Part One Tongue Diagnosis in class

A few weeks ago while we were in class I took pictures of all of our tongues before we went outside to practice some Qi Gong. After about half an hour of Qi Gong we came back inside and took more photos of our tongues to see if there were any changes. We also do this with our pulses (that will be another blog entry coming soon). We take our pulse before Qi Gong and then after wards. Pulse diagnosing is hard. Most of the time I don't think I even do it right, but it's fun! lol... Anyways, I gathered some photos of my classmates and wrote out what some of these indications could be. I will say after looking at these photos, cropping them and examining them, it gets sort of funny. I mean I can only look at someone's tongue for so long before there is this weird, giggly humor emerging!

 

Tongue#1: pale coloring of the tongue, scallops on the sides, looks like a slight coating on the tongue and dry, also swollen. Significance: blood deficiency due to dry pale coloring, spleen qi deficiency due to scallops, the coating would be normal except for the dryness. With dryness there could be a blood or yang deficiency, exterior attack of wind/cold or wind/heat. 

Tongue#2: purple/reddish body color, pale, thick, swollen with scallops on the side and a small crack in the upper Jiao burner. Significance: the coloring of the tongue could be head and blood stasis, pale would be blood deficiency, crack in the middle of the tongue indicates deficiency of stomach qi and the swelling of the sides could be a deficiency of the spleen qi or spleen yang.

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Tongue#3: Thin, pale red and wet with slight scallops on the edges more in the middle and lower Jiao with a red tip at the end and cracks around the center(stomach/spleen area). Significance: pale and red and wet signify a yang deficiency, possible spleen yang deficiency, the redness at the tip could be heat from the heart channel, scallops indicate spleen qi deficiency.

Tongue#4: transverse cracks in the middle jiao, red tip, thick coating of tongue gray towards the lower jiao,slightly swollen and wet. Significance: purple spot in the middle signifies blood stasis or/and heat in stomach,  gray and thickening- damp-cold in the spleen, or somewhere in the interior, red tip- heart fire and the transverse cracks in the middle could be the first stages of yin deficiency also deficiency of stomach yin.

Tongue#5: red, wet and shiny coloring of the body, long, tongue is rolled, the coating is towards the root which is yellow and two lines going down toward the tip of tongue. Significance: red, wet and shiny signify heat also stomach or/and kidney yin deficiency, rolled under generally signifies deficiency of heat in the heart, yellow coating presents damp-heat.

 

Tongue#6: red with no coating, red at the tip, scallops on the edges with a long vertical crack in the center, tongue is rolled under and seems to be shiny and wet. Significance: red, shiny, and wet again, signify heat. There doesn't appear to have a coating and that could signify yin deficiency with heat which goes for the tongue rolled under as well. Cracked in the center indicates deficiency of the Stomach yin. 

Tongue#7:  red coloring with yellow/whitish coating, greasy, slight scallops on the edges. tip rolled over, with spots in the back of the lower Jiao and swollen. Significance: heat in the nutritive or blood levels, swollen indicates heat in the stomach and heart, yellow coating in the lower jiao indicates heat and phlegm or maybe damp-heat in stomach and intestines. Scallops- qi deficiency.

Tongue#8: Red, wet, shiny and no coat, especially red at the tip, slight small crack in middle jiao, and short in length. Significance: red and shiny coloring indicate stomach and/or kid yin deficiency, with peeled (meaning no coat) possible heat from stomach. Red at tip= heat, short in length could indicate internal cold if body was pale, heat stirring liver wind.

Tongue#9: Red and dry, red at the tip, thin white coating more towards the lower jiao, tongue is swollen, and purplish towards the center of the tongue. Significance: red, dry with a slight coating indicates heat from excess burning body fluids, purplish in the center could be blood stasis and heat in the stomach, the swelling indicates damp-heat in stomach or spleen, heart heat or/and yang deficiency with dampness in spleen or kidney.

Tongue#10: Pale red coloring, slight line in the middle of tongue, scallops on the sides and the edges, tongue seems to be not rolled under or over, looks to be slightly moist. With the exceptions of the scallops the coloring looks to be normal. Significance: coloring is pretty normal, scallops indicate a spleen qi deficiency.

These pictures were taken before we did Qi Gong. The following pictures below are now pictures of the same tongues after Qi Gong performed. 

