Since I’m a newly minted personal trainer, I’ve been practicing on a few friends. Allyson, one of my friends from the gym, just passed her last exam to become a full-fledged acupuncturist. She suggested a trade: I train her and she’d stick pins in me. Okay, she didn’t put it that way exactly.
Since I’ve been teaching yoga for many years, people often assume I’m experienced in all sorts of alternative healing modalities. But I had never had an acupuncture session.
The basic premise of acupuncture is that you can gain physical and emotional balance by inserting needles at strategic points along the body’s energy channels. In Chinese medicine, these channels are called meridians. In yoga, we call them nadis. Since I’ve always been needle-averse, I had not explored acupuncture further than a vague understanding of its general point.
But I figured it was time to be a little more open-minded, so we set up the trade.
I didn’t know what to expect. Sure, needles are involved, but do they look just like sewing needles? Do they hurt? Would I have to take my clothes off? What if it didn’t do anything? Where, exactly, would I be stuck?
During my first session yesterday, Allyson took it easy on me. She agreed to give me veto power over needles in any places I thought were too weird. We discussed my health and psychological conditions and decided to go for an overall balancing with concentration on creativity and mental focus.
We descended to her basement and I lay down on a massage table. She had a table warmer, which was nice. I only had to take off my sweatshirt and socks, leaving me with pants and a tank top. Turned out the needles had red plastic tips on them like safety flags, which was a relief, because I’d heard of needles getting lost in people. Allyson said she was using the extra-gentle needles on me, which her friends in acupuncture school referred to as “butter coated.” Actually, they’re coated with silicone, which makes them slide in more easily.
Just a few little needles
Still, I was apprehensive about the first poke. She started with a place near my knee, which she said was “very nourishing” for my digestion. I could definitely feel it go in, a very small sharpness, but not too bad. Next came one near my ankle, a few in my arm and one near my right wrist. That was the one that gave me the strongest reaction. When she slid it in, I felt an immediate sensation near my thumb. Allyson said that’s where that energy channel leads. It’s associated with the lungs, grief and the color white. My lungs seem fine, but there’s been some grief in the last six months, so maybe that’s why I felt that point so noticeably. The last few needles went in my scalp, which wasn’t as bad as it might sound. Then Allyson covered me with a sheet and let me cook.
There’s no particular way you’re supposed to feel, she told me. Some people relax so much they fall asleep. Others have emotions come up. I was chatty, but that’s nothing new. While the needles did their thing, Allyson told me a little about her trip to China, where she studied acupuncture in hospitals. Sounds like they use big needles there, and are about 1/100th as gentle as Allyson was with me.
You can see here it’s quite a skinny needle, though “butter-coated” is an exaggeration
Allyson took the needles out after 25 minutes, which she said was a good length of time for a first session. More seasoned acupuncture enthusiasts might want them left in for a whole hour. Also, I had planned to go to Spinning to get my day’s cardio dose in, and it was about to start.
As I drove to the gym, my driving didn’t seem top notch. But again, like the chattiness, I don’t know if it’s fair to blame that on acupuncture.
The relaxation of my acupuncture session set in when I mounted my Spinning bike. I was decidedly demotivated. Why do people Spin, I wondered. Why don’t they take a nap or go lie on the gym’s heated massage bed? But I was there, so I persevered. Jocelyn, the teacher, encouraged us to ride faster! Don’t give up! Make every minute count! Her coaching rolled right off me. Then we got to the most intense part of the class, five minutes where we were supposed to pretend we were pedaling uphill in a race, and whenever we caught up to somebody we’d put on a spurt of energy and pass them. I closed my eyes to try to imagine this better. And that’s where the relaxation and creativity of the acupuncture session manifested itself. No way did I feel like I could pick off serious bike racers. But in my head, I conjured those whom I could pass. First, a turtle, then a snail. I picked up my pace, soon overtaking a fish out of water, an old man whose wheelchair had broken down, a snake with tire tracks across it, a Venus flytrap, and a stoner in a hammock smoking a joint. When I crested the imaginary hill, I felt like a champ.
I victoriously pass a snail on my Spin bike. photo by Mary Tapogna
A day later, I’m still not sure exactly what effects, if any, my first acupuncture experience had on me. If nothing obvious, at least I’m getting more educated about a practice I know little about. I look forward to trading a few more sessions with Allyson and seeing what happens next.
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