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In Japanese culture there's a huge emphasis on mastery
You see it in the way people prepare food You see it in the way people do martial arts
And you see it in the world of acupuncture
Well, I'm back in Japan And I'm back in Asakusa, the temple
It's a bit smoky here because people
Seem to be doing blessings at the moment It seems to be a national holiday
We're going to see a Dragon Dance later Anyway, I'm going to buy some incense and
do a prayer for the course
I'm just going to make a wish now and try and bless the course Are there any bits of your body that need healing?
Yes!
You're supposed to heal the bits of your body...
Oran must be trying to grow some more hair!
Mastery is all about detail and repetition And in the Toyohari Summer Schools we focus
on just those things Repeating the basic techniques again and again
and again And breaking them down into small steps
And getting feedback from the more advanced practitioners
There are many styles of acupuncture in Japan One of the most famous of these is called
Keiraku Chiryo, Meridian Therapy This was a movement that started
in the early twentieth century And has ever since, grown and grown
In 1959 five practitioners came together to set up the Toyohari Association
An association for blind practitioners of Meridian Therapy
These five practitioners we can call The Five Elements
Fortunately for me, they haven't limited study just to people who are blind
And they've also opened up the association to foreigners to come and study So that's why I went to Japan
Well, now we are going to begin the seminar this year Traditionally, blind people engaged in the work of acupuncture
Hip Hip...Hurray!
In the association there's an overwhelming emphasis on practice
Everybody has to do it Junior practitioners, mid-level practitioners
Even at the highest levels of the association, the President, the Vice President and the
Academic Dean They have to practise the most basic techniques,
Time and time again
This film is a record of some of my trips to Japan practising with the senior practitioners
The Association has a unique study method It's named after Mr. Kozato,
One of the five founders of the Association Kozato Method is a group consensus study method
Where a group of people work together And analyse each step of the diagnostic and
treatment procedure And hold it up for criticism
Another interesting aspect of Kozato method is the role of the pulse
In a typical Kozato situation you'll have one person lying down
Playing the role of patient Another person taking the ''patient's'' pulse
And someone needling
It's during this needling process that the pulse taking comes into its own
Because very subtle changes in the posture of the person needling
Will cause changes in the pulse And the blind practitioners are able to give
very specific feedback As the process continues
For my part, I've been told to drop my elbow I've been told to release my shoulders
I've been told that I'm needling too fast Or that I'm holding the needle too tightly with my fingers
And all of this from a blind person who can't actually see what I'm doing
They've even developed something called Chain Pulse Method
Where you ''chain'' a number' of people , each taking each other's pulse
And you'll see that changes in the first person's pulse
Will reflect down the line of the chain
One more amazing thing about the Association is its style of needling
This is called Touch Needling or Contact Needling
Instead of putting the needle in, the needle is merely touched to the skin
In some cases it's held above the skin
So, instead of the emphasis being all on the needle
The emphasis is all on the Qi (energy)
This takes a lot of time and a lot of practice to master
One of the strong things about Toyohari Things and facts are repeated every time,
From every side, from the left side, from the right side, from up, from down
And every time, you hear something different and you hear something new
And you think ''Oh yeah, that's true!''
And that's why you get better and better and better
That's one of the strong things about Toyohari, I think
[This is the large intestine meridian This is the lung meridian]
No, no, no...relax
Straight, straight! Straight like that?
Relax, relax! (Laughter)
Straight! Straight!
We focus on many techniques during the Summer School
Touch Needling
Sanshin, which is a very rapid surface needling technique over a broad area
Moxibustion -- burning a herb to warm up the points
And even, for chronic conditions... Bloodletting
Pricking a point and squeezing a few drops of blood out
This is very hard So if you can release this tension
She can start sleeping better ''Onegaishimasu'' (Yes please!)
The tip of the teishin doesn't extend out from between the fingers
I'm going to do ''sha'' (draining technique) here
Wow! Like this...
Tonification style, I'm going to go like this
Quick...slow...slow...quick
Today I'm training with Mr Nakamura Again, we're practising basic needling
Just now he showed me something very interesting We do a needle technique where the needle
has to move forward and back And forward and back
And basically he was saying I was moving the needle
Too far forward and back And I had to make the needle amplitude much less
In order to be more effective
When she was stroking the meridian She was doing like that
She was using only index finger If you do that
Even if you are stroking the meridian very lightly
As a result, because you are not using the other fingers
It become heavy So when you are stroking meridian
These three fingers are very important to be used
Then naturally, index finger becomes lighter
So what just happened? What was your feedback?
The needling feedback from Shinoda Sensei was extraordinary, really
As you said, the master class The subtlety and the detail is amazing
Each person he finds something new to say But there's obviously a common theme
And one of his themes at the moment is When locating the point it's important to
use all three fingers And not just the one finger
As that will adversely affect the pulse And very important to keep relaxed at all times
So you have to find this balance
Between trying to the technique as well as possible
But being completely relaxed
Well my feedback was more mixed
He told me that I'd improved a lot From a few years ago when he last saw me
Which is amazing he could remember And he said if I want to get to the next level
I have to learn to relax more Because if I'm tense I'm conveying tension
to the patient So he said first of all my stroking (to locate
the acupuncture point) Was too heavy, so I was stroking for the point
too heavily But apart from that he said he couldn't
put a finger On what it was I was doing wrong
So therefore I just had to learn to relax more
So that was basically the gist of his feedback Just practice, practice, practice!
When I talk to my patients, I tell them that Blind practitioners have had a huge influence on acupuncture in Japan
For a foreigner, this is the most important learning experience
I believe no foreigner can ever begin to grasp Toyohari
Unless they come to a Summer School and study here with you
I'd like to thank the teachers for taking the time
Out of their busy schedule in clinic
To come and train us in our skills of Toyohari
Speaking for myself and probably for everyone
I think we're going to leave with many bits of advice to work on
And hopefully we'll come back and improve
So we'd like to thank first Nakada Sensei
And we have a small token of appreciation
Goodbyes are always hard
Every time the course ends I feel a sense of sadness
At having to say goodbye to the teachers
It's really an honour to train with these people They are twenty-first century masters
And I feel like I've been training with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra of the acupuncture world
They're dedicated, they practise all the time but they're not serious
They're very fun loving people
And we can always laugh and have a joke and tease each other
Even when we're studying
Well, it's Saturday night
It's my final night in Tokyo
I've had a wonderful stay I've been to the Toyohari Workshop for five days
I've done some study, seen some old friends
I've visited some sites
Tonight I'm by the river because it's Summer Fireworks Festival
So we're going to watch the fireworks And tomorrow I teach Bamboo
And then I go straight to airport afterwards to fly home
So it's been a really wonderful trip