Just my point: GB 34
Of course the more you know, the more subtle and refined your treatments can be. You have a lot to offer. But are some points more essential than others?
This point – GB 34 yang ling quan 陽 陵 泉 Yang Mound Spring – has for a long time been a well-justified firm favourite for clinical practice. In the twelfth century it was included by the famous Daoist master Ma Danyang in his Song on the Eleven Points Shining Bright as the Starry Sky and Able to Heal All the Many Diseases. They knew how to give good titles to songs in those days!
Later his 11 points were adjusted to 12 with the addition of LIV 3 tai chong 太 衝 Great Rushing. A dozen points to treat everything, what a wonderful idea! We should study those then and give them particular attention: ST 36, ST 44, LI 11, LI 4, BL 40, BL 57, LIV 3, BL 60, GB 30, GB 34, HT 5, LU 7. It would be good for each one of us to consider our own healing dozen of essential points!
Interestingly Ma Danyang pairs some of these points. For example combining GB 30 huan tiao 環 跳 Jumping Circle with GB 34 yang ling quan 陽 陵 泉 Yang Mound Spring – a potent combination which I used myself just a few days ago with a patient who had fallen from a ladder, damaging his lumbar spine, giving low back pain with shooting pains into the right buttock and down the right leg. Massage on the local areas with heat and needles has transformed and rejuvenated him so that the pains and numbness are far less – he has massively reduced his painkillers and is nearly back to his old self again.
Ma Danyang uses GB 30 for ‘a lower back that feels like it’s broken’ and ‘pain running down from the thigh to the calf’. My patient no longer has either of these symptoms. Nor does he any longer have ‘a swollen knee accompanied by numbness’ or ‘sitting or lying as someone old and weak’, which Ma Danyang gives for GB 34. The proper resolution of pain is indeed a youth renewal, unlike the long-term use of painkillers!
Those who wish to study Ma Danyang’s Song on the Twelve Points can find it fully translated as an appendix in Richard Bertschinger’s book The Golden Needle (1991: Churchill Livingstone), in which he translates Ten Odes of Traditional Acupuncture that were included in Book Two of Yang Jizhou’s Grand Compendium (1601). It is a wonderful book for acupuncturists, full of useful one-liners, such as ‘The Yin Mound (SP 9) and Yang Mound (GB 34) get rid of a swollen knee keeping you awake at night’ from the Ode to the Jade Dragon. Simple, telling and true, as I can attest from many successful treatments with this combination over the years.
Ten Thousand Torrents: Ren Xiong
Note also the usefulness of knowing the names of the points. Both SP 9 yin ling quan 陰 陵 泉 and GB 34 yang ling quan 陽 陵 泉 are springs quan 泉 that burst out under the projecting mound ling 陵 of the knee, one under the medial condyle of the tibia on the yin 陰 side, the other under the head of the fibula on the yang 陽. Both are hugely important points – both locally and in their own right – and their interrelationship is clearly shown in their poetic body landscape names.
‘The tendons meet at Yang Mound Spring’ says the Ode to the Streamer out of the Dark. GB 34 is one of the eight hui 會 meeting points, in fact the point is also called jin hui 筋 會 Meeting of Tendons.
In Lingshu chapter 13 the tendinomuscular meridian or sinew channel jin jing 筋 經 of the gall bladder goes from the fourth toe to make a knot at the external malleolus (GB 40), then rises on the external aspect of the leg to make a knot at the external aspect of the knee (GB 34). From here it rises to the upper part of the femur, knotting at GB 30. Another bundle goes from GB 34 to ST 32, giving a double aspect for the flexion and extension of the knee. This point then, connects the hip, knee, ankle and toes, crucial for the movement of the leg.
Jin 筋 indicates the movement and force given by the muscles and tendons, so this point is very effective for all kinds of pain and stagnation, stiffness, swelling and rigidity of the joints – and importantly of all joints, not just locally at the knee. (Cf Arnica and Rhus Tox as homeopathic remedies for pains, sprains and strains.)
GB 34 is a major point for painful conditions, also from accidents and traumas. Being the earth point, it gives nourishment and support to the wiry nature of the gall bladder – and notice the link to ST 32, the yang ming of foot earth meridian.
As the Ode to the Magnanimity of the Mat says: ‘The very best for a pain in the knee is the single Yang Mound Spring – use needling and heating’. It is a fantastic point, both locally and for joint pains in the whole body – a real mover in stagnation, a genuine point of relief and release.
For those who like a good combination for that painful blockage bi 閉 of bi 痺 syndrome that is worse for cold, wind and damp, Ma Danyang recommends GB 21 jian jing 肩 井 Shoulder Well, ST 36 zu san li 足 三 里 Leg Three Miles and GB 34 yang ling quan 陽 陵 泉 Yang Mound Spring in that order – the gall bladder points both powerful movers and the stomach point deeply nourishing and restorative.
If we study the names – GB 33 xi yang guan 膝 陽 關 Knee Yang Pass, GB 34 yang ling quan 陽 陵 泉 Yang Mound Spring and GB 35 yang jiao 陽 交 Yang Intersection – we can see that these points around the knee on this dynamic first stem first branch shao yang gall bladder meridian are extremely yang, returning and restoring that moving yang when it has been limited or lost.
The Ode to the Importance of Penetrating the Dark Mystery says: ‘Pain in the lower border of the ribs, needle the Yang Mound Spring and it halts’. This pain indicates stagnation of liver qi. To this can be added endless analysis of plans, but unable to make a decision, showing that the gall bladder is empty. Now we see GB 34 used for both physical and mental-emotional symptoms. Here then is a point to restore decisiveness in endless vacillation.
As uniting he 合 point GB 34 treats disease of the gall bladder organ: deep sighing, bitterness in the mouth, vomiting of liquids that have been stagnant for a long time, agitation, lack of peace (heart affected), fear as if about to be arrested (kidneys affected). Here again the emotions are affected, both heart and kidneys are disturbed.
The heart is midday to the gall bladder’s midnight, so they are intimately connected, the one affecting the other. The kidneys are the depths of winter to the gall bladder’s winter solstice point of change. They too are strongly interconnected – especially here at the kidney-related area of the knees. Timidity and fearfulness show emptiness of both gall bladder and kidneys and GB 34 is a strengthening and stabilising point that restores courage and resolution. It is far more than a natural painkiller!
This point is wide-ranging in its use with serious physical disorders. The Ode to the One Hundred Symptoms mentions hemiplegia: ‘If half the body is not moving easily, let the Yang Mound (GB 34) reach out afar to the Crooked Pond (LI 11)’. This combination is commonly used today in China for paralysis, which often affects the arms and legs. LI 11 qu chi 曲 池 Crooked Pond is a ghost point gui xue 鬼 穴 that takes the heat out and restores movement to the arm. GB 34 yang ling quan 陽 陵 泉 Yang Mound Spring – often combined with ST 36 zu san li 足 三 里 Leg Three Miles – is wonderful to recover the ability to walk. What an effect these points would have in the early stages of treatment for stroke if they were commonly used in the West!
So wide-ranging in its effects, this point is hard to finish! It also treats gallstones and shingles, both very painful and persistent conditions.
Let’s give the last word then to Ma Danyang, with thanks for his insightful summary of GB 34 and his profound perception of the effects of acupuncture:
The Yang Mound lies beneath the knee on the outer calf, one inch in. For a swollen knee accompanied by numbness, rheumaticky pains due to cold, one-sided. When unable even to raise the foot, sitting or lying as someone old and weak. A needle in six fen and it halts, something magical, mysterious, peerless!
