Widely known for his pioneering work in sports acupuncture, the guest of this episode joins us for a conversation that reminds us of the deep and varied integration between the layers of being we call body, mind and spirit. 

Additionally we touch on how the trajectory of years and practice can bring us full circle back to basic fundamentals, and that our successes can easily transform into new challenges to overcome. 

Here we are at the end of this mini series from

the sports acupuncture Alliance.

I've got one more interview for you.

This one with Matt Callison.

I think you're going to enjoy it.

Again, much appreciation to the sports acupuncture Alliance and

to Lhasa OMS for their support and creating this opportunity

to bring you this unique series.

Let's jump in now and have a discussion with Matt.

You guys have probably heard of Matt Callison.

So I'm not going to go into too many details about this cat.

Uh, Matt.

Welcome to qiological.

Hello, Michael.

Thank

you for having me.

It's great to be great to be here

with you.

I appreciate it.

Hey, I'm a little curious.

What got you started on, on all this stuff.

Anyway.

This

stuff being, let this stuff

being well, acupuncture, first of all, what,

what drew you to acupuncture?

And secondly, what drew you to the sports accurate?

Well,

I started off as a, as an athletic trainer in, uh, from San

Diego state university and getting my, my undergraduate degree in physical education

and emphasis in sports medicine and going, studying toward, uh, athletic training.

And then.

I was a little disenchanted where I was going with my education.

And even though I loved the rehabilitation aspect of it, every single part of

diagnosing musculoskeletal injury and the mechanics of musculoskeletal injury, where

I was going actually as a athletic trainer in the job form was not very attractive.

So I sold everything that I had except for my surfboard and a backpack.

And I went to Austria.

That sounds like a good idea.

It was great.

It was great.

There was nothing holding me back.

And so I'm still involved in sports medicine and it's still intrigued about

how sports medicine works, loving, loving, surfing, and loving baseball, and just

kind of, uh, uh, sports chock myself.

I wanted to end up staying in Australia cause I loved it there and met a

man in Perth, Western Australia.

That was a physio.

They don't have athletic trainers down there.

Um, that was a physio that was practicing this voodoo called acupuncture.

Now this was in 1992.

When this occurred.

And so actually, no, we have to take that back to probably 1990.

Yeah.

So he planted the seed for me.

I was, I watched how he was able to get people out of pain.

How was he able to put needles into people and change range of motion

and change, um, different aspects of that musculoskeletal injury.

So he's the one that really planted that seed for me.

So then all my way back to, uh, San Diego of my hometown, I

ended up visiting a friend and.

So it was only going to stay for four days, but ended up teaching at

the massage school there and stayed in Maui for about a year and a half.

So I taught and learned massage and always was thinking about the acupuncture.

And I checked out the acupuncture school in Maui, but it just

didn't quite seem like it was at the level that I wanted to go.

So it was great learning, massage and learning how to be able to, to

structural integration and, and, uh, a myofascial release technique.

But I still always wondered about what is this, what is this thing about putting

needles in people and manipulating and changing and changing the way people move.

That was always intriguing for me.

So I ended up going to school at Pacific college of Oriental medicine.

That's when it was one campus.

In San Diego, only four rooms.

So it was awhile ago.

That was a while ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And actually when I graduated from school, I didn't call on a cell

phone because they weren't out yet.

It was actually on a rotary phone.

Yes.

I getting yourself gives you and I, and that's okay.

That's all right.

Um, this licensing.

So because of my background in sports medicine, and then it was just, it

was, it was a natural bridge to be able to apply traditional Chinese

medicine with sports medicine.

And that's something that I've been doing for the last 30 years.

Really.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it sounds like you had this deep background, really understanding

physiology, really understanding anatomy, how the body's put together, how it

moves, how it connects and you know, how all that works with sports performance.

Then you had a bit of a walkabout ran into acupuncture and, uh, and

then you put these two together.

I'm a little curious and I suspect a lot of the listeners are a bit curious.

About how the I'm just going to use air quotes here, sports acupuncture, how that

is, or is different than the kind of stuff that people learn in acupuncture school.

Okay.

