Video resource for sinew movement diagnosis

[Lois Nethery]

Hi

I’m so happy to be in this forum with you all!

Can anyone recommend a good video resource for sinew channel diagnosis? I saw one a while ago, but when I watched it, it seemed to slightly differ from what Ann showed us in her seminar. I’m not a particularly spatial/visual thinker and so all aids are very welcome to get this concept integrated into my practice.

[Antoine Mulpas]

Hello Lois,

In addition of Ann’s book, I watched the seminar on Sinews from Jeffrey Yuen on the ACCM website :

Sinew Channels of Classical Chinese Medicine

He explains the movements, diagnosis with Lunar/Solar cycle, pathogens etc.
I don’t know about another videos on the subject, but I will definitively happy to watch more.
Antoine

[Ann Cecil-Sterman]

Lois, I will make one this week and put it up next week. Thanks for being with us! xoAnn

[Lois Nethery]

Thank you Antoine – I will look for this resource.
And thank you Ann – that will be very helpful!

[Burton Moomaw]

Hello everyone. Ann, I am wondering if you made this movement-assessment video? If so where can it be found on the site? I continue to refine my understanding of the subtleties of movement and position and am amazed how often back pain is based in the yin sinew channels, often Spleen. Just today I had a patient who sits for work 8-10 hours a day and developed low back spasms. Sitting and sitting-to-standing where the problematic movements and with one pass of the Sp SC it was 90% better. Releasing the ashi on the back then moxa both front and back and it was 99% better. Epsom-salt soak tonight will likely get it to 100% from past experience.

[Armin]

Burton, the case you reported actually raises one question for me:

I’m assuming you did the Spleen SC for the pain when sitting to standing. In which case, isn’t the Sp sinew for pain when a limb or the body is going into retraction, flexion or coming to centre?

I myself treat the SP SC with the same situation but only because I heard Ann talk about it, but now I’m having one of those moments of “wait a second”!!! It would make sense for it to be an extension movement involving Tai Yang!

The sitting alone is Bl SC, the location is on BL SC, so it’s pretty amazing that it’s responding so well to SP SC and I can’t wrap my head around it at the moment.

Armin

[Burton Moomaw]

I understand your grappling with the idea that pain on the back does not origination with a yang SC Armin. It is so tempting to treat pain where it is located, but the most reliable diagnostic tool of SC’s really is movement, not location. It took me quite a while to accept this as true but experience has reinforced it. There are three ways to assess the SC’s, 1. location of pain. 2. which pulse shows an SC pulse. 3. movement or position that hurts most currently. They can all three be different with the same patient at the time of treatment. I experience that in the case of pain and musculoskeletal issues movement is the most reliable. For external invasion the pulse will often give a more accurate assessment of where it is being held at bay, and often there is no pain in early stage invasion. Location is most useful when I am actually releasing SC’s during treatment and the PF begins to move up toward the surface in the channel progression, I follow it by the location to which it has moved and the channel that indicates. Using the SC meeting points will help assure that the progression is up and out, not inward.

The leg yin SC are sometimes difficult to isolate in movement Dx. Sitting or change of position is Tai yin-Sp. Rotation while sitting is shaoyin-Ki. Paralysis or constant pain is jueyin-Li. The key observation here is that the hips are in a flexion when you are sitting so leg yin SCs all involve sitting. Sitting alone or with position change, sitting with rotation, or sitting with constant pain.

Think about the psoas muscle, the hip flexor. When we sit for long periods of the day, it is as short as it can get, so it gets habituated to a short resting position. The erector spinae are stretched out long when we sit and they get habituated to this long position as their resting position which is a position of weakness. Then you stand and the long-weak back is fighting a short-strong front. The psoas attaches to all of the lumbar vertebrae so it is pulling the lumbar region laterally and anteriorly when it is short. I see this as the reason the Sp SC is implicated in low back pain and why releasing it is so effective. Remember too that most western cultures spend lots of time sitting so huge numbers of people are in the back/front fight.

The wisdom in virtually every other medical modality is to stretch the back and hamstrings for low back pain because they feel “tight”. They are really just hard from being long all the time. No one else understands LBP as originating in the anterior side of the body. It is much more effective to forget the back and hamstrings, treat the Sp SC, and learn an effective psoas stretch. I teach patients to stretch their psoas for maintenance and have myself used this effectively for decades.

[Armin]

Hi Burton,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Jam packed with great tips.

Armin

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