient’s symptoms connect?
Do you see chronic conditions—arthritis, diabetes, lupus, autoimmune disorders—but find making a comprehensive diagnosis that tied all the symptoms together elusive? Many practitioners find pathophysiology overwhelming, or they find that the simplified approaches they’ve been taught don’t penetrate the disease, so they avoid it altogether.
Understanding how a common Wind-Cold invasion progresses into chronic degenerative disease is one of your greatest assets as a practitioner.
In this free teaching video, I break down the disease process, demonstrating how sophisticated and marvelously intelligent the body is. You’ll get a feeling for tuning into the stages of disease. The Divergents progressively externalize a pathogenic factor.
Start seeing the magnificent intelligence and integrity of the original medicine.
Sign up by entering your details in the registration box to receive this teaching.
Divergent Channels: The Key to Treating Chronic Degenerative Diseases
The ancient texts tell us:
Chapter 11 of the Ling Shu introduces the Divergent Channels in written form and describes all their pathways:
"Study the Divergents first and work it out to the finish. The inexperienced clinician will think they are easy to understand, while the superior one knows their difficulty. The skilled pass right by them while they are the very breath of the superior physician. Please listen to these words." —Ling Shu, Chapter 11
Long before the Ling Shu was written down, the superior physicians had begun an oral tradition that includes extensive teachings on the Divergent Channels, their theory and their clinical applications.
How Divergent Channels work in the body:
The Divergent Channels are responsible for the management of chronic degenerative conditions.
• The Divergent Channels enable a patient to become asymptomatic as they successfully contain pathogenic factors. They do this by communicating between Wei and Yuan levels—the Wei being where the pathogen entered and the Yuan being the level where the body is able to keep it quiet, “in latency” in the joints, away from the organs, where it could be fatal.
• When the patient is symptomatic, these are the channels a practitioner uses to quietly hold the pathogenic factors while the practitioner works on increasing the resources needed to eliminate the pathology. During this time, the patient becomes comparatively asymptomatic.
Divergent Channels can successfully be used to treat a wide variety of chronic degenerative diseases.
Advanced Acupuncture—the complete system—has always existed.
Advanced Acupuncture, or Classical Acupuncture, dates back to about the fifth century BCE. It was not written down until the Han Dynasty (2nd Century BCE to 2nd century CE) when The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic appeared. The original acupuncture text, it gives trajectories for all the many channels, pulse diagnosis instruction, medical theory, and needling techniques.
But here's what happened: During the Song Dynasty, one thousand years after that text appeared in writing, much of it had been excised. So much of Complement Channel theory is missing that it is now impossible to create treatment strategies for most of those channels.
But here's what happened: During the Song Dynasty, one thousand years after that text appeared in writing, much of it had been excised. So much of Complement Channel theory is missing that it is now impossible to create treatment strategies for most of those channels.
The reliable source? There is an unbroken oral tradition that preserved the complete practice of acupuncture.
Master Jeffrey Yuen who was my teacher for over 20 years traces his lineage back 88 generations, back to the time of the original Nei Jing. Without him, the ability to understand how these channels work and to construct treatments to reverse the course of chronic degenerative diseases using the Complement Channels would be absent today.
Ann Cecil-Sterman
For twenty years, I dedicated myself to Master Yuen's teachings, following him in planes, trains and automobiles. My sole mission was to practice and then document the application of the complement channels of acupuncture as I understood it from those teachings and from my clinical experience.
This work can be found in my textbook, Advanced Acupuncture: A Clinical Manual—a deep resource that gives step-by-step protocols for the practical application of the complement channels.
My current mission is to teach what I have learned in practicing this remarkable material in more than twenty-seven thousand individual one-hour treatments.
I think about the medicine and about teaching it all day and am always excited at the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience. Through incorporating it into clinical and remote practice, I have consistently witnessed extraordinary transformations in my patients.
The complete channel system, as practiced in accordance with the classical texts in their original form, has proven to be an invaluable tool in providing profound clinical results.
This class dives right into the enormously complex study of the Divergent Channels. It is my hope that this may serve your cultivation as a practitioner and the health of your patients. Practitioners who practice remotely or who wish to practice remotely will enjoy the asides included in the class.
Live Attendee Information
Class Details
📍Location
Queen Victoria Women's Centre
210 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC
🗓️ Date
August 6th - 8th (Thurs - Saturday)
⏰ Time
9:00 am - 5:00 pm. Doors open at 8:30 am, and the seminar will commence at 9:00 am sharp.
