“3 things” MiWay clinical training
*Routes & Resonance
Acupuncture course
A comprehensive
clinical training
in the
acupuncture, qi skills and bodywork
from the
Ba Gua medical tradition
and the lineage of
Dr Xie Pie Qi
as taught by
Andrew Nugent-Head
and the Association for Traditional Studies
Chinese medicine is easy, there are only 3 things you can do in terms of treatment; reduce, tonify and regulate. How well you can do these 3 things, knowing when, why and how to do them, and understanding when you have completed the task is the key to reliable clinical efficacy.
This process is what we teach in the '3 things' course. Miway training is geared to gradually build your confidence and competence in clinical skills, to set those skills within the context of Classical Chinese Medicine and amongst a community of people who can genuinely help you to improve your practice.
This is why our training is so clinically focussed, why as students you will be treating each other, and why you will be sent videos before the training so that you are familiar with techniques. It is also why we will teach you the eight Dao Yin guiding qi gong forms so you can learn to manipulate your own qi and blood flow. And why you will be training to have consistently warm hands, so that you can bypass someone else’s barrier layers and defence systems to influence their nervous system and blood flow directly, to give you the awareness of “qi”; the compass that tells you when an actively engaged physiological process is happening.
You will learn the context, the “why” of the techniques; understanding the five phase map we use to describe the aspects which need to be balanced in a healthy physiology: structural form, flow of fluids, sensory feedback and metabolic function.
You will also get to experience discussions of translations of characters and passages from the Nei Jing, to expand your thinking and link up observations and experiences that you will already have had throughout your life.
But most importantly you get to practice techniques and learn by giving accurate feedback when practiced upon. You will learn how much the slightest movement you make with hand or needle can alter a sensation to become painful, horrible, accurate, therapeutic, delightful, or magical. You will learn how to be a patient, and what effective treatment feels like when you receive it. In other words, you will understand what your patients are not telling you. As a practitioner that means you are learning to give great feedback, and how to know in real time when you are having an effect, when you are not, and when your task is done.
Curriculum
The full clinical skills series is comprised of 3 Units, (Routes, Resonance, Regulate).
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Each Unit consists of 6 sessions, (one session per week on a Friday afternoon).
Each session lasts 4 hours, so that’s 1 x 4 hour session every week for 6 weeks. (24 hours total).
The full series is 3 of these Units (total 72 hours of practical teaching).
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You can attend just one unit, and you can take the units in any order that you choose, handy if you have a particular treatment approach that you need to understand asap.
All Units cover needling, qi and bodywork.
We start each Unit with the signature technique for that treatment approach. For example, the signature technique for dispersal is ashi needling, so we start with that from the first session. Over the coming weeks we then build on that core skill to draw out the nuances of the technique, how the hand and qi skills enhance or back up the needling skills, as well as beginning to understand how to assess and decide when to use the skills, when to alter them, and what you can expect in the context of a treatment tailored to an individual.
An integral part of these skills is also to learn the Dao Yin (qi gong) skills to be able to internalise and manifest the subtle changes of your own state in order that you can reliably affect someone else’s state.
Why Train with Us
During the summer of 2018, during the ATS senior practitioners' summit in Loano, Northern Italy, Andrew Nugent-Head made it clear, and we all unwittingly agreed that, to remain as senior practitioners within the ATS set up, we had to commit to teaching. This also meant that we had committed to teach in the way that we ourselves had been taught, with no pretence, no pomp, no rigid seniority or secret transmissions, just hard work, practical, honest and fun training amongst people who genuinely want you to improve your practice.
Why not Train with Us
Please be aware though this training is not for everyone. These courses are intended to change you and to change your practice. If you are at a place where you are very comfortable with how you treat, do not sign up. If you are nervous about leaving the structure of your current thinking or training in Chinese medicine or are committed to following a particular path or lineage that you are already involved with, maybe this will not add to your work. Although having said that what we are teaching is quality of touch so it is very unlikely that you will not find it extremely useful whatever your current practice.
Also if you are physically weak and not willing to change, or physically lazy, it is worth admitting this to yourself or at least being aware that the Ba Gua system will be a challenge for you.
What is *Routes and Resonance?
Routes & Resonance is the way we describe our interpretation of the Classical approach to acupuncture and Chinese medicine.
The lines through physical tissues are what we call the “Routes”. These are obvious in structures such as limbs. You can think of them as Anatomy trains or, sinews or meridians or wherever the Chinese use terminology of riverbeds and flow.
The resonance areas are those which are more spherically orientated and which have to align themselves very strongly with gravity. They need to be affected globally all at once by resonating and vibrating rhythmically. Examples of these spherically orientated areas are the skull, the pelvic region, the talus bone at the ankle, as well as the joints of the body. These areas are often referenced by the Chinese as seas, as in the sea of qi or the sea of blood.
Regulation involves balanced distribution of blood, muscular strength, qi and nervous system proprioception along the routes between the resonance areas. For example, between the head and the torso via a relaxed and appropriately supportive neck, or the head and pelvis being able to co-ordinate through a supple but supportive spinal column.
Regulating, Routes and Resonance are the “3 things”, the way the body is organised as well as the tools we have as practitioners to restore health in the body.