Um, so if I'm understanding your question correctly is let's

see if I can repeat this back.

Is that is sports acupuncture taught in acupuncture school?

Oh, no, I hadn't thought to ask the question that way,

but yeah, let's go with that one.

I like it.

Um, most schools do not teach sports acupuncture because

there's a certain curriculum that they need to be able to have taught

in order for those students to be able to pass the state board examination.

Right, right.

There, there's

an exam that we all, there's a gate we have to

walk through called the national.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So, um, some schools though, Are emphasizing musculoskeletal

type of orthopedic acupuncture.

I created a class for Pacific college of Oriental medicine,

uh, 16 years ago, and it's called treatment of orthopedic disorders.

And it's currently being taught at all three campuses and other

acupuncture schools are also are picking that up as well.

So it's based on my work that I've put together over the last 30 years.

And so that is a required class, which is great, but not all

schools are going to have that.

Um, that, that does bring me to a point.

If you don't mind me going off on a little bit of a tangent because orthopedic

acupuncture and musculoskeletal type of acupuncture, where it's going in

the U S right now, it's a little scary.

Students are finding that just by putting acupuncture needles into muscles at

certain areas, certain Oscher points.

It will make a dramatic effect in range of motion and manual muscle testing.

But the traditional Chinese medicine.

And probably the supervisors and some of the teachers as well are not emphasizing

that every single musculoskeletal injury, every single orthopedic injury

is going to have a zone crew component.

It's going to have a drag zone who component that either created

the injury, or let's say there's a professional athlete in their zone

who signs the symptoms is pretty nil.

You can still enhance how this person is going to rehab it.

Part of traditional Chinese medicines to look, to see how well can this

person handle the inflammation from the musculoskeletal injury.

And so the TCM practitioner needs to be able to put their hat on.

That is musculoskeletal.

Figure out what that injury is, but at the same time, what can they treat?

Liver spleen, kidney, sand gel, what can they be able to treat in order

to be able to enhance the treatment?

It's uh, it's, it's something that's a little scary to me is, is where is where

musculoskeletal acupuncture is going in the U S and not looking at the internal.

Okay.

So this actually does get back to my question.

Which is, how is the sports orthopedic, acupuncture different from like the

TCM that we learn and because a lot of people, you know, we get the TCM

training and then there's often we don't get the results we're looking for.

Maybe it's not the right stuff.

Maybe we just don't know it well enough, which I think is often the

case.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah.

I agree.

So

you're using.

Even if we're dealing with something very, let's just say meat suit level.

There's a lot of other stuff going on and we need to look at the

deeper levels of the body we need to, we need to know, not only.

Anatomy and physiology.

We need to know our Chinese medicine and put those both together.

Oh,

absolutely.

You know, cause I can't tell you how many students that I have

talked to that have come up.

And they've said that they're not either getting the results with

the musculoskeletal treatment or they actually hurt the patient.

Because they needle too deeply or too aggressively, or they put the

needles in and then they add electric stem without really examining

the person's chin blood levels.

First doing the, taking the tongue on the pulse and examining like,

who is this person with this injury?

Yeah, you don't want to be doing too much stimulation

on somebody with blood deficient.

That's very true.

And then some students will miss the target tissue.

Um, some muscles or some points actually need to have a deep needle in order to

create a certain effect and some don't.

And I think the beauty of traditional Chinese medicine with the tongue and

the pulse diagnosis and the questioning and looking at the person's ShaoYin,

their spirit is imperative to be able to have a successful musculoskeletal.

This

is so delightful to hear you talking about this because often I

hear a kind of polarization going on.

It's like I do TCM or I do internal medicine or, oh no, I just,

I'm just working on, uh, that's

exactly what I'm talking about, Michael, is

that it shouldn't be separated.

Yeah.

Well, it's not separate if we're really not tenants to Chinese medicine right

now, show me where the separation is.

There isn't.

There is.

I've done a human cadaver dissection for over the last 30 years.

A lot of them and anybody who has done human cadaver dissection knows

that every single cell is connected.

Everything's connected along the interstitial fluids and the fascia

skin all the way down to the toes from kidney one to do 20 it's all kind of.

