Acupuncture – Bob Quinn Seminars

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

Acupuncture As A Path of Self Cultivation

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want. Moshe Feldenkrais The way we do anything is the way we do everything. Martha Beck

In 1995 as I entered Chinese Medicine college I did not realize that in pursuing acupuncture, I was entering a career that would directly tie in with my longstanding interest in meditation, which is to say that I did not know Chinese Medicine could be pursued as a dao, a way. The 23 years since those early student days have clearly revealed to me over and over again that, if one is to get anywhere worth getting in acupuncture, it needs to be approached in this manner. Acupuncture is a path with no end, and we progress by elevating our perception abilities and our manual skills.

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

The Power of Acupuncture – An Interesting Case

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

I’ve been treating the long-term patient of a good friend this summer while he is away gallivanting across the globe. I did the same for him last summer. By every reasonable measure this patient should have been dead ten years ago. His survival, I feel, shows the power of acupuncture.

The patient is a retired professor. For over ten years he has received weekly acupuncture treatments in the attempt to slow the loss of lung function from fibrosis. It has worked spectacularly well. He still lives independently, participates in groups and “has a life.” Sure, the disease progresses slowly, but that is much preferred to the death that was expected 8-10 years ago!

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

Whither Our Profession?

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

I came across an article recently in which I read surprisingly that the number of practicing acupuncturists in the US is rather flat when measured over the last few years. It seems that with 3000+ students in the tube in our various schools we would be growing at a steady rate, not holding at a standstill. Apparently, we are losing as many as we are gaining. Not a good situation, obviously, and one that invites speculation.

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

What & How

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

I have been practicing acupuncture-herbal medicine-bodywork for 20 years now. It’s hard to believe that many years have gone by. What a fascinating journey it has been. For most of that time I have invested my time and energy into mastering what we could call the “what” of East Asian Medicine, which is to say the information side of things: What do you do when you feel this particular pulse quality, what do you understand when you palpate the abdomen and discover a certain finding, what does this herb do when combined with another herb, and so on. This is all very important knowledge of course.

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

The Clinical Tip That Changed My Life

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

Sometimes we remember a tidbit of information in the right moment, and it can become a major inflection point for us in our career. I’d like to relate just such an occurrence from 2004 when in a moment of need I recalled a passing comment from Kiiko Matsumoto from some years before in a seminar. My focus in writing this blog is not so much the tip itself, although it is a good one to be aware of, but more on citing an example of how change can arrive in our lives in quantum leaps.

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

Three-Legged Stool

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

One can sit on a one-legged stool; it is a bit of a balancing act, but it is possible. A two- legged is a bit easier but also not really so relaxing. It is not until one gets three legs on the stool that real comfort and stability is possible. The triangle is after all the smallest stable structure in nature. This is a big part of what Buckminster Fuller used to formulate his ideas on how the universe works.

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

The Field

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

“The field is the sole governing agency of the particle.”
Albert Einstein

I tried last year to write about fields and acupuncture but was unhappy with the result, so I did not submit it anywhere to be published. In October I taught Sotai with Jeffrey Dann, Ph.D. at the Zen Shiatsu Chicago Conference (Sotai was well received—it was an honor to work with Jeffrey). In that conference Michael DeAgro, a well regarded shiatsu practitioner and psychotherapist, taught two days on his approach to the sinew channels. He brought in an element of “spatial awareness” that he had picked up in his Zen and Quantum Shiatsu studies with Pauline Sasaki. I will not go into what this means right now other than to say it once again ignited my interest in exploring this concept of “fields.”

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

Tool Quality

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

I have quite a collection of shonishin tools. I use them in my classes to show possibilities, but in actual practice there are only a few I use again and again in my actual treatments. Students always ask how important it is to have an expensive teishin or other tools. (A teishin is one of the nine classical needles mentioned in the Ling Shu—it is about the size and shape of a toothpick, some bigger and some smaller than that.)

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Bob Quinn

The Hobgoblin of Dose

A Blue Poppy blog post by Bob Quinn

A year ago I gave a Scholar’s Hour talk at NUNM in Portland, OR with this—The Hobgoblin of Dose—as the working title. I want to come back to this topic in this blog post, in part because I am working on a review of Stephen Birch’s new edition of Shonishin, and in this book he gives a great presentation of Dr. Yoshio Manaka’s dose model, but also because of a recent interaction with a patient, an interaction I have experienced many times with many patients over the years. By the way, I recommend this new edition of Shonishin—it is an improvement on a book that was already stellar.

Posted on September 24, 2019 by Bob Quinn

Anxiety

I remember being surprised in one conversation with Heiner Fruehauf, Ph.D. when he said that he felt 100% of his patients had anxiety—but I now suspect Heiner is right in this view. It is just a question of degree and direction. Are they anxious about relationships, money, the state of the climate, politics, their retirement options, their children, or some other target? And the degree of the anxiety varies considerably as well. It can be debilitating to the point where a person cannot walk out the door to engage with the larger community, or it can be a mild hindrance.