Rob Aspell

Concordia Clinic Liverpool

What a place 🙏🏻 I woke up today feeling like 💩 So I booked into the Hyperbaric Oxyben Chamber at @concordiaclinic and got some treatment. Came out feeling brand new. The best place in the city for health, wellness, recovering, and healing. If you haven't already tried it, you need to get on to them #healthiswealth

Proud to say that another group of Tui Na students have graduated with the Xian Tian College of Chinese Medicine!

It’s been a great pleasure to see each of the students learning the practice of Tui Na, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how their clinical practice develops over the future… well done all! 🙌🏻

The ‘Sixth Virtue’ of Tui Na

Most of you who practice Tui Na will have heard about the ‘5 Virtues’ of Tui Na - if not, I think I have posted about them previously and it’s also in my book. But I feel I should talk about an ‘unofficial’ sixth virtue: Shen (神), which I see very few practitioners applying! I usually just see boredom, no spark, distraction, lack of engagement.

When I say Shen in this context, I’m talking about the engagement of the the mind and focus, and also to the vitality and ‘life’ that should be applied to practicing Tui Na.

Obviously we know the Shen to be a combination of five aspects of mind - here I am referring to all five when I say that we should be applying Shen whilst practicing Tui Na:

Firstly, it’s the Hun that gives us the drive and that ‘army general’ like mindset to take control of the patient and to guide the flow of Qi. It’s the Hun that allows us to take hold of the tissues with unwavering assertiveness in order to manipulate and align. Without this, the patient feels uncomfortable, they feel you lack confidence, and will not relax to give you their body.

The Po is what engages our senses and provides feedback to the Shen. The Shen translates this and makes subconscious and conscious adaptations to our technique and treatment spontaneously. Without this, we are performing technique mindlessly and not in accordance to the patient’s state.

The Shen also provides access to our previous experiences and gives clarity on how to treat such conditions. It gives vitality and ‘life’ to the treatment by applying mindfulness. Without this, treatment and techniques are empty and ineffective.

The Zhi enables continuity and consistency to our techniques. It provides foundation and stability to keep the mind from wondering. The Zhi provides root and discipline to remain engaged for the duration.

Finally, it’s the Yi that brings this all together and apply all five aspects of Shen by giving focus and intent to our treatment. It is also the part of the Shen that helps us utilise what we have understood intellectually about our medicine.

So there you go, the unofficial ‘sixth virtue’ of Tui Na - SHEN! The difference it makes is massive.