So you just can't separate that.

So it's, it's important for, for those people that are just putting

needles in people for lateral epicondylitis or a knee pain.

There's just so much more to that.

And the reason why I know that is because I used to be one of those.

I used to be one of those people that I was getting such great results with a

needling motor points, which I researched about 30 years ago and published some

work on it in the year 2000 and Sasha, and found that it increases range of motion.

And I just got very myopic and, and.

Started dealing motor points on people's pain.

And then after a while, what would happen is that I was getting a lot

of results were great, but about 30% of the time, there's those cases

that just did not respond to that.

And I needed to look deeper, but I was so busy and, you know, I was in

my forties and I was so cocky because things were going so well, you know, you

know, when you're doing 70%.

Pretty good.

That's

pretty good.

Yeah, but I wanted more.

I wanted more.

And so that's what really brought me back into understanding and studying the TCM

and Zang Fu and the way that life works.

This is really funny.

I ended up moving to New Zealand and my entire practice, 98% was menopausal

women that really forced me to get back into the Zog food because Kiwi

men there, they will not get any kind of treatment unless their arms falling

off and their arm is falling off.

They're going to be holding it and laughing all the way in.

But Kiwi, when.

They have, you know, they take care of themselves, but the key me, Kiwi men,

can't be bothered, you know, seriously.

And that's, that's, that's, that's a very serious story.

That's a profound change.

It was, but you know what?

It isn't that sound like it woke you up in a

way it's full circle is full circle.

And that's where I can be able to sit here right now and comfortably blip.

Be able to say that every musculoskeletal injury is going to have a zone for.

And if you don't treat that, you're not going to get long lasting results

with a majority of your cases.

Okay.

So this raises a question into my mind.

Are there certain injuries, certain knee injuries or elbow and whatever

certain injuries that are sort of emblematic of a particular zone Fu.

That I can't go that superficial with it.

I can't, if I'm understanding you correctly, Michael is to be able to

say that lateral epicondylitis will be, uh, will be associated with a

certain type of Zong Fu right, right.

Okay.

Uh, we, we could go ahead and say, because that's going to be large intestine channel

that if large intestine, Oregon itself is, is disease or has pathology, then

it's going to be reflected in the channel, which does happen, which does happen.

But I can't say that every case or a majority of cases of lateral epicondylitis

is going to have a large intestine or leave in lung, uh, symptomology.

It's it's, it's not that it's not that simple.

I mean,

there's a, we really have to use.

All the tools we have available that we learned.

And more and more.

What other tools would you suggest that other gosh, and

more, what are you referring to

here?

Well, continued to study traditional Chinese medicine by, by researching

the classics has a lot of information by learning and studying.

The scholars, the academics in traditional Chinese medicine that we

have afforded to us today and what we just lost a giant, unfortunately with

Giovanni, I was very sad, but there are some incredible speakers out there

that share their experience, um, that are, are TCM and Zong Fu oriented.

And I think it's important to continue to, to, uh, study and

research with these people.

Now when you can be able to apply that aspect then to what a lifetime study

in art and skill of musculoskeletal treatments and assessment, then you've

got a pretty good package with that.

And personally, I feel like I'm still an infant with it, with

how much there is to learn.

There's just so much to learn.

It's a lifetime of study.

It's totally endless.

It really is.

Yeah, the, the, the Chinese have one of these Chung use, you know, for

character things that basically says the sea of knowledge is endless.

There's no horizon, actually the sea of knowledge has no horizon.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

It's very good.

And I like that.

Hang on.

I've got this question, just sitting in the back of my mind,

percolating percolating.

I so appreciate this conversation.

This is.

This is, this is a little unexpected, you know, we all have our expectations.

I'm coming to a sports acupuncture conference.

I'm going to really listen to people talking about the meat suit.

And here we are talking about, yeah, it's really important.

And we've got all these other things it's absolutely connected to.

Oh, I know what the question is here.

It comes here.

It comes.

I'm thinking about athletes and often.

And when I think about athletes, I think about sort of rarefied

individuals, they're very focused.