Tongue#1

 

Tongue#2

 Tongue#3

Tongue#4

Tongue#5

Tongue#6

Tongue#7

Tongue#8

Tongue#9

 Tongue#10

Do you see any changes after wards? I find it easier to be able to tell changes in doing the pulse easier after Qi Gong. The pulse is very easy to change so any exercise you do would change that instantly. However the tongue is more accurate in being able to tell what is going on with the body because it doesn't change so quickly.

Tongue Diagnosis Anyone???

Here in class we are learning a huge part of tongue diagnosing. The tongue is actually a better way of finding illness more so than in the pulse. The pulse simply is more sucepible to change than the tongue is. Here in the tongue diagnosis we have five aspects to observe when looking at the tongue. They are the following:

1. Vitality of the color- known "tongue spirit". Is the color lively? What is the color? If there is an appearance in vitality it would indicate that person is healthy.

2. Body Color- Indicates the state of Blood, Yin organs, and Ying (Nutritive) Qi. Body color is considered to be the most important aspect in observation of the tongue. A normal body color of the tongue would be a pink or light red color.

3. Body Shape- What is the size? What are the features and textures? Also how does it move if it is extended? The body shape reflects the state of  blood and ying nutritive Qi. The body shape also indicates whether or not it is Excess or Deficient.
A normal body shape of the tongue would be not cracked, no trembling or quivering while extended, not to small or large, and it will not be swollen or paper thin.

4. Coating of the tongue- It's all about the Stomach Qi with the coat yo! If your normally transforming and digesting food your coat will be thin and white!

5. Moisture- Reveals the state of Yin and Fluids in the body.Normal would be slight moist. This also is in relation to the stomach.

I have searched around the internet to find a normal tongue or well to try... Little did I know I was going to be very shocked to see some of the tongues out on the internet! Quite a few made me gag and gringe that I had to turn away from the pics. I found one tongue picture labeled as a "normal tongue coating". Lets take a look here:  

What is missing here is the coating. There is not a thin white coat on here yet there is a thickness of white coating towards the lower jiao of the tongue which is also the "Root" of the tongue. That is to be normal if that is the case. Other than that I see a pretty normal tongue. Maybe a little red, but that could be just from the way the lighting is on the camera.

This next illustration I have here is the internal organs and where they go in correspondence to the tongue. How fun and excite right??? :)

Lets take a look at some not so normal tongues and take a guess what is going on??

Can we say HEAT??? Seems that it is more wet than normal as well which red and wet= heat with retention of dampness! :)

 

Here we have a long vertical crack in the center of the tongue. This is related to the heart. This seems to be a normal color of the tongue so it seems to indicate a weakness in the heart. If there was no coating at all it could be a yin deficiency of the kidneys. There is also scallops which could be a spleen qi deficiency. 

Purple tongue... yikes! That is purple! This indicates cold, blood stasis or liver disease. This is a purplish/blue color which is an obstruction of moving blood. If it were to be a reddish purple that indicates heat condensing blood. 

What does your tongue say or indicate about you?

Four Pillars

I certainly had my day zoom by fast as always on Wednesdays. I'm in my fourth quarter at school now over at Mueller and two of my classes this quarter are assessment classes. The first one being Asian Assessment and right after that Body/Mind. So I'm getting the perspective on Chinese Medicine in how they look for disease and disharmonies. Body/Mind we are learning body types, emotions and where we store them in our bodies and how to better read a client while assessing them.

I will first start off with Asian Assessment. We are learning what is called the Four Pillars of Asian Assessment which include:
1. Observation/Looking
2. Listening & smelling (these two words are the same in Chinese)
3. Touching/Palpation
4. Asking

