We learn not just from our teachers and our patients, but also from our colleagues. One of the real benefits of attending a conference is the opportunities for learning that can't help but arise from the conversations we find ourselves part of.

Here's a few of the many voices that I've learned from this weekend.

So I'm here with some different guests from the sports acupuncture Alliance.

Uh, the thing started yesterday.

We had some amazing classes and, you know, not just amazing classes,

but you know, an acupuncturist get together and they talk with each other.

We learn so much.

And I, you know, this is, I think maybe one of the benefits of a live

face-to-face thing rather than the online stuff, as good as that can be.

So I'm sitting here with Laura, who is from the bay area and,

uh, Laura, I'm curious to know what popped up for you yesterday.

What sort of things jelled or, uh, really came to your attention

with the material from yesterday?

Yesterday was very exciting for me.

And I've been looking forward to that.

Weekend a lot of S because the teachers yesterday, uh, Amy mall and Anthony Vander

mule were teaching topics that I feel like I'm going to be able to plug into, uh,

using for helping motor vehicle accident, patients, you know, patients who.

I have been in accidents and their doctors say, okay, now you're fine.

You shouldn't have any pain anymore.

Your imaging is all clear and yet they are in pain and they're not

just in a little pain, but they're in so much pain that they can't work.

Right.

And we see this all the time, all the time.

Yeah.

They get a diagnosis and they get imaging and they go, you're fine.

Exactly.

But what, what Amy offers is.

Amy mall specializes and post-concussion treatment, and also

any type of traumatic brain injury, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

And so she really showed us all the different manifestations of head injury.

Don't seem like obvious symptoms of, you know, post-concussion

syndrome and how, how to help the patients in those situations.

And, and Anthony was showing us a technique, um, that he's calling Prolo

acupuncture after prolotherapy, where you can help stabilize joints that have

gotten hypotonic and just too loose.

And you actually Titans.

Ligaments doesn't it?

It does.

Yeah.

You can needle right into the ligaments.

You can, you know, you, you can test the joint before, do the treatment.

You don't even retain the needles.

I mean, there, there is a long-term effect, but there's an

instantaneous effect in many cases.

And then afterwards tested again and you can see right away improvement

in the stability of the joint.

So that's very exciting for a lot of these cases that

you're, you're not going to see.

Imaging on imaging, the laxity and patients are getting tightness

around the muscles are activated trigger points because those muscles

try to tighten up to stabilize.

And so people are stretching and stretching and trying to.

Loosen up the tight muscles when really what they need to do is stabilize.

Yeah.

So it's so great to have an option.

Well, this is such an interesting thing sometimes where we'll have

a symptom, we'll have a, I'm using air quotes here, a problem, and we

go, I'm going to fix the problem.

Oh, you muscles are tight.

Let's loosen up the muscles.

Well, if the muscles are tight, because underlying there's a deficiency in this

case, loose ligaments, you're taking away a comp functional competency.

That is going to leave them open to other kinds of issues.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So, you know, I just feel like that.

Well, it's just interesting that, you know, I've been made aware of these

issues, but, and I've, you know, had some limited success helping

patients, but I feel like I can do a lot more targeted treatments for

them now and have a way to correct.

Gage their improvement with, with these two, after having had these two

Amy's class, I only got to sit down on part of it, cause I've been mostly

running around here doing podcast stuff.

But the thing to me that seemed fascinating about her work is that

there's all these like weirdo symptoms that people will they'll write off or

they'll just go, oh, it's ancillary or people just forget about it.

Or they just stopped complaining about it because no one's doing anything for me.

And yet it seems brought together as a whole and looked at through that lens

of here's an issue with the neurology.

It really brings some things to life.

Right, right.

It's something.

You know, we're familiar a little bit in Chinese medicine with having of this

constellation of symptoms that seem unrelated to other healthcare providers.

So, you know, I think that that doesn't scare us off so much.

We're looking for the bigger patterns, but, um, and this is a whole new set

of different unrelated patterns that we as acupuncturist might not have

been so familiar with to put together.

You know, one thing that she also talked about is.

Vagus nerve stimulation and vegal tone.