They train hard, you know, they pay a lot of attention to their body and

their emotion and their sport and, you know, whatever it is that they're doing.

I'm wondering if you notice them healing differently.

Oh, absolutely.

Then in the general public, in, in, in what ways do you see them

healing differently and why?

Uh, much, faster, much, much faster, uh, professional athletes

heal very quickly because their, she and blood is really quite clean and they

are so in tune with their, with their body, that their proprioceptive system.

Are so in tune that the acupuncture needle can make wonders with

that proprioceptive system.

Very simply it's less needles with PR with a professional athletes.

Prognosis is usually cut by third of half compared to the general public.

Um, their diet is really good.

Um, so it's, it's really quite easy to be able to get, um,

results with professional athletes.

W when you talk about their chain and blood being cleaner,

and you talk about, and when I hear you say their proprioceptive sense

is more enhancement, of course, that wouldn't make sense for any, any athlete.

It makes me wonder if there's an element of their Shen.

That is also different.

I mean, I'm thinking if you have really good proprioception, your self-awareness

is probably a bit different.

Yeah.

Than the average person walking down the street.

That's true.

I mean, the Shen's always going to be looked at, right.

So with, with professional athletes, their amount of focus and how they've

trained themselves, that is part of the discipline that they have.

Right.

So they've got a huge incentive to get better fast because most

professional athletes, depending on sport are making pretty good income.

Right.

So they, and they've got a

limited shelf life.

That's correct.

That's really correct.

Yeah.

So it's, it's something, they have a lot of incentive to get back onto the field.

Okay.

You were mentioning that you've come full circle in, uh, in the medicine.

I love the story about corn.

Tinder's treating mostly menopausal women.

It's it's so funny how life will give us such surprises at times.

I'm wondering what else you've changed your mind.

In terms of acupuncture over the past 15 years.

Oh, that's interesting.

Hm.

I wish I had some more time.

You'd be able to think about that because I mean, it's been, it's been a while.

It's just been a lot of years of, uh, practicing acupuncture.

And I think, I think there is a time where I was extremely myopic and the way that

I treated was the best way of treating.

Musculoskeletal injuries.

And the way that I was treating actually increased range of

motion better than anything else.

And that is just so far from the truth.

And so again, full circle, realizing that, you know, that Japanese acupuncture is

profound and what it can be able to do.

And so soft and so inquiry, I absolutely.

You know, so there's also even a, uh, hands-on healing and there's, uh, there,

there are so many different aspects of the acupuncture is a Korean hand.

Acupuncture works really well.

The, uh, Japanese acupuncture works really well and it's just.

For changing my mind.

I think what it is just to be able to see that the way that I practice

is the way that I understand.

And so for me to be able to understand, then I can be able to apply that clearly

to the patient and the way that I'm doing it is not better than anybody else.

It's just the way that I understand.

The way

I practice is the way I understand that.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I'm I'm not completely sure what that means yet, but you know, sometimes you

hear something and it just kind of lands and you go, oh, This is something to

unpack and it won't get unpacked in a couple of days or a couple of weeks.

Even you might have to hash that out a little bit.

I'm gonna have to hash that

out a little bit.

Well, and let our experience hash it out.

True.

Right.

I mean, the particular view we have of the world very much determines

what we actually see in the.

And as our particular perspective changes, there's more that we can see hopefully

more ways that we can help people as well.

That's the common

goal, you know, that is the common goal.

And I think that's what really would sell, separates the successful practitioner

to the people that are just getting by is, um, is, is really how much do

you really want to help that person?

Because if you really want to help that person, you get back into the books you're

researching, you're asking questions.

You're always, you know, life as a mentor, you always have mentors.

I mean, it's a great idea.

Just keep asking questions.

You know, I've got this case, this, that this out.

Have you ever had this before?

Just keep asking questions now.

So I think all practitioners should never rest on their laurels.

All do at certain points in their time, but it's at least in my life

when I start resting on my loyals, life has a way of kicking me in the RS.

Oh my God.

I don't know any of us, anyone that I've talked to, that's

been at this for any length of time.

There is a developmental place we go through where it's like, you

know, I'm not too bad at this.

