Acupuncture has a long history stretching back up to 2000 years and drawing its core theory from the ancient text known as: The Yellow Emperors Classic of Internal Medicine. Since then there have been many changes and refinements coming from China, Japan, Korea, India and Europe. These have developed into what we can call strands of Modern Acupuncture. This would include what is known as Medical Acupuncture, Dry Needling or Trigger Point Acupuncture techniques. However, we focus on those theories which draw on holistic traditional practice and bring it into a modern context. Our short acupuncture course will discuss the history of acupuncture and then concentrate on two theories known generally as TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and Five Element Acupuncture. We also include Ear Acupuncture which was mostly developed in Europe over the last century.  Ours is an ideal acupuncture course for beginners or for health professionals or anyone else who has an interest in an online acupuncture course combined with a weekend acupuncture skills course.

We are called the Healing & Acupuncture College for a reason and that is to acknowledge that acupuncture is more than a method to reduce pain or help heal an injury (although its good for those things too). Our Acupuncture weekend course concentrates on practical techniques most of the time. This includes healing techniques like visualisations and opportunities to focus on different needling techniques. Training in acupuncture is an ongoing self-development project where we become more in tune with ourselves and who we really are (which is not the same as who we think we are). There are many acupuncture techniques you can learn, many acupuncture colleges and many part-time or weekend acupuncture courses but there is only one you. It is you and your ability to heal yourself and others through the medium of acupuncture that is our main area of focus.

We start by learning how to position the hands and simply feel for pulses in three positions on each wrist. We try and do this with an empty mind and without judgement so as to acknowledge that although one part of pulse taking is academic and practical (learning what different feelings mean) another is purely intuitive. Later we develop this further as we recognise changes in the pulse during the course of treatments in the clinic. This is a great challenge for some established health professionals who have not previously seen pulses in this way. We believe ours is a great acupuncture course for health professionals generally and can greatly help to broaden the scope of an established practice.

We will be looking at pictures of tongues, our own tongues and the tongues of patients in clinic. Although tongue diagnosis tends to be more relevant to herbal medicine than to acupuncture it is still a useful way to help confirm a diagnosis and monitor progress.