And that is, uh, another topic that it just comes up over and over and over for

autonomic dysfunction and other teachers, you know, I've just went to another

course with Tom Corbin on a regular therapy, and he's very excited about Vegas

nerve regulation and, and, um, therapy.

And it really feels that that's the future of holistic medicine.

So the Vegas nerve goes all over the place.

Yeah.

And I mean, I'm not the person really to, to comment on biggest nursery.

Cause I'm, it's just learning, this is the tip of the iceberg clued into it.

Um, so, but that is.

What I am getting excited about, is that okay.

My next area.

Okay.

I really need to start learning more about that.

You know, not only can it help people who have so many problems that, you

know, they're, they're bouncing around to different doctors and no one can help

them in, and they're really, uh, having some serious disabilities because of it.

And, um, and here's something so simple and yet so helpful.

So I, you know, that's kind of pointing me in the direction.

Where I need to research next.

What sorts of courses they need to take next?

Where medicine is going.

It's great.

Having a direction where you go.

Hmm.

I think there's something here.

I can mind this out.

There's there.

There's something in here that might be helpful.

Laura, thank you so much for taking a few minutes.

And, uh, anything else that you want to say to our listeners before

we head back to the conference?

I would say.

Go to some symposia and connect with other acupuncturist there and share ideas.

That's where some real exciting things happen in the future.

It's making those connections.

So I'm here with another one of the participants.

His name is George.

And, uh, George, what have you found to be helpful or interesting or something

that you feel like you're going to be able to take and use with your patients?

Well, I found Amy Mole's, um, presentation yesterday to be, um, quite motivating.

Um, she gave a perspective on TBI.

In the sense that we can treat it, but in a lot of practices, we're

not evaluating thoroughly enough to differentiate, distinguish.

And sometimes we get stuck in the same pattern of treatment.

And maybe we're missing a few things because we haven't reviewed

our newer valuations in awhile.

Um, she gave tidbits about how visual cues, um, visual, visual evaluations

will also benefit and it can break it down into what part of the brain,

which is very interesting to me.

What part of the brain is involved?

What was.

What may have happened in previous traumas when you're looking at

evaluating down to different parts of the brain, does that affect how

you go about doing the treatment?

It might the focus of the presentation wasn't telling us,

this is how you have to treat that wasn't a cookie cutter approach.

It was meant to step back a little bit and reevaluate how we've been

treating and how we've been diagnosing.

So yeah, if, for example, you have.

Uh, trauma and in the part of the brain that was near some acupuncture

points, perhaps that can have a direct correlation, like in scalp

acupuncture or in the humunculus where view palpated or put needles

in that area to affect that area.

And that could be related to gait, visual problems, anxiety, digestive conditions.

So it potentially could change the.

So it sounds like in many ways it's helping to improve your diagnostics.

So you can start thinking about where do I want to focus my attention?

Is that, is that the case?

Definitely.

That's my takeaway.

Um, I'm thinking about reviewing a lot of the diagnostic methods that I've

used, um, and things that I had learned in the past that I no longer use.

And he used her notes as an outline to have reexamined that

and maybe start applying that more.

Great.

Well, thank you.

I, it looks like things are about to restart, so let's head on back.

Hanging out here for the moment with Michelle

she's one of the organizers of this amazing event.

It's Sunday morning, we're getting ready for the last day.

And.

Well, you've already been listening to a lot of what's been going on here.

You listeners, if you've been keeping up with it, but I just wanted to check

in with Michelle, see what she was thinking about, how things are going here.

I think things are going very smoothly.

We've had a lot of positive feedback so far from all of our attendees,

from our speakers, from our vendors.

So I couldn't be happier with how things have played out this weekend.

Um, what kinds of things where.

People are just excited to meet other acupuncturist who have a common thread

of, of within sports acupuncture.

And they are impressed with the speakers and the knowledge that they

bring to the field and the research that they've done within the field.

And they're excited to be a part of this opportunity with our, our

group to further the profession.

Well, the four of you have put together an amazing event and.

There's something about getting people together.

I mean, beyond all the content, right.

Which is great.

There's something about when people get together and they sort of rub elbows with

each other connections, get made stories, get told people, learn from each other.

