Question for Bob Flaws

[Guest guest]

I just went through your marvelous CEU pulse course. I posed these questions

earlier but I don't think you may have read them. Is 90 BPM the new standard

for a rapid pulse. Also you encourage using a timepiece to take the rate of

speed. This objective measurement seems to belie the notion that one can

have a fast pulse in only on of the positions.

 

I'm thinking that perhaps this opens up the possibility that there is a

value to counting breaths per beat because taking longer to access, it

allows the subjective element to have the possibility of one perceiving a

faster pulse, therefore heat, in one position as opposed to another.

 

Michael Tierra

 

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[Guest guest]

" I just went through your marvelous CEU pulse course. I posed these

questions earlier but I don't think you may have read them. "

 

Sorry, I'm in and out of town often. When out of town, I am off line.

 

" Is 90 BPM the new standard for a rapid pulse. "

 

Yes, although I would not say " new. " This has been the standard since

I was a student at the Shanghai College of TCM back in the early 80s.

It is stated as such in virtually all the Chinese textbooks on pulse

examination that I have seen published since the early 80s. I do not

know when or by whom this standard was first introduced, but it's not

anything new or particularly controversial.

 

" Also you encourage using a timepiece to take the rate of speed. This

objective measurement seems to belie the notion that one can have a

fast pulse in only on of the positions. "

 

Although I once believed this, I now no longer do. Anything I wrote or

said prior to 1990 should be taken with a very large grain of salt and

checked against other, more authoritative sources.

 

Back during the 70s, there was an acupuncture school in Santa Fe

called the Kototama Institute. The sensei there made his students

promoise not to teach or publish until they had been in practice for

at least 10 years. Would that I had followed that early advice. I

should never have flapped my trap back in the 80s. My wine had simply

not matured since it was lacking a hugely important ingredient: access

to the primary source literature of our profession.

 

" I'm thinking that perhaps this opens up the possibility that there is

a value to counting breaths per beat because taking longer to access,

it allows the subjective element to have the possibility of one

perceiving a faster pulse, therefore heat, in one position as opposed

to another. "

 

Do what you want, but I think you already do too much thinking. It's

not too late to actually do two things: 1) Begin learning to read

modern medical Chinese. 2) Go to China for three months or so and work

in clinic with some really senior Chinese doctors.

 

Just my two cents. Sorry if this ruffles your tail-feathers, but you

did ask my opinion.

 

Bob

[Guest guest]

Bob, talk about ruffled feathers! -- I thought this was a forum to share

ideas, ask questions share views and ideas and expect a respectful response

from colleagues. Instead you seem to have taken to flaming out with

uninvited personal criticisms like an arrogant peacock unable to tolerate or

hear anyone else's views but your own.

 

My point throughout all of these discussions is that there are other

traditions, there are other respected views and they often do not agree.

That hopefully this is a living tradition and the experiences and

observations of Western CM practitioners and healers can be as valid as any

that you or anyone in China may have, certainly worthy of respectful

response.

 

One would be a pedantic fool to think that there is only one way to make

music, there is only one way to prepare oneself to make music and that

beyond all that there is only one music. My first calling that that

accompanies my over 30 years practice of Chinese medicine, Western herbal

medicine and Ayurveda is as a classical musician, concert pianist, a

composer who studied with the US protégée of Arnold Schoenberg (also a

traditionalist), founder of a R & R band that enjoyed a brief moment of fame

and a single recording called the United States of America (look it up on

the internet). I've played jazz professionally but don't consider myself

proficient in it because I prefer classical music, I've founded and directed

music festivals with a special interest in avant garde contemporary music

and old music from the 16th century previous, I could go on about this side

part of my life but I hoped that my asserting that there are many musical

traditions, methods of playing, composing, philosophies and so forth just as

there are many CM traditions today and in the past. It is ridiculous to

maintain that that there is only one way to make music of that there is only

musical tradition. Similarly there is not only one tradition in CM. Ted

Kaptchuk once said that his reviewing the in-the-trenches practice of CM

from the 19th century and previous was mostly shamanistic. If you don't

agree with this, I suggest you take it up with him as I quite frankly don't

know. What I do know is that is the dimension of CM that communist Chinese

medicine attempted to expunge. Not that I prefer that but please note that

it seems to harken to some of the current adulterations of standard CM

practice where individuals use tuning forks, essential oils, flower

essences, kinesiology, iridology, homeopathics and the whole plethora

shamanistic transpersonal modalities as part of their CM practice.

 

In my opinion the best remedy for not allowing CM to become a watered down

mystical cult is for corroborating research that examines the classical

tenets of CM with Western medical science. This research has been and has

been actively pursued by the Chinese and I only wish I could read Chinese to

examine it more closely. The material I have found suggests a corroboration

with the CM concept of the Spleen and mitochondria replication in the cells,

the relationship of the Kidneys to the adrenals and endocrine system, the CM

heart with recently discovered heart hormones so forth. While these findings

may not fully explain all the ideas of CM, they are enough. So I mentioned

the possibility that stomach yin may be the mucus lining of the stomach and

that Maciocia said that yin deficiency begins in the CM Stomach. I thought

everyone learned that but judging from the criticisms and questions, I was

surprised that may not have been the case.