📚 Pre-Learning
Recommended texts include:
🚗 Parking & Public Transport
✅ Approved AACMA- 22 CPDs
🎥 This seminar will be recorded, and you will receive permanent access to the recording when registered.
Melbourne Central Station is one block away from the venue. You can take any train in Melbourne heading toward Flinders Station, then, there are two options once you arrive. The first is to get off and jump on the city loop, which will take you directly to Melbourne Central Station, OR, get off at Flinders Station and take any tram heading north along Swanston Street; get off at Lonsdale Street/State Library.
It is recommended that you find the closest train station to your accommodation, park your car there, and take the train (or tram) into the city. Google Maps is excellent at planning trips–simply type in your location, and destination as 210 Lonsdale St, Melbourne.
What should I bring?
Warm clothing: The venue has central heating, however, I recommend also bringing warm clothes.
Personal drink bottle/mug: Mugs, hot water and filtered water will be available.
Writing material: Please provide your own notebooks and writing material
Personal belongings: There will be a designated space for any personal belongings, however, due to the large number of participants, it is recommended you leave all valuable or large items at home. We cannot accept any responsibility for lost items.
For any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Jordan at [email protected]
The Divergent Channel seminar is held in Melbourne every five years.
Register this year to avoid waiting another five years to apply these profound and essential channels in your treatments.
Oh Ann, your Melbourne seminar was incredible!!
I have had such profound changes since, from just witnessing you and feeling the energetics of the Channels that you worked on with the patients!! So grateful for the branch of classical acupuncture you are sharing, it is what I have been searching for! X
- Belle Taylor
These classes have reignited the faith
I had in this medicine when I set out on this path, but was squashed and dampened in acupuncture school. I am so grateful for this.
- Kaleb Kilkenny
As a practitioner who has struggled justifying fixing something only to have people stuck in the same physical problem and mind-rut over and over again,
and wonder whether taking away their pain is taking away their impetus for evolution, it is a gift to watch Ann engage her clients’ consciousness on behalf of their healing journey, and bring them wide awake towards wellness. It’s time we all took inventory and responsibility for the ways in which we keep ourselves and our clients stuck in illness. Ann helps to awaken the heart-mind and begin transformative healing starting from the level of the Spirit. The opportunity to observe Ann treat gives me a sense of the greatness and vast possibilities of this great medicine that we practice, which is as profound and transformative as what I believed was possible when I first decided to go to Chinese Medicine school 10 years ago!
- Jeri Ho
I will take any class with Ann that I can take.
Being in her classes and around the community being formed opens me up as a person and clarifies who I am as a healer.
- Yvette Koch
FAQ
The event will be professionally recorded and all live attendees will receive permanent access to the film.
No. The class is recorded with multiple cameras, so the footage is edited afterward by a professional videographer to showcase the best camera angle for each moment.
Yes, this class is suitable for students and beginner-advanced practitioners.
No. It is, however, strongly recommended to have a copy of Ann’s book, ‘Advanced Acupuncture: A Clinic Manual,’ and to be familiar with the zang fu organs.
Certainly. You’re invited to purchase a remote attendance ticket.
This seminar will be registered with AACMA for 22 CPDs.
By purchasing this ticket, you are registering to attend either the in-person Melbourne seminar with Ann Cecil-Sterman on the Divergent Channels of Classical Acupuncture or to access the seminar remotely. All registrants receive lifetime access to the professionally recorded footage. Tickets are non-refundable. If you are registered to attend in person but are unable to do so, you will still receive lifetime access to the recording once it becomes available. Attendees assume all risks associated with participation and are responsible for any unlawful behaviour or damage to the venue or equipment. Failure to comply with applicable laws or venue rules may result in refusal of entry or removal from the event. Unauthorised audio or video recording is strictly prohibited. By attending (in person or remotely), you consent to being recorded and to your likeness appearing in seminar footage. This footage may be shared with other registrants and used for educational or promotional purposes. For those selecting the payment plan, an initial invoice of $400 USD (approximately $565.05 AUD, depending on the exchange rate at the time of issue) will be sent upon registration. A second invoice for the remaining balance will be issued two months later. The seminar will be held live from August 6–8, 2026. The final edited recording is expected to be available to all ticket holders no earlier than September 10, 2026.