Are there any.

Things in particular that you've heard from the participants in terms

of connections or things that they've been learning from each other?

Well, absolutely.

I mean, I think the, having the question and answer panels with

Kai from the golden state warriors was an eye opening opportunity.

It was, um, it was an impromptu opportunity and that.

I think all of the attendees were extremely grateful that he was able

to get up there and speak about how he broke into the world of professional

sports and how, how he did it and what, what things he did within his

own practice to make that happen.

Um, so to be able to rub elbows, if you will, with.

The likes of those types of acupuncturist.

It's inspiring for a lot of our attendees here.

And that is something they have said to me that there they are walking away from

this conference feeling inspired, but they want to go learn more that they want to

go, you know, reach out to sports teams and reach out to athletic trainers of

collegiate staffs, you know, to, to break into this world of sports and dive in.

And so it's, it's really great.

And it makes me really happy that this conference was.

Just touch so many people.

Well, thanks for your efforts and making this happen and look

forward to seeing you next year.

My pleasure.

Look forward to seeing you too.

Thanks.

Hey Vivian.

Hey Michael, how are you doing great.

Sunday morning.

Yeah, so much has happened here.

It's been fantastic.

I'm kind of curious to know what are the big things that happen for you?

Any kind of takeaways or insights or connections you've made while,

while we've been here this weekend?

Oh yeah.

Lots of connections.

Fabulous people here.

Takeaways, guys.

There were so many, Matt Callison is amazing.

A lot of things I can use on Monday, for sure.

For example, what are you going to use on Monday?

Well, if I have brave enough patients, I'd like to use that pulling tendon

technique, that that looks awesome.

That when we like lift the arch of the foot and the arch of

the foot, that's pretty crazy.

You got a couple of, uh, planter patients that I could try that on.

I couldn't help, but think of a couple of my patients with

plantar fasciitis as well.

Yeah.

And summer's coming up and they don't want to be wearing their they're

good shoes, so to speak, they want to run around in their flip-flops.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It'll be a good summer for that, for that treatment.

I can hardly wait.

Hey, what about that panel last?

With the four speakers that we're talking about, how to get your practice

going sports, medicine, any, any big insights for you from that one?

I love listening to all of their experiences.

I'm not going to change my pack.

I'm not looking to change my practice to get into sports teams.

And I think a lot of the panel yesterday was like, how do

you get into the sports team?

How can you become one of the train?

You know, one of the acupuncturists and like, I would have liked to have seen.

Questions regarding their experiences and acupuncture rather than how

to get into the sports team.

You know, it, it is a big thing.

A lot of folks are looking for that, for that big sports team thing.

Right.

And certain, and it's needed.

Right.

We need people to do that.

And then there's the rest of us that really like to kind

of practice that we have.

And we don't really want it to be any different than it is.

Tell us a little bit about what your practice looks like.

I have a general practice I've been practicing for over 30 years.

I treat.

Whatever comes through the door.

I know people hate hearing that, but I do a lot of women's health,

a lot of orthopedic stuff, a lot of GI disturbance and I'm content years

ago, I would have thought about maybe going into the sports team, but I

would miss a lot of the other things.

It's exciting to have a little bit of everything.

And it's nice to know that you're content with the work that

you do last night after that.

A couple of us got to talking.

In fact, I've already got the episode up, but all of us have been

practicing 20 ish years or more.

And we were talking not about getting started with a practice,

but what keeps you going in the middle and actually what motivates

you as you get beyond the middle.

So you've been practicing for 30 years.

You've had a long arc to the trajectory of your work.

And again, a lot of people are worried about getting it

through their first five years.

And there's a lot of people that are speaking to that issue.

But for those of us that have maybe been practicing for 15 or 20 or 25 years,

any thoughts or ideas or suggestions that you would have for how to take

your practice from the first 20 years into the second 20 years, keep

learning, keep coming to seminars, conferences, talking to your colleagues.

There's always something new.

There's, there's always things that are exciting, the different ways

of doing similar things, or there's always ahas with, um, coming to these

conferences, you know, it's like, you're never going to know it all.

Yeah.

You can always learn from other teachers and from your colleagues and just

being around these fabulous people.