Right.

And it's like, I kind of have this dialed in.

It's really,

as soon as you start thinking that you got it

all figured out, life is going to kick you right in the caboose.

At least that's my

experience.

You know, it's been, it's totally been my experience too.

People come in these days and they go, Hey, Michael max, thank you.

You got rid of my back pain.

And it's like, I need to be very careful with.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think I got rid of their back pain.

It's not going to help either of us.

Yeah.

You know, we're just conduits, you know, we study a lot

and in my mind, we are conduits to be able to help that person is in.

And it's not really us now might be getting out there for some people

that's listening to this, but you know, it's really not, it's not us, it's not

us.

And yet there is an element of us that has to be fiercely.

For it to be effective.

That's true.

That's very

true.

So many of our contradiction, well, we are the applicators, but

then who's, who's when you're, when you're, here's a good one.

So when you're developing a treatment plan or protocol and you have a new

patient, you're trying to think, okay, do I have this diagnosis?

Correct.

What point should I go ahead and use in your thinking?

And you're going back into the academics.

Is that really all you.

Oh, is that really all your voices that are coming in?

Or could there possibly be something else whispering in your ear?

Some people are going, what is he talking about?

Right.

But Hey, I believe in spiritual guides, I believe in angels.

I believe in helping that person or whatever I need to be able to do or think

or believe to be able to help that person.

It gets me out of the way I asked for help in the clinic room.

Who's there to help.

Is it just me?

I don't think so.

You're curious what we have to get out of the way too.

You got to get out of it to

find a way you got to get it and listen,

what voices actually come in.

What thoughts come in?

Are those, all your thoughts, I think is kinda a little selfish

to think that that's mad at him.

Well, you know, w when you say, listen, I think

about the Chinese character.

And in the way that the traditional characters written it's made up of several

components, it's made up of an ear it's made up of eyes and it's made up of heart.

And that's how you

listen.

You know what I think I would probably cheers these

microphones with that's perfect.

What you just said.

I mean, just one of those interesting things in the language that.

And in the simplified characters, you don't see it.

It's just a mouth to an ear, which is often the way we think listening is, but

it, it actually includes, it includes what you were just talking about,

the hard pericardium,

the heart pericardium, that communication piece.

So important.

So you've been at this 30, some odd

years.

I've been licensed for 26, but as far as like putting it all

together, it's been 30 some years.

It's been 30 somewhere.

You've been at it awhile.

You know, one of the things.

Th that people often go to conferences for is because they want to, they want to

learn to get better at what they're doing.

They want to have a successful practice.

And, and in fact, you know, there's, uh, well actually by the time this errors,

there will, we will have had a round table discussion on, on, you know, getting a

sports acupuncture, practice up and going.

And I think it's really important to focus on the things that need to be focused on.

You know, to get your practice successful.

So you, so you can do your work, you can do your art, but the thing

that gets you started and successful in your first, let's say five to 10

years is not, what's going to keep you going at the 25 or 30 year mark.

There's something else that happens.

And I think I heard you mentioning this, that you had a certain

way that you were working.

You went, you land in New Zealand life, reconfigures itself.

We're sending you.

In San Jose right now, California having this conversation.

And you're talking about the importance of reading the classics and going back

to, you know, knowing your fundamentals, knowing your Chinese medicine,

in addition to your orthopedics.

So this isn't a question about technique.

This is a question about development as a practitioner.

What is it that after twenty-five years of doing that?

Is the thing that keeps you going.

And the next thing to work on

it's passion, it's passion.

It's the pure joy of developing techniques, um, from ideas.

That usually when you get ideas is coming from somebody else's ideas,

and then you take that idea and then you be able to evolve that

idea, and then you start putting it into some kind of practical manner.

And then all of a sudden that practical technique starts to work.

That's really exciting to me developing different needle

techniques or, or, um, different treatment protocols that can be used.

So I think, I think having the passion to develop different things and then

apply it to the public and then it works.

And then the patient is out of pain and they're able to get back to their

activities of daily living and they look you in the eye and they say,

That to me is better than payment.

And then you get paid.

We got to get paid, right?

