I just finished hosting Iwashina Anryu Sensei (he is called Dr. Bear) in Portland, OR. He taught a seminar to 42 people Saturday and Sunday, and on Monday we had a smaller study group with him for 12 lucky practitioners. He was here in Portland for a little more than a week.
There is so much to say about what can happen when we have the chance to interact with master level practitioners. Some speak of a “transmission” and it seems a reasonably good word for what I experienced. I did receive a treatment from Dr. Bear, and for the first time I had the opportunity to give him a treatment. It was an honor and a great learning experience.
All the great acupuncture masters I have had the chance to study with have remarkable hands. They make a big deal of this in Japanese styles, and I think for good reason, but my point remains the same for the Chinese masters I have studied with as well. Our hands are the most important tools of our trade—I used to think the needles were the most important, but I no longer believe that. It is the hands.
Whenever I have studied with Dr. Bear in the past he has taken the time to talk about how acupuncturists should care for their hands. He uses high quality hand care products every day. He also insists his students NOT engage in activities that would toughen their skin, e.g., rock climbing, guitar playing, golfing, and so on. From the first time I studied with him I took this advice to heart and have cared for my hands just as he advised. And it is true, we do end up with much softer, much more perceptive hands. In addition I have added some hand qigong exercises to my daily regimen and they also have further softened my skin.
When we study acupuncture it is like we are joining an ancient craft guild; as in all guilds, the key to advancing one’s skills is refinement through long years of focused practice. One must make of one’s hands the hands of a jeweler, or a bookbinder, or a stone mason, or whatever the craft might be. Whatever our hands are like when we show up to study acupuncture, we need to alter them into perceptive tools capable of refined needling.
Dr. Bear has eight points he checks on all patients; he calls this “fundamental treatment.” His points are CV 12, CV 6 or 4, GV 12, GV 4, BL 39 or 40, BL 59, yao yan. Other great practitioners have this same habit of using certain points again and again. I believe Miriam Li had her own ten points that she returned to again and again. These points are chosen because they cover a lot of therapeutic territory, no matter what the condition. A sort of system-wide rebalancing is the goal of this fundamental treatment. I find this a good idea. One could argue of course for a different set of eight or ten points than what he uses, and I am confident Dr. Bear would support someone investigating potentially switching some of his points for different ones.
Anyone interested in his work can find out more at www.thebookofdrbear.com.
Best wishes all round,
Bob Quinn
P.S. As an interesting aside, I did once have the chance to treat a patient who had been attacked by a bear on her back deck.