That's what keeps me.

Tim.

How's it gone?

Doing great.

Yeah.

Having a great time at this seminar.

It's really been a great one.

So what kinds of things have you learned or is there anything here in

particular that's really caught your attention or some things that are going

to take and use with your patients?

Oh, I mean, there's definitely a lot of these different musculoskeletal

issues looking at the seniors right now, I think is a really hot topic,

especially yesterday's discussion.

With, um, Matt Collison and I mean, this whole idea with the

sun gel and the network of the fascia working with the foster.

Now it's like a really hot thing too.

So I thought that was really exciting.

Pretty cool.

Now, as I recall, you are like recently graduated from school

or about to, is that correct?

Yeah, so I just graduated, uh, from ACTC, um, here in San Francisco.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

So I'm a little curious, the way that you were taught sinew channels in

school, how is what you've learned here?

Different from what you got in school.

We kind of breezed over a little bit about the senior channels.

Yeah.

And since the scent gel was discussed, but then the connection between the

fashion network wasn't, I don't think really explored in a deep level.

And I think that's something that's really important when it comes to, you

know, treating musculoskeletal issues.

Yeah, it's, it's pretty interesting stuff that way.

I was in, uh, Anthony's class for a bit.

And he was talking about how some of these sinew channels, even

though we were initially told that they're, they're quite superficial.

Some of them dive very, very deep into the body.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, it's, it seems like it's just one big web.

An Oregon that's just surrounding the entire body, you know?

And it's just like something that I feel like we need to explore a little bit more

and dive into and just, well, there it is.

The Sonjia the organ that has a function, but no form.

Exactly.

HANA.

Natasha.

Have you guys been having a good time here?

Yeah, it's been amazing so far.

Yeah.

Super great experience.

So glad we ended up coming.

What is.

That you've gotten from this that's like blown your mind.

That's a loaded question.

Everything has just been super different than what I feel like

I have been learning in school.

And I think just seeing everything clinically in this, throughout this whole

weekend has been really mind-blowing to me, I feel like, what are your thoughts?

Hang on a second.

I want to, I want to get into this just a little bit.

Mind blown.

I mean, I get it.

Sometimes you hear things and it's like, oh my God,

everything's having to reconfigure.

Can you give us just one or two things that like, come right to

top of mind, you need to go, oh my God, this changes everything.

Yeah.

Well, what Anthony was talking about on Friday about the Prolo

acupuncture and just being able to directly affect people's ligaments.

That was something I had no idea occupied.

Could really do.

And so to be able to have that demonstrated on myself and actually

feel an immediate result was like, wow, this is something I never

thought of that acupuncture can do.

And it can.

Being able to take those experiences home with me and back to class and to

clinic is going to be really helpful.

I think.

So you were one of the models?

Yes, I was.

What happened?

Um, well he did something into my ankle, some of the ligaments on the lateral

side, and I have had history of a lot of ankle sprains and a fractured ankle and

just, you know, a lot of clunking and some pain when I run and things like that.

And, and he got in there with a needle and.

Sort of manipulated it all around and immediately say, I felt just different.

I couldn't really pinpoint why it was different, but it just

felt less collapsed in my ankle.

And sometimes people have problems that aren't so detrimental that it's like,

wow, I'm like on the ground, I can't walk at all, but this was something

that was just a really small change that I'm still feeling the effects

of the next day and the day after.

And I feel my posture is better and my ankle just feels much more supportive

than I really thought it was before.

So that was really cool to experience.

And yeah.

And to be able to not just watch it, but have it, the actual needling and

experience of, of getting the treatment.

What did that feel like?

How is that different from let's just say your common

yard dog, everyday acupuncture.

Yeah.

I thought it was much different.

It was a different sensation, you know, I'm usually trying to feel

for like that dull achy sensation, but this was more like, Uh, fanning

sensation really all around the joint.

And that's not really something I've ever felt before.

It's usually just like really deep, and this is more just like fanning

all around and sometimes a little sharp, but nothing that was like

too sharp that it was of concern.

Um, so just.

Uh, very much different sensation than a regular acupuncture treatment.

I think that's great.

Thanks.

