Acupuncture book

There is definitely no such thing as the “best” point combination book. There are many that are reasonably good and good general sets of pointers however. Reason being is that there are many styles of acupuncture, many lineages within those styles, and many varied ways of approaching conditions. Cookie cutter approaches will generally lead to poorer results. The whole power of Chinese Medicine is in the adaptability to each patient.

That said, here are some resources:

• Our acupuncture treatment pages

• Our Tam Healing System treatment pages (a substyle)

• Our Japanese treatment pages (many protocols from that perspective within) - particularly the five phase treatments and the extraordinary vessel treatment protocols.

• text (many schools use this as a foundation)

• And many of the texts from Giovanni Maciocia - including the and the as good ones to start with.

I asked my first tai chi instructor if I could learn other martial arts. He told me that in his strict training his teacher would not let him. “Jack of all trades, master of none” was his first reply. His advice then was, “learn what you know well before moving on.” I took that advice in tai chi chuan. In school for acupuncture, we learned a lot about many different techniques. It could be confusing at times because the techniques were often the opposite. So I repeat, “jack of all trades, master of none.” I think my favorite right out of school was Richard Tan’s Acupuncture 1,2,3. I found I could use it with my fingers and still get results. So I read and studied all of his books. I went to seminars by him. I tried to absorb his ideas as a foundation.

I use many of the books taught in school and will cross reference them for a particular problem like TMJ. My first TMJ problem was treated right out of “Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion” book. I simply followed the recipe and they were free of TMJ for six months. Their whole extended family became my first patients after school.

In fact, I must admit I often buy acupuncture books for their new perspective but find the older acupuncture texts work quite well. I feel I am retrogressing as “The Statement of Facts” book by Bob Flaws has energized me. I read it daily. It is the theory from the old classics in short pieces that is intriguing. Today I try to understand how to balance the meridians and weave in the treatment of the pattern. I do that by reading the meridian strengths from a five element perspective and using sedation, tonifying, luo, source, and horary points. That, sort of brings me back to some of the old basic texts in acupuncture. Sedate the excess. Tonify the vacuity. Use Luo points for energy split between left and right. And so forth.