We have to get paid, but otherwise we don't get to do the work to get

results and to apply the results, to assess this a condition and

then apply the treatment plan and protocol, and then see the results

is really something that's fantastic.

Now, um, there is a common thread.

Between day one of getting your license and seeing your very

first patient to 30 years later.

And in my mind that is managing your patient's health care.

That's not taught in acupuncture schools, and there are some

practitioners that are brilliant at it.

And there's some practitioners that really need some help.

So when you say managing your

patient's healthcare, making the patient accountable for

taking the herbs, making the patient accountable for doing their particular

exercise, um, giving them homework to do, um, having them bring a dietary log

in that they're doing, you're managing their healthcare instead of just

applying a treatment, then I'll see you next week, based on your experience.

How many treatments is it going to take to be able to have this case

of lateral epicondylitis come in?

So do I want to treat this person twice a week for two weeks?

And then I expect 60% improvement.

I mean, having some kind of prognosis I think is going to be very important

and that's part of managing the person's health care that leads to success.

Yeah.

So I hear what I hear you're saying is taking a very active role, not

just you're here for your treatment.

I'm going to your true.

Whatever you do with your life, you know, good luck getting involved

in it, you get real involved in it.

So what do you do with the patients that don't take their herbs or

don't do their

exercise?

Don't do their exercises or eat the things they know that are

going to cause them trouble.

Well, I've seen plenty of patients who they know if they eat glutenous

types of things and because they have a sensitivity, their joints are

going to be really, really painful.

And yet.

They make those choices.

So usually with those kinds of cases, if they're getting results,

there's not much, I can really be able to say, like, if they come in and they

have a certain pain, that's when scale of one to 10 and it's a 10 and you treat

them twice and now they're down to a one, but they're still eating the wheat.

Gluten.

There's not really a whole lot that you can be able to say other than

that's really not that good for you.

Right.

But if that person's coming in and they're have a pain, a scale

of 10, you treat them a couple of times and then it's at an eight.

Well, I mean, that's where you just have to kind of hit them in the wallet and

just say, you know, how many times do you want to come back and see me and pay

me this money when you're handicapping me and I'm treating you basically with

one hand tied behind my back, how, how much do you want to get out of pain?

And that's where you start getting into the person's spirit.

You know, that's where you start questioning them.

Like, do you need this.

Hm,

why?

Well that's I had never thought about it from that point of view.

Do you, what is this pain doing for you?

Yeah.

Ask a patient though.

It has to be appropriate.

It has to be appropriate, but I mean, that's, some people really

have to think about that one,

that there might be a function for the dysfunction and

you need to uncover that as well.

It's true.

Yeah, they have pain somewhere else in their life.

And, and so that musculoskeletal injury is really bugging them the

more and more that they're having that other pain in their life.

Nah, let's say my partner's a pain in the ass.

Well, they come in with a gluteal strain.

My boss is a pain in the neck.

They come in with a neck problem.

They're shouldering the world.

They don't have a foot to stand on.

I'm going all of those.

I mean, if you read the Louise hay, right, God bless her soul.

If you read Louise hay, she was really onto it.

Know there's a lot of things that she said that, that she noticed

from her own practice that I think were really actually very true.

So sometimes the, and I've seen this in many

cases, the symptom is not the.

It's often a messenger and it's a really loyal messenger cause it's going to

stick around until it gets listened to.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, we can treat the signs and symptoms or do we treat

what caused the signs and the symptoms and that's the goal?

Isn't it it's treat the costs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's next.

Michael, let's go

and this often happens.

When I'm doing one of these interviews, there'll be a moment

where there's a kind of a pause.

Cause it's like, let's

take that one in,

it takes a little time to take some things in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can we go a little further down this rabbit hole?

All right.

One of the conversations I hear within our community, there's there's people that

are like, yeah, I just want to help people feel better and make their pain go away.

There's other people that say things like, well, actually I

don't care about their pain.

I just want to treat their spirits.

Right.

And, and those are actually two sides of a continuum.

Right?

Increasingly I, in my practice, I'm curious about this spirit aspect.

