We see many differences in the cultural setting that acupuncture is used. Of course, every teacher comes from their own lineage and brings with them regional adaptations and procedures specific to them. Of course, there is the basic traditional TCM. Then there is the Five Elements approach. Mongolian acupuncture brings in Four Medical Tantras, the root text of Tibetan Medicine; Koreans use the Sa-am four needle technique more in the extremities; Japanese acupuncture uses thinner needles with a subtle and shallower insertion; in Vladivostok, Sergei Fedotov of Pulse-Academy is using rhythm based diagnostics where the "organism is a set of metabolic oscillators – biocomplexes of all kinds", auricular acupuncture, electroacupuncture, sonopuncture, cupping, ... then there is TuiNa developed for quick relief on the battle fields of centuries past... and so the list goes on....
Let's see if we can use this forum to drill a bit deeper into how all these potential cross-pollination can aid the practitioners out there by providing a greater overview of any one school of thought and help further our understanding of the human body/energetic field as we know it today..
What I find very interesting is how these styles can emerge as well. I was speaking to one acupuncturist who explained much of English and Western acupuncture all emerged, effectively, from the well-meaning interpretations of Giovanni Maciocia. It was an interesting revelation that what we considered to be ‘Chinese medicine’ was very much ‘Giovanni’s interpration of Chinese medicine‘. With that in mind I would say almost all of what I practice and ‘believe’ in is derived from Wang Ju-Yi style of channel palpating and his understanding of the Six Levels. Don’t have much time for TCM in my practice/
I also don't consider myself a 'TCM' practitioner. I'd agree that much of what's taught in schools, particularly in the US, is very much flavored by both Maciocia and by the late 1940s/early 1950s Chinese communist government.
The problem, if it can be said to be a problem, is that few students are given the tools, space and time to try to figure out what these concepts mean for themselves. Instead they simply trust someone else's interpretation and never question.
It's an even more rare occurrence when they're given the tools to map ancient Chinese concepts in to modern science/anatomy - though schools are getting better in this regard.
Interesting discussion, I'll come back to it later...
Coming back to this - another big problem, especially in the west, is that we've been saddled with some very poor translation/interpretation of key words and core concepts. This is something Dan has highlighted in his book "The Uncharted Body" by showing what the original characters for JingLuo actually mean and how "meridian" is an extremely poor translation on several levels. While I prefer "channel" for shorthand, even this doesn't adequately capture what the Chinese were trying to say. Don't even get me started on "qi". There's a 180-ish page book available that takes the reader through the etymology of the character, modern usage, and potential translations to English and even those authors, after all that, don't settle on one authoritative rendition. Going back to Maciocia for a minute - his books make decent summary (barring the places where the text flat out contradicts the figures/drawings) but the mistake most schools make is substituting Maciocia's works for an actual investigation of the core classical sources. The program I attended never had us read the Nei Jing or Nan Jing - it wasn't until later that I started digging in to these books myself and it wasn't until I was taking doctorate classes that I had the opportunity to bounce some ideas off instructors and other students (and a couple instructors really opened my eyes in this regard, particularly with the Ling Shu).
Sorry, I'm bouncing around a bit, this is a topic that holds great interest for me....
It’s such a messy place this translation of medical terms. Maciocia did a splendid job but was just one man. quite Incredible how much influence he has!