We had a lot of fun during our photo shoot for this website. Rhiannon Panipoulos is our photographer extraordinaire, and Cathy Sitzes (creator of Throw Like a Girl and This Time Will Be Different) is our videographer. They documented the painting of acupuncture channels (lines) on my models, then captured the lines moving on these incredible athletes as they did their thing.
Naby Bangoura is the dancer, and a master dance teacher in the Bay Area from Guinea, West Africa. On Naby, I have the Small Intestine, and Urinary Bladder channels painted on him. This pair together forms one larger channel known as Taiyang, or Biggest Yang channel. It is the channel where the most sun can hit your body, and is the most exterior of of all the channels. In terms of pathology, Taiyang diseases are also the most exterior, meaning they come from the outside of the body. The common cold is the most obvious example. If this Taiyang channel is strong, the pathogen will never enter the body, or if it does it will just stay in this exterior level until the body can resolve it, or until acupuncture or herbs are taken to fight it off.
Amy Leedham is a San Francisco architect and an ultra marathon trail runner (aka “the punisher”). On Amy, the lines represent the Yin/Yang paired channels of the Liver and Gall Bladder. This is another way to pair channels, according to organ pairs. So the Liver and the Gallbladder are two distinct channels. The Liver is an “internal” channel and a yin, or solid, organ. The channel is located on the inside aspect of the body, the inner leg and middle of the abdomen. The Gall Bladder is an “external” channel and a Yang, or hollow, organ. It is located on the outside of the leg, side of the abdomen, and side of the face, the most exposed, or yang, area of the body.
These two organs, the Liver and Gallbladder, are pairs in Chinese medicine because of their close relationship. The Liver is the solid organ, or the Zang, and the Gall Bladder is the hollow organ, the Fu. (The Gall Bladder is actually known as a curious organ, as is the uterus, because of it’s ability to be hollow, and store pure fluid. You can read more about that on your own if you’d like) One relationship is the biochemical perspective. The Liver creates bile and the Gall Bladder stores and secretes the Bile. From an energetic perspective, the Liver is in charge of the smooth flow of qi, while the Gall Bladder dredges and keeps all the inbetween spaces open for that qi to go through. The Yin/Yang paired channels create many areas of connection between the two for communication and coordination between the two organ systems.
Brian “Wheels” Siu Yang is an architect in San Francisco as well, and he is an all around baller. Brian is showing the Stomach and Spleen paired channels. Like the Liver and Gall Bladder, the Spleen and Stomach are also Yin/Yang Pairs. The Spleen is the internal channel, yin, solid organ. The Stomach is the external channel, yang, and hollow organ. These are the main digestive organs of the body in Chinese medicine. The Stomach controls the rotting and ripening of the food that enters through the mouth. From there, the Spleen will extract the nutrients and transform it into food qi and refined essence. The Stomach then transports the food from to the Small Intestine for further refining and absorption.
Please watch the video my, my amazing and emmy-award winning sister Erica Ross, for editing this video. She also stiched together the photos for the website.