There are many ways to do acupuncture. Each method gives you a glimpse into the workings of the body, each one gives you a different map of the terrain. And each method allows us to understand and problem solve with a different set of both mental and physical tools.
Susan Johnson studied with Miriam Lee, who was instrumental not just in bringing Tung Style acupuncture into our western world, but helping to get acupuncture going here in the first place. In this conversation we discuss not just the points and what they do, but more importantly a way of thinking about acupuncture so that you are utilizing the healing resources of your patient without squandering or dispersing them.
Listen into this conversation that starts with Tung acupuncture, but goes into how we think about the work we do, and the kind of spirit that we bring to it.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
- Susan’s background studying under Dr. Mirium Lee and Tung’s Points
- Using Tung’s points and opposites
- Bleeding, it is not what you might think
- How can traditional acupuncturists take and use Tung’s points and way of thinking
- Putting people back in touch with what’s within them their “superpower”
- Walkthrough of Susan’s process
- Practice never gets boring and loving acupuncture
- Quieting yourself enough to listen to your patients
- It takes time and experience really become educated as a Chinese medicine doctor
- Sometimes you can’t fix everybody/not everybody is meant to be your patient
Once you have studied, the academics and then Tung’s Acupuncture, the most important advise i could give any practitioner, is to silence your mind when sitting across from your patient, and listen for what it is you need to know to provide the best possible outcome. Most humans are constantly broadcasting what it is that they really need and want, what is missing in their lives. Allow them to pierce your open heart and mind, and you will know exactly what to do.
I suppose, as in any profession, there are outstanding acupuncturists and there are mediocre ones. I have committed my life to providing every tool i can think of to teach Master Tung’s Magic Points, an extraordinary ancient Taoist system of acupuncture, that will pretty much guarantee that you will have an outstanding practice and a bursting toolbox to treat just about anything that comes your way, with TCM. With 34 years of clinical practice and a brand new 565 page book, called, “Master Tung’s Magic Points: A Definitive Clinical Guide,” you’ll have enough to keep you busy for the next ten years, easily, and to build a very successful practice for yourself and your patients who need YOU.
My original teacher of this style of acupuncture was Dr. Miriam Lee, OMD., one of the first licensed acupuncturists in the state of California. In 1987, she and i travelled to HeFei, China, to study bleeding techniques with a third generation bleeder, the late Dr. Wang Xiu Zhen. It was life-changing, for sure. That same year, Dr. Lee introduced me to Dr. Young Wei-Chieh, who was a direct disciple of Master Tung Ching Chang, and who has been my primary teacher of this system, ever since. Dr. Young is still teaching and writing but has now closed his practice in Southern California.
Straight out of ACTCM, 1984, in San Francisco, i opened my first acupuncture practice in the Upper Haight/Ashbury district of San Francisco, in 1985. I specialized in the treatment of HIV/AIDS (at that time) and taught myself how to treat all kinds of common ailments and rare opportunistic diseases, things like Candida, Pneumocystis pneumonia, the side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy, Karposi’s Sarcoma, ITP, just to name a few. It was eye-opening for a young 25 year old and heart breaking to work so hard and watch 25 year olds die. I truly learned some extraordinary things, working on all of the AIDS wards in all of the major hospitals in San Francisco, but perhaps the most impactful was that when you die is not nearly as important as how you live!!!
In 1988, after nearly five years of intense stress and mind-blowing results with Traditional Chinese Medicine, i moved my practice to Santa Cruz, where I’d been living in the mountains, since 1979, and have practiced there ever since. Many of my HIV patients travelled to see me there, and some are still alive today.
Subscribe To This Podcast In Your Favourite Player
Share this podcast with your friends!
Support for Qiological Comes From