 

So rather than think that every notion and idea that is put forward than may

be differ with our own current views why not realize that we are all working

towards the same objective and treat each other with respect? Why feel

threatened with the idea that someone may have a different perspective on

things than our own.

 

Bob, to return to your comment: While I asked for your opinion about 90 BPM

and wanted to hear your thoughts about counting the breaths I certainly

didn't and wouldn't invite your opinion about my level of expertise. It just

so happens that my 30 years experience informs me that for the patients that

I have seen a pulse of 82 BPM is fast and 90 BPM verges on being

pathological or a caving into a more stressful lifestyle. This what I first

learned and happens to be currently upheld by Maciocia a colleague of ours

who also reads the primary literature. I wanted to hear your views since I

recently completed your wonderful CEU course on pulse diagnosis. It is

clear, to the point, no BS and offers a wonderful foundation to this

controversial subject. I noted how you said before arriving at your

methodology that you had been in a quandary about the pulse. So you dug your

heals in with it. I also was in a quandary about it and all that I had

learned and so I was happy that you provided another wonderful and

definitive course of study. That doesn't necessarily mean that everything

you said needs to be definitive so I had a question about speed and speed in

relation to individual positions. There are many other questions you course

has brought up and knowing and appreciating how much you delved and compared

the literature on this subject I'd love to be able to ask further questions

but am wont to do so lest it will provoke further personal criticisms and

attacks from you.

 

As to counting the breaths, if you and others are espousing a tradition

based on the classical literature there is the possibility that counting

breaths may facilitate a more subjective assessment of pulse rate. From your

response you could not even consider that and just used it as a segue way to

your launching personal criticism and unwanted advice.

 

And Zev, I was not referring to you as a representative of the

fundamentalist branch of TCM. You are trying to give your students a solid

foundation in CM and I respect that, however I don't think from what I've

read or heard from you that you are so narrow and close minded. Its a

tendency that I find and that is so disempowering to students and newer

practitioners to be unable to entertain any other views than one's own and

then to consider that those views must always be the correct ones.

 

Somehow Bob, since you injected a personal element into this discussion,

since you are now able to acknowledge that there were flaws in your

pre-1990's writings, what makes you so sure that there are not some flaws in

your present views?

 

Michael Tierra

_____

 

 

On Behalf Of Bob Flaws

Friday, February 22, 2008 8:06 AM

 

Re: Question for Bob Flaws

 

 

 

" I just went through your marvelous CEU pulse course. I posed these

questions earlier but I don't think you may have read them. "

 

Sorry, I'm in and out of town often. When out of town, I am off line.

 

" Is 90 BPM the new standard for a rapid pulse. "

 

Yes, although I would not say " new. " This has been the standard since

I was a student at the Shanghai College of TCM back in the early 80s.

It is stated as such in virtually all the Chinese textbooks on pulse

examination that I have seen published since the early 80s. I do not

know when or by whom this standard was first introduced, but it's not

anything new or particularly controversial.

 

" Also you encourage using a timepiece to take the rate of speed. This

objective measurement seems to belie the notion that one can have a

fast pulse in only on of the positions. "

 

Although I once believed this, I now no longer do. Anything I wrote or

said prior to 1990 should be taken with a very large grain of salt and

checked against other, more authoritative sources.

 

Back during the 70s, there was an acupuncture school in Santa Fe

called the Kototama Institute. The sensei there made his students

promoise not to teach or publish until they had been in practice for

at least 10 years. Would that I had followed that early advice. I

should never have flapped my trap back in the 80s. My wine had simply

not matured since it was lacking a hugely important ingredient: access

to the primary source literature of our profession.

 

" I'm thinking that perhaps this opens up the possibility that there is

a value to counting breaths per beat because taking longer to access,

it allows the subjective element to have the possibility of one

perceiving a faster pulse, therefore heat, in one position as opposed

to another. "

 

Do what you want, but I think you already do too much thinking. It's

not too late to actually do two things: 1) Begin learning to read

modern medical Chinese. 2) Go to China for three months or so and work

in clinic with some really senior Chinese doctors.

 

Just my two cents. Sorry if this ruffles your tail-feathers, but you

did ask my opinion.

 

Bob

 

 

 

 

 

_____

 

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3314 Newsletters for me

You can use it too - and it's FREE! www.ellaforspam.com

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I think it's time to end this aspect of the discussion. This is

getting too personal.

 

 

 

>

> Bob, talk about ruffled feathers! -- I thought this was a forum to share

> ideas, ask questions share views and ideas and expect a respectful

response

> from colleagues. Instead you seem to have taken to flaming out with

> uninvited personal criticisms like an arrogant peacock unable to

tolerate or

> hear anyone else's views but your own.

>