WHY DID YOU PUT THE NEEDLES THERE?
The placement of needles is determined on a case-to-case basis, but in almost every case I place a majority of needles in areas that are far from the site of pain or dysfunction. For example, when treating headaches I needle the feet, when treating back pain I needle the hands, and when treating digestive problems I needle the forearms.
I use a unique style of acupuncture referred to as Tung’s Magic Points, which is based on the teachings of Master Ching-Chang Tung (1916 – 1975). Dr. Tung was the recipient of a secret acupuncture point system, refined and handed down in his family over the course of nearly two thousand years. Master Tung has been referred to as the greatest acupuncture technician who ever lived. During his lifetime Dr. Tung treated hundreds of thousands of patients and gained fame for the amazing results he would obtain using just a few needles. After fleeing to Taiwan during the Cultural Revolution in China, Master Tung began to teach his secret acupuncture point system to select students, revealing his secrets outside his family for the first time. Even now only a tiny portion of this priceless knowledge is available in print and continues to be transmitted primarily as an oral tradition from teacher to student. In 2007 I had the good fortune to complete a year of advanced training with Susan Johnson, who is the primary student of Dr. Miriam Lee (1949 – 2009), the first practitioner to bring Tung’s Points to the United States in the early 1980s and a key figure in the legalization of acupuncture in this country.
Tung’s Points are unique in that a smaller number of needles are used and all needles are placed in areas other than the site of pain or dysfunction. For example back pain is treated with needles in the hands and feet. Advantages of this approach include faster, more thorough resolution of pain and other health problems, and the fact that the patient can be comfortably positioned in a recliner chair and can generally be treated without removing clothing. Patients find this type of treatment much less anxiety-provoking than conventional acupuncture because they are not subject to needling in areas that already feel vulnerable because of injury, disease, or pain.
