The Yin and Yang of Osteopathy

At a recent evening seminar in Melbourne, Dan Bensky talked about the Vitality of Qi and how through the osteopathic skills of feeling fascia and the craniosacral rhythm, Yang energy could be felt moving around the body along meridians. He also believed that the constant discussion among experts who couldn’t agree on the exact location of acupuncture points was ‘pointless’ (excuse the pun)  because these acupuncture points were fluid and if you could feel the qi, you could follow the Yang energy along the different meridians. In the following weeks, I practised trying to follow the various meridians and while nowhere near the skill level of Bensky, I have noticed that if I put one hand on the problem area, I can identify the acupuncture points of that meridian distally and proximally. This can be useful in stagnation or if the energy needs to be drawn distally.
Not long after that, I experienced my next breakthrough. A colleague of mine had explained that in her hands remedies that are needed by the body are felt to be drawn into the body. Previous to this, I was sometimes confused because although I could feel what the remedy was going to do to the qi of the body, I was not sure if that was going to be helpful. For example, the formula Xiao Chai Hu Tang would make the qi move in an outward direction especially around the hypochondria. Was that what was needed or would it be better to use Xue Fu Zhu Yu Tang that made the qi flow along the spinal axis? On this day, I asked my colleague to help me select the appropriate formula from a selection of three for a dog with multiple issues. With this guidance I suddenly felt the qi response to the formulae and my hands could feel a deeper layer of qi that I had not tapped into before. There was a pull of the qi into the body with one formula and not the others. I now believe this is the Yin energy of qi. 
Yang energy tells you what it does, Yin energy tells you what is needed.
The IVAS Congress in Tacoma this year has lectures on osteopathic acupuncture by Guray. I am very excited to find out what this is all about. I suspect though that veterinary acupuncture in Australia has developed a lot over the years and that the skills we possess here are often on par with those of our colleagues overseas. 
Certainly without the training that I acquired while doing the old RMIT Animal Chiropractic course which is now delivered as the Graduate Diploma in Animal Biomechanical Medicine through Box Hill TAFE, I would still be using the anatomy book to find my acupuncture points.
Something to discuss in our forum or at the pub one day (although I don’t drink)?

cheers

Kim Lim