I'm from, what do I mean by, and even he's saying things like spirit aspect,

it starts getting kind of Woody here.

It's like, what exactly are we talking about?

So when you hear things like spirit aspect, or you say things

like spirit ass, Where, what are

we talking about?

It's your soul?

It's the sparkle in your eye.

It's your character.

It's it's, it's who you are on a cellular level.

What drives you?

What makes you sad?

What makes you happy?

It's your soul?

So it makes your heartbeat.

So who is this person that's coming in with this musculoskeletal?

You know, it's a really common, great combination is when I have people

coming into my educational program that are, Worsley trained five

elemental acupuncturist, which is all based on treating spirit, right.

And energetic blocks, freeing up the energetic blocks, which can be

accomplished in a number of different.

Not just five elemental, but five elemental is really is good.

It's good is using five elemental acupuncture with also

orthopedic type of acupuncture.

That combination is pretty magical because you can change somebody that would just

keep sticking with lateral epicondylitis.

Cause it's there.

I've already been talking about it.

You can change somebody's lateral epicondylitis pain drastically.

If it's coming from a block.

Yeah, an emotional block.

And so if they're going to go and see someone who's not looking at

the ShaoYin or, or treating the ShaoYin five elementary, Japanese

acupuncture, TCM doesn't really matter is that they're not going to get the

results until that person is actually able to move through that block.

Energetically move through life gracefully, given

that the spirit and the body.

Of course intimately connected.

Even the idea of saying there's a mind, body connection predisposes

at disconnection, right?

I mean, and I think this is hard for us as Westerners.

Who've grown up with these, these distinctions that there's a separation

between mind, body when the beauties of Chinese medicine is there's not that

separation, but it seems like it takes a long time to be able to actually feel in.

What that is to be able to feel into that unity, to be able to feel

into, oh, there's this hole here.

And I can work on any aspect and connect with every other aspect.

I think it takes a while to actually grasp that as a practitioner,

it's so much easier to go.

I'm working on the elbow or I'm working on, uh, the issues

with the marriage and whatever.

How do you know when toward.

At which level

I don't, I don't, you can't separate.

It is there.

There's obviously going to be priority.

Right.

So, I mean, I'm just throwing a dart with blindfolded.

I just tried to treat it all and I have a little motto is like fix

what you find, fix what you find.

And so if you find that this person is.

Like for example, an initial office visit where they're words that come out of

their mouth describing the musculoskeletal injury does not match the ShaoYin

expression in their face or their eyes.

That to me is a telltale sign to be able to start getting that connected because

they're disconnected in spirit with that.

And so.

That particular case the treatment would be.

I'm just hypothetically speaking here, 30, 40% musculoskeletal because

they're coming in to my practice for muscle skeletal injury, but then

60% is treating that ShaoYin and trying to be able to get that person.

Because you notice that

they're not connected.

You notice

it's not connected.

And sometimes I wonder too, is that you apply your acupuncture protocol

and your moxibustion protocol and your Chinese medicine as much as possible.

Cause sometimes I wonder if it's just the words that you say at the

right time is what actually causes the healing for that particular

case.

So you've noticed this in your clinic.

Something in the room actually

changes doesn't it did the G in the room, changes the room, changes

their ShaoYin as her laying on the table.

Change.

And you can see that most people I feel.

Yeah, I think most, I think us energetic workers with acupuncture can

really see it and feel it, a practice that, that I've done in the past.

And I coach my students with is that look at a candle when it's

dark and look the flames above it.

And how far can you be able to take those heat flames?

How far can you see the vapors?

And so when it gets really quite dark, but you still see little

waves of the vapors applied.

To the human body and when the person is laying down and you're putting

acupuncture points in step back and take a look and see if you can be

able to see those energetic waves.

A lot of times it directs you that, oh, I need to be able to put a point here.

Oh, wait.

I can see that.

I need to be able to put a point here to be able to change the key of that patient.

I love when interviews go in way unexpected direction.

Not that.

I mean, not that I know what to expect.

Cause I comes mat

meat suit mat.

When, when would you say these sorts of changes

started happening for you?

What changes?

It changes from working, you know, like, like Mr.

