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Hi Armin and Ann! I’ve got a pretty big pediatric practice and I’ve observed Ann do a couple of things with kids that I thought was pretty profound. The simplest and most impactful thing she does is her approach. I am certainly guilty of approaching young patients with the expectation that they will dislike the treatment and only be able to maintain focus for a short time. Ann approaches kids like she approaches anyone else, that the fact that they are there shows a desire for transformation and that there is an implicit consent in that. It’s always so important for me to remember that the spirit and the mind are often in conflict with one another. My experience with kids is that their spirit is very open to treatment while their mind may not be. As in all cases, the treatment has to be rooted in spirit, and she treats young people at that level.
For what it’s worth I’ll offer this too: I had a long history of Toyohari practice prior to studying with Jeffrey and Ann and I’ve used non-insertive needling with kids to do 8X, Divergents etc and I think it absolutely works.
Another trick with inserted needles is to let the kids vibrate the needle themselves. I will do this by holding the tip of a needle between two fingers and letting them pluck and flick the needle handle to watch it vibrate, and so they can get a sense of how hard they can and can not flick it. Then once I insert a needle, I let them gently flick and/or pluck it while it’s inserted. It’s just a trick but a lot of kids go for it, and I think there’s value in the fact that they are vibrating the needle themselves as well as you. I’m sure there’s a reason I shouldn’t do this, but I do. 😉
-Sean
Hi Johannah! I’ve always gotten a bit tripped up on the idea of Jing as the 1st Confluence mediumship as well. It’s not the Jing that we associate with lower burner and reproductive yin. It’s ‘exterior’ Jing, i.e. Marrow. I find it easiest to just think about it in those terms: marrow, synovial fluid, large joints, spinal vertebrae. I think about it more like Sui Marrow than Jing Essence. In any case, the point is that the body is trying to lodge pathology in large spaces (pelvis, elbow, knee) with stable yin. Being the most stable yin, Sui Marrow is able to contain pathology for a long period of time, decades in many cases. These are the patients who come in with ‘acute’ back pain at 55 years old saying they’ve never had a problem before in their lives. The pathology was being held in large, stable spaces for decades, and the tide has turned such that the pathology is now overwhelming the body’s capacity to hold it in latency. Resources no longer outweigh pathology. Sui Marrow has broken down to the point where symptoms are expressed.
Blood comes next because it is the next, most abundant, most stable form of mediumship after Sui Marrow. Think about it: you can go for decades living with anemia, but you can’t go a week living without water. Ye Fluids i.e. hormones are even less stable. They’re so strong and concentrated that even a small change causes dramatic changes in the endocrine system.
Once the yin mediumship is relatively depleted, you no longer have stable yin in which to pack pathology and forget about it. With yin, you can throw the pathology in the closet, shut the door, and go back to what you were doing. Without yin, you have to throw the pathology in the closet and stand constant guard with your qi to prevent the door from opening and pathology from leaking into the primary channels.
That’s my understanding for what it’s worth, and I’m looking forward to next week!
Sean
