I was asked by Mei Long to write a note of welcome to the participants of a five element seminar she is giving in Beijing in July. This is what I wrote for her:
On the last afternoon of my seminar in China in April, when we had planned our usual emotional photo-shoots and tearful goodbyes, I made a last-minute change of plan for myself. I realised afterwards that this decision had, in a strange way, symbolized my personal legacy for my time in China. As part of the programme for our seminar, we had planned to treat a certain number of patients, and I was told that they had added one or two more stand-by people in case somebody didn’t turn up on the day. In the event, by the last day there was just one person left on the list. I had read her notes which told me that she was a long-time cancer sufferer, somebody who could definitely benefit from receiving treatment. She must have been waiting all week on standby, hoping that she might be able to take one of the places, but assuming now that this was not going to happen. I could imagine how she might be feeling having her hopes dashed, and it suddenly felt right to me that I should offer to see her privately during our last afternoon, leaving Guy and Mei to take over the final hours of the main seminar.
In the event this decision turned out to be a very moving experience for me, proving to be an excellent example of what my time in China has meant to me. For after the patient left, looking transformed by her treatment, it summed up for me in a very moving way what the practice of five element acupuncture offered its patients at the highest level. I left the seminar so happy that I had chosen to finish this last day in China on such a personally high note. What was it about this one treatment which encapsulated so significantly what I had hoped to bring to China as my contribution to the return of this healing discipline to the country of its birth?
There are many lessons about five element practice that my many visits to China over the past 14 years have taught me. All have enriched my understanding of my own practice in often surprising ways. Firstly, I became aware of the fact that to all Chinese, unlike to people in the West, the Dao, yin yang and the five elements, these simple but profound words which encompass the whole of Chinese thought, are totally familiar concepts. There was therefore no need for me to start my introduction to five element practice at this most basic level, as it had been in the West, for everybody was already totally at ease with these concepts. This made teaching an absolute delight from the very first day. Then the groups mainly consisted of people who were already trained acupuncturists or in training to become acupuncturists, so that I had no need to spend time teaching them the anatomical locations of acupuncture points or how to palpate for them.
Another fundamental difference which made my work in China so rewarding was the speed at which everybody so quickly understood the new concepts underlying five element practice. They were quick to learn how we diagnose the elements through our senses, and proved surprisingly skilful at training these senses. Perhaps I was lucky that there were so few who doubted the truth of what I was teaching them, although there must have been some who did, but the vast majority of the many hundreds who came to our seminars over the years accepted almost without question that this was a profound healing technique. As I often told them, I was so grateful that their ancestors, the ancient Chinese, had created such a simple way of restoring health and balance to human beings.
The need to help practitioners with a diagnosis of their own element, which I see as an essential part of five element practice, meant that we also had gradually to devise a method of diagnosing the many hundreds of people who came to our seminars. This taught me that looking at the different elements in small groups, as we did, proved to be an excellent way of diagnosing the elements, as the qualities of the different elements emerged most clearly when groups of the same element were observed together. This was another important new lesson which my visits to China taught me.
A very significant moment in the return of five element acupuncture to its country of birth was the meeting between Mei Long and me at a seminar I gave in the Netherlands at which Mei for the first time heard me talk about five element acupuncture. This was the catalyst which led to her contacting Professor Liu Lihong to tell him about what she had learned, and for both of us very soon being invited to China for our first five element seminar in Nanning in 2011. This led directly to what has become today the very large and vibrant groups of Chinese five element practitioners, with firm roots now spread throughout China. You, who are coming to this seminar with Mei, are some of these practitioners and students.
I am sure that you will be relieved to be able to listen in your native language to what Mei will be teaching you, rather than having to listen all the time to me talking in English and waiting for the translators to help you understand what I am saying!
I send you all my love and best wishes for your future five element practice.
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