I'm going to move a needle, these motor points and help people's range

of motion to I'm noticing a person's.

Not connected emotionally to.

The physical pain that

they, well, I think I've already, I've always seen that aspect

of it where there's little bit of a disconnect between the words the person

is saying and, and their expressions that they have, or even look in their eyes.

You can see how one eye is going to have, um, bright Shen and the other eyes.

Right.

So, um, it's that, that type of person, when you look at him, you like, for

example, if you had a three by five card and you cover up once out of the

face and you see expression and the other side of the fast face, and it

looks really quite dulled that they're usually, there's just too much going

on in life for that person right now.

So they can't take in anything, but they're still able to give that is

something I think is really important to be able to treat now, as far as.

When I started that, I think it's always been day one.

I've always been a bit of an odd person I've been told.

I'm not, I'm definitely not your norm, but I did go through that

period of meat suit acupuncture.

And when I was developing a lot of the motor point aspect, cause when I motor

points were not discussed at all, when I started it was, it was trigger points.

So actually putting a stainless steel needle into the motor nerve innervation.

When I first started doing it, it was met with a lot of skepticism and

then there was also met with, wow, this is great because we are changing

people's cheesy and getting them out of pain and changing range of motion.

So, you know, once I started getting popular with that, then

I became very, um, arrogant.

Egocentric myopic and had five rooms going at the same time for assistance.

And I was basically just doing, you know, meet suit acupuncture.

And I started getting away from TCM.

But what really bugged me is like, what we said earlier in this conversation

is that there was quite a few people that just were not responding

oh, with age and experiences.

There's a seasoning that takes place, you know, and it desired to be able to

help even those really difficult cases.

And so yeah, the rest we've already

talked about.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I I've noticed in it, it's kind of a curiosity and this is

an acupuncture is just living enough years to notice that often things that

are solutions at one point and really helpful become stumbling blocks and

things to move beyond at another point.

And I find that process is relentlessly unending.

Yeah.

I agree.

And the more that you have that she and the passion to continue

with it, the better off it is.

And my biggest lesson, I think with, during that time is, is to become

humble because it's not all about me.

And the more that I made it that way, the more than it was lessons in

life that just kicked me in the ass.

What really

has your attention and interest right now in terms of.

Draws you in your practice and the things that you're working on and

what seems new and interesting.

And, uh, it seems to be coming up for you and the work that you're touring.

Yeah.

Uh, currently right now, um, what we're developing in the, in the

smack program is myself and also Brian Lau, Brian Lauer is, uh, a co-teacher

with me in the program and looking at which a lot of people are looking at.

It becomes much more, much more popular than the last 15 years as fascia I'm

looking at the fascia and the mild planes is actually being part of the

answer of what the channel systems are and how the myofascia plans have

communication from self self sell.

So taking that model and applying acupuncture points to local

distal and adjacent and changing.

Are actually using that as part of the assessment.

Like for example, let's say that somebody has a super spy Natus injury that you're

suspecting is a super spy Natus injury.

And you do Hawkins Kennedy test, or you do painful arc test is to look

at what sinew channels are affecting.

What channel correspondences are effected as part of the assessment,

we still have our assessment hat on and plug in one or two needles

as the person is standing there.

Then repeat the painful arc test, repeat the Hawkins Kennedy test to

see if it's reduced by sometime 80%.

Then that gives you an idea of, okay, what channels are going to be affected.

That's part of the.

So then looking at, then what's going to be the best way of actually treating

this particular condition and managing the person's healthcare from initial

office, visit all the way back to the tennis court that just doesn't get boring.

I mean, it just doesn't get boring to be able to have this person go back and

to their activities of daily living or their sport that drives their spirit.

That gives them passion is really a high for them.

I think that's

probably going to do a lot of information.

It's a lot of information.

Thank you so much for taking the time here today.

We'll go get back to the conference.

Thanks

for having me.

I really appreciate

it.

All right, friends, that's it for this.

Mini-series from the sports acupuncture in line.

Again, a deep bow of appreciation to both the sports acupuncture Alliance

and the Los OMS for their dedication to our profession and the support they