Thanks for sharing that with us and good luck with the rest of your school.

Yeah.

That's Jose, what about you?

Anything in particular, come to mind that, has you going back to school tomorrow

and thinking a little bit differently?

Yeah, I really agree with Shannon.

You know, we're really kind of deep in the theory right now of

acupuncture and how to diagnose and how to use all these different points.

And so I definitely think it surprised me being here in the sports world.

It seems like they're using a little bit less.

Traditional theory and diagnosis, less pulse and tongue.

I mean also using just less needles, right?

Like in clinic, we're having this very complex treatment all across the body

for even just something like low back pain is what I've seen in our clinic.

And here someone like Whitfield is just using one or two.

Six at the most we saw today needles to make a drastic change

and even just a few treatments.

So I think that's really interesting too, that you can just insert one needle,

like what Shanna had on her ankle and have such profound effects instead

of having a full, true, full body.

Yeah.

Sometimes we hear that less is more, and we've certainly seen

examples of that and right.

I don't think I've seen anyone do a tongue or a pulse while we've

been here and yet we've seen some amazing things happen, right?

Yeah.

We were really surprised.

I think it was yesterday, Matt Callison asked, you know, he was taking

someone's pulse and he asked, wanted somebody to come up to feel what he

was feeling pre-treatment and post.

And so he asked who practices post-diagnosis.

And I'm not sure exactly how many people are here, but probably about a hundred.

And I think maybe three or four people raise their hands.

So we were shocked by that because, you know, it's like instilled in us that

pulse and tongue is how we're going to be able to decide how to treat a patient.

So it seems like that.

You know, there are different variations on how to successfully treat a

patient, of course, well, and consider to maybe people don't want to get

up and show off their pulse skills.

Right.

That's very true.

All right.

Well, good luck with the rest of your school and maybe see you at this, uh,

next sports medicine conference, huh?

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you so much for having us.

Yeah.

Looking forward to it.

Thank you.

And what podcasts should your friends be listening to?

Oh, qiological qiological for sure.

Go check it out.

Hey, Seth, how's it going?

Good.

Good.

Oh, it's been a long day and long weekend, but everything's been going well.

Yeah, it was really fun.

I know we're hanging out at the bar the other night and, and, uh, great

conversations as I recall, you either are in school or just graduated.

Yep.

I'm still in school.

I graduate in August, so, so it's coming right up and tell us what you're

thinking about doing after you get out of school and has this conference shifted

your thinking about what you'll be.

So my goal is after school is to first, I got pass boards,

but so those are coming up.

But other than that, I plan to stay in like the Minneapolis.

And hopefully get on with someone who does a little bit of sports medicine.

My goal is to work with like high schools though, and volunteer sidelines, just

get my name out there, get more rapport.

And what this has taught me is that it all comes with

experience and it all takes time.

That has to humble me because I'm one of those people that's just driven and want

to get out there and get everything going.

So what this has really taught me in talking with other professionals

is that you're not going to go out.

Make a ton of money help a ton of people like your first years out.

So what I really need to do is just focus on the craft at hand and just

get really good at what I'm doing.

And you may get lucky and hopefully that's where it'll lead me as to

getting lucky and being able to do the things that I want to do eventually,

but it's going to take time and that's kind of what I learned here.

So it does take a bit of persistence and, uh, you know, I found that sometimes.

Good luck follows hard work and preparation.

So you never know when you actually might end up seeing a lot of

people or things come to you.

I'm wondering if, is there anything here that's different than what you've

gotten in your schooling and now you're thinking, oh man, I can go back into

clinic and do something different now.

Yes.

There's many things that I've learned here that I don't get in school.

Like muscle testing, orthopedic testing.

We don't get any of that.

With Anthony, he taught us joint stabilization.

We don't do any of that at school.

And then kinda with Whitfield and, um, Matt Callison, Matt

Callison is more of a deep Needler.

We don't do that.

And that's what he kind of taught, said yesterday is we go towards shallow

needling, not wanting to give patients pain or irritation, or just bugging

them and Whitfield he's old school.

So he's more towards just finding that.

Perfect and making the perfect point.

