 Matthew D. Bauer, LAc, practices acupuncture and Oriental medicine in La Verne, Calif., and has been in practice since 1986. Active in several acupuncture organizations over the previous decade, Mr. Bauer also serves as an advisor for one of the nation's leading acupuncture managed care organizations, and is a columnist for Massage Today's sister publication, Acupuncture Today. |
Few medical techniques capture our imagination as does the ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture. Once confined to the Far East, acupuncture is finding worldwide support among a growing number of western-trained medical doctors and practitioners of so-called "alternative" medicine. Researchers from around the world are discovering that acupuncture causes complex changes in key brain centers resulting in modifications of body chemistry. While such research is beginning to shed light on how acupuncture works within a western scientific understanding, a great mystery still surrounds the practice of acupuncture: How did it first begin?
Recently, more scholars - mostly historians - have begun to study the origins of Chinese medicine in general and acupuncture in particular. However, none of these scholars have claimed to have discovered exactly when acupuncture began, who started it, and what the inspiration was for this unique practice. In my recent book, The Healing Power of Acupressure and Acupuncture: A Complete Guide to Timeless Traditions and Modern Practice, I offer a detailed theory supporting the concept that acupuncture evolved from acupressure which itself evolved from massage techniques.
Early Origins
Chinese folklore has offered a few different theories regarding the origin of acupuncture, including a tale of a soldier cured of an ailment after being shot with an arrow and stories of primitive people relieved of their ills after being stuck with thorns in the brush. Another of these legends claims that ancient people noticed they developed sore spots during illness that would vanish when their malady subsided and that they ultimately learned how to manipulate those spots as a form of treatment. My support for this last theory is based on what I have learned about sore spots in my experience as a bodyworker and acupuncturist.
Before I began my acupuncture training, I briefly studied acupressure with Shiatsu and bodyworker master Wataru Ohashi. Ohashi taught a gentle, probing style of massage-like techniques to locate unusually tender points. Once such spots were found, pressure would be applied, but always under the threshold of discomfort to the client. This technique required precision in finding the epicenter of these spots which might be no bigger than a match head. Acupuncturists and acupressurists have learned that some of these sore spots signify something more than minor strains (microtrauma) in local muscle fibers. Sometimes they actually reflect a connection to non-local problems including disturbances of internal organs, glands, etc. These spots arise together with these other problems and fade when the non-local problems subside, just as the old legend claimed. Working out the soreness of these spots with one's hands, acupuncture, or heat therapy (moxibustion) helps resolve the underlying problems that they were associated with.
While my experience with the therapeutic value of treating sore spots has made me inclined to believe the sore spot legend, it still left two questions unanswered: How did these ancient people come to find these sore spots in the first place and how did finding them lead to the idea of using needles?
Primitive Touch
Virtually every culture has developed some form of touch therapy and it seems reasonable to assume that such practices originated during the dawn of human existence. For example, bump your head or elbow and you will automatically reach to rub it. Rubbing a sore spot in this manner reduces its pain, as does rubbing one's temples when suffering a headache or the belly of a baby suffering from colic. As primitive life was physically demanding and comforts were few, touch therapy undoubtedly played an important role in helping our ancient ancestors improve the quality of their life. Naturalists have observed that primates like to spend long stretches of time grooming each other. Perhaps early people spent hours massaging each others' aching muscles.
If our ancestors had spent time massaging sore muscles, they would probably have noticed that tiny sore spots often appear in otherwise completely normal tissues. I like to call these "hidden" sore spots because one is not aware of their tenderness until they are pressed in just the right manner. Massage therapists routinely find unusually tender spots on their clients in areas their clients were unaware were sore. As mentioned earlier, sometimes these spots are nothing more than local micro-trauma, but other times they can be non-local sore spots that spring-up in sympathy with other ailments. A respiratory problem such as a cough, for example, can cause hidden sore spots to manifest within muscle fibers of the chest, upper back, or wrist. When the cough subsides, the tenderness of these hidden sore spots also subsides. The ancient Chinese must have taken this discovery a step further and began rubbing the soreness out of these hidden spots. They found that doing so helped relieve the problems those spots were associated with. These discoveries led to the hands-on techniques that would later be called acupressure and tui-na (too-ee-na).
Getting to the Point
The use of needles was likely the next step in this progression. As the ancients' skill in touch therapy improved they would have found manipulating the center of sore spots to be the most effective way to relieve their soreness. To do this, one needs to learn techniques that utilize only a portion of one's fingertips in order to zero in on the epicenter. Some spots however, have epicenters as tiny as a grain of sand and may also be buried deep within muscle fibers. Even skilled touch therapists have difficulty reaching these spots to apply the direct pressure needed. The ancients must have found themselves wishing they had some sort of ultra-thin device, an extension of their fingers that could glide between muscle fibers and hit the bulls-eye. A needle!
I believe that the above scenario is the most likely explanation of how acupuncture first began; as the logical next step in the long evolution of touch therapy. This process began with the human instinct to rub boo-boos, progressed into forms of massage therapy, and then took a giant leap forward when the phenomenon of non-local, hidden sore spots was discovered. When needles began to be used, they proved such an invaluable labor saving tool that they became favored over hands-on techniques and the inherent connection between massage and acupuncture became obscured.
Whether or not acupuncture evolved directly from touch therapy may never be known for certain, but there is no doubt that these two therapies work well in combination. As acupuncture and touch therapies gain in popularity, it is my hope that these two specialties will work with and learn from one another. After all, they may very well be close relatives.
Matthew D. Bauer, LAc
LaVerne, California
Published: June 1, 2005