We are observing and looking at the face and tongue and palpating pulses. So this class is all about some tongue observations and pulse readings which take years and years of practice. There is no way to learn everything there is with this in 12 weeks, but I'm getting my feet pretty wet with Asian body work. This is now my third Asian body work class I have been introduced to since attending Mueller and I wish I could take them all! I love the looking at the body as a whole instead of looking at the body and mind as two separate parts. In the very short weeks of this quarter and well since this summer taking Asian Theory I have come to my own conclusions that you just cannot separate mind/body/spirit. Over the last three to four weeks I have been doing more observing of people, randomly asking friends to stick their tongues out and just looking for clues as to if they have Qi Stagnation (which is by the way where the normal movement or flow of Qi is impaired.) a possible deficiency in their stomach/spleen or perhaps blood deficiency which is usually caused by a spleen deficiency... don't know what exactly I'm talking about? Well look it up and educate yourself. lol.. It's some really amazing stuff! Tongue diagnosing is becoming pretty fun. We all even are going to bring our cameras in next Wednesday to take photos and get a Tongue page going for Mueller's facebook page. That would actually be pretty cool and would probably help promote other students in taking this class. It's really important in going into Asian body work to really get as many basics of how to read clients if your going to specialize with this particular body work. I wouldn't be able to just go in work on some points where my teacher tells me to work on without understanding what the flow of Qi is or why is it that the tongue is so important in assessment. It actually, what I am learning is probably the most reliable way to tell what is going on with someone. Even in Western Medicine a medical doctor has to look at your tongue to get some observation as to what is going on with their patients. Pulse however is just something that is going to take years of practice... kinda like hand rolling and I have only been practicing that for about four months!  Anywho there are 28 Chinese Pulses and that just blows me b/c I'm sitting here palpating classmates and I'm just like "umm huh.... " I get it but it's so suseptable to change that it is a little more hard to determine an illness. So we do a pulse intake and then do some Tui Na body work on each other which I LOVE! After we do that we check the pulses again to see any changes. We even check pulses after some Qi Gong exercises which is something else I'm absolutely in love with!

For those who wonder what the heck is Tui Na? "Grasp/Pull" It's a dispersion/tonifying technique used along the Meridian Channels. Today we worked on the legs... My favorite body part to work on! I was able to add Spleen 2,3,4 now to my list of knowledge on points! Tui Na is really good to get energized. It is compared to Shiatsu. Shiatsu is sedating points. So lets say if you really need to go to sleep or perhaps have too much Yang in ya like I do, you may want some Shiatsu! However, over the two, I will take Tui Na any day!

Quotes

I was going through one of my Chinese Medicine books called "The Web That Has No Weaver", during Christmas break one evening when I came across a little quote project I did on the computer. My initial intentions was to re-read Chapter Six on the Four Pillars. I got into the third page and some quotes came across my eyes that I really found interesting. I have read these quotes a couple of times before, but they did not stand out to me til at this very moment. Into three pages of this chapter, and three hours later I found myself with about 12 Tabs of Lung Channel research, Lau Tzo, Large Intestine Meridian Pictures, my own Meridian Map that I made for an Asian Body Class a couple of quarters ago and my Kinesiology book. I thought I was suppose to be on vacation! lol..Studying Chinese Medicine there just doesn't seem to be an end point... Always closing everything up with even more questions then with what I had before hand, but it is just amazing! I will have a question about the Kidney Meridian and I end up somehow on two or three astrology websites and exploring unconscious questions I have about my own self.pretty narly.

Anywho, in what was just a recapture of something I read a bit ago I got a little more into depth of what I have become pretty passionate about. The Art of Chinese Medicine and the Science of Chinese Medicine. It is mind blowing to me. It makes so much more sense to me than Western Medicine. I didn't think I would be this into it, but I am and I don't think I could ask for anything else to be passionate about at this point and time in my life. Anywho I began toying around with my nerdy Microsoft Publisher 2007 Software and made a Quotes Collage on Lau Tzo. Wanted to put them on my blog.

Quotes from LAU TZO
"To be bent is to become straight.
To be empty is to be full.
To be worn out is to be renewed.
To have little is to possess."

"In order to contract, it is necessary to first expand. In order to weaken, it is necessary to first strengthen. In order to destroy, it is necessary first to promote. In order to grasp, it is necessary first to give."

"He who stand on tiptoe is not steady.
He who strides forward does not go.
He who shows himself is not luminous.
He who justifies himself is not prominent.
He who boasts of himself is not given credit.
He who brags does not endure for long."

"Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complete each other.
Long and short contrast each other.
High and Low distinguish each other.
Front and back follow each other."

and my favorite........................

"Because of the right, there is a wrong and because of the wrong, there is a right.... The "this" is also the "that". The "that" is also the "this:... Is there really a distinction between "that" and "this"?.... When "this" and "that" have no opposites."