And so that's kind of what I've learned from Matt is, oh, I'm going to go out

and do different things, figure out what works, but see if something else works.

And with wit it's, something works.

Just stick with that, for fact, that, and that's what we don't get at school

is we don't work these motor points.

We don't work the, um, any other points besides that.

So the trigger points, we don't do any of that kind of.

So that's kind of what I've learned here is being able to work with

athletes, being able to work with just your average everyday athlete in

just, or average everyday pains and being able to do muscle tests, see

where they're weak and reestablish that connection neurologically.

Right.

Sometimes you can see the effects of what you're doing very, very

quickly when you first test treat and then go back and test again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

All right.

Well, Thanks for taking a few minutes to be on qiological and good luck

with your study is in a new career.

No problem.

Thank you for having me and letting me do this.

I appreciate it.

He CC it's good to see you again.

That was fun.

Hanging out at the bar the other night.

Of course.

It's great meeting you at this conference about getting to know

many people that have a pet before.

Yeah, I think it's one of the fun things about conferences.

You meet new people, you learn new things.

I'm curious to know about something that you've learned here at the conference.

And especially if you've learned something, not necessarily

from one of the speakers, but from one of the participants.

Is there anything that you've picked up from our colleagues?

I think that because we're all here under.

A larger umbrella of like, okay, we want to really delve into the specialty of

orthopedics or sports or sports medicine.

Everyone has like their own unique story and you really

get to see what drives them.

What's passionate, which really kind of forced me to kind of reflect on.

What my own background is in what and why I want to do this.

And so I think we talked about this yesterday, where I thought I was going

to go into medical school at one point.

Right.

And then I got exposed to acupuncture and.

Other perspective.

And then just really just looking back on my roots and that followed me to

go to acupuncture school, revisiting my roots in competitive swimming and

exercise science and sports medicine.

My passion for it.

And now I'm even more excited about it now because I reinforced what drives me,

my passion, my values are, I remember talking with you the other night.

There's a lot of people here that are really looking to

break into the big sports thing.

They want to work for like a major baseball team or football

team or something like that.

You seem to have some different ideas.

As I recall, once again, just kind of going back to my roots.

I was like, Hey, like I haven't reached out to my childhood clubs when team.

Why not just go introduce myself to the new coach and

kind of just see where he's at.

And we, we met once we kind of talked about like what I can offer, like,

you know, recovery from injuries.

Um, maybe some, you know, sports performance and the pool for the athletes.

And it didn't really happen.

Like nothing really happened with there.

Weren't a lot of swimmers being sent to me for like, A few months.

And then all of a sudden he sends one person over because they have a common

shoulder injury, and then we treated them.

They got better.

And then the referrals amongst the teammates started coming in.

So it's all about planting that seed being persistent about

it and following it through.

Yeah.

And there's so many levels.

I mean, if sports is your thing and you love sports, you can work at

everything from like what you're talking about, clubs, sports, or high school

or college, you know, all the way up to the big leagues and there's room

all along that line, it seems right.

And you know, if you, if you find a young athlete, you know, even if they're like

seven or eight and you can follow them through their entire career, and they're

going to remember you that you're you a.

Part of their team to get them to that collegiate level, to that pro level,

to that Olympic level and beyond.

So we can start making acupuncture as part of routine as getting nutrition.

You want to see a nutritionist having a strength coach, having

a physical therapist, like it's the norm then for that.

And then they'll, they'll get to college and they'll be like, oh,

why isn't their acupuncturist here?

Like, where's my acupuncturist, acupuncturist.

That's vital to me.

And then if there's a demand for it, then if you ask, they will come.

Right.

All right, friends, there you go.

You know, as great as the online courses are, and it's so convenient

and it can be so helpful not to mention, save a lot of money.

There's nothing like coming to an event regardless of the event, any

event that's interesting to you rubbing shoulders with your colleagues, finding.

What other practitioners are doing in their practices, as well as learning from

the luminaries that come to teach us, there's really nothing quite like it.

So I hope you found this to be useful, getting to hear a little bit about how

the folks here at the conference have been learning both from the speakers

and more importantly from each other.

Okay.

That's it.

For this episode, I hope you found this discussion to be