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An informative and entertaining blog pertaining to Classical Chinese Medicine. Covers basic and advanced information about CCM, but also explores the intersections of Chinese philosophy (medical and non-medical) with personal productivity, politics,
Recent Posts Tagged With 'studying'
Learn to read classical Chinese medical texts – special deal for Deepest Health readers
I’ve been a little slow out of the gate with this one, folks, and I’m sorry about that. Richard Goodman, author of the excellent Classical Chinese Medical Texts: Learning to Read the Classics of Chinese Medicine Vol I has released Volume...
Reawakening the faculty of touch in learning Chinese herbs
So, I didn’t write much about using the faculty of sight in learning Chinese herbs. That’s mostly because I’m doing other research about it, particularly around the doctrine of signatures and I’d prefer to write more when I ha...
Chinese medicine mind mapping
Unfortunately, I just lost a great post I was writing about Chinese medicine and mind mapping. Because I’m pretty tired and don’t feel like writing it up again – I’ll just offer the pictures I was going to insert. This will ha...
Acupuncture and Chinese medicine board exam preparation : the bad, the worse, and the ugly
I recently took and passed three NCCAOM board exams. I think I may have lost months and years of my life’s energy in doing so. It was one of the more annoying testing experiences of my life. This was the case due to a number of factors, and non...
Listening my way to success in the NCCAOM acupuncture board exam
As I said before, I’ve been spending a significant amount of time studying for and taking my NCCAOM board exams. As I said in my last post… “…I’ve successfully completed the foundations and biomedicine exams already. ...
How am I going to survive the next twelve weeks? A study in the power of Chinese medicine theory
Well, it’s finally come to this - the final quarter of my formal institutional training in Classical Chinese Medicine. Wow. I mean, really, wow. There are quite a few of you out there who are in the same boat I am - looking graduation in th...
Reading widely to learn Chinese medicine
It’s been almost four years, now, that I’ve been doing focused and formal study of Chinese medicine. Over that time, I’ve tried many study methods. Some of them were only useful during some specific part of my education, and sti...
Train your brain : try Lumosity
I get requests to review products from time to time, and frankly I deny most of them. However, sometimes something catches my eye and I try it out. I jettison about half of those, and the remaining products/services are few. The problem is that...
Necessity is the mother of learning acupuncture points
One of the things I have noticed in my scant 20 or so weeks of hands-on clinical practice is the great difficulty of accurately locating acupuncture points. At times the body seems an intolerably huge landscape - full of unfamiliar landmarks and co...
Technological teaching : social networking for natural medicine practitioners and a study update
I’ve been working with Saturday features these last few months. I like the idea of a links post, but they don’t get much traffic and they’re sort of boring to write. I figure it makes more sense to offer something of real value ...
Symbolism, Chinese medicine and the birth of a new project
I’ve been working on a series about the Chinese medicine organ systems for the past few weeks. We’ve already covered the Lung, and then the Large Intestine in two parts. During that time, my understanding of the symbolism (including w...
Simple solution to a complicated study problem
In the post I wrote recently about transitioning to a more self-motivated form of studying, I presented a fairly complicated problem. When you leave the comfy confines of rigorous acaemic life, it becomes difficult to keep focused on scholarly achi...
How to make the transition from forced study to self-motivated study
Now that I am in my fourth year of schooling in Classical Chinese Medicine, the “academic” pressures lessen in a number of ways. We have a few classes outside of clinic, but they are not academically rigorous in the way that Acupuncture...
Understanding Chinese herbs using Classical Chinese Medical thinking
Sometimes I learn small things that turn out to be very useful. I would like to start sharing these as bite sized treats interspersed in between the thicker cuts that many of you are accustomed to here on Deepest Health. Today, I would like to off...
Another scholar reviews his first month of Sagely Living
This is an article that Michael Givens, author of the recent article “Why does Chinese Medicine seem so complicated?” sent to me last night. He was one of the first on board for the Year of Sagely Living, but doesn’t have an online...
Reviewing one’s progress in the realm of self cultivation
There is something inherently fishy about “evaluating” myself when it comes to a program of personal development. While goal setting is an important activity, and awareness of my strengths and weaknesses is essential to many things, ther...
The importance of the Spleen in studying Classical Chinese Medicine
I’ve been trying to find a way to make my Year of Sagely Living posts interesting to folks who are not specifically following my progress in that area. To that end, I have created a Year of Sagely Living page of the website where you can see m...
Five simple ways I get more than 24 hours in a day
My Year of Sagely Living began in earnest with the start of classes yesterday at 8:30am. This week is going to be a little different than future weeks because I haven’t yet started ALL of my classes, thus have less to study. This is balanced ...
Why should Chinese medicine students learn Western science?
I don’t have the answer to that question. But, I’ll do my best. To be honest, studying Western science can be pretty interesting. As an intellectual exercise, nothing beats having to go from learning to read and translate passages of ...
My commitment to excellence in scholarship
Well, it’s almost time for the Year of Sagely Living to begin. 2008 should shape up to be quite an experience. We’ve already got some great folks involved. Three bloggers other than myself have publicly committed: (1) Abdallah Stickl...
Year of Sagely Living : Scholarship and study as a category of practice
Be sure to check out the original introduction to the Year of Sagely Living. You can read other articles on the project by choosing the “Year of Sagely Living” category in the dropdown menu to your right. This is an important category fo...
7 simple ways to be a great student AND not kill yourself during Finals week
This has been my most successful term yet in my education in Classical Chinese Medicine. I’d like to pass on some of the reasons why while also offering the both of us some advice on how to make next term even better. What do I mean by better ...
Product Review: Living Meridian acupuncture charts
I have had the distinct pleasure of working with the Living Meridian acupuncture charts these last weeks while studying for finals. I wanted to spend some quality time working with them before I wrote a review so I could get a full appreciation for ...
Contemporary discipleship in Chinese medicine
One of the things I see as inherent in a Classical approach to Chinese medicine is the recovery of a sense of discipleship. The passing of knowledge from Master to Student has always been a part of the medicine, as far as I can tell. This is not a ...
If you’re not memorizing, you’re not paying attention
Note: I’m working on write-ups of the AAAOM conference in Portland. I’m writing something about Nigel Wiseman’s talk on Chinese medical translation and my general support for his ideas. I’m also writing about the nationa...
Five simple methods I use to take advantage of my time in Chinese medicine school
I’ve talked about the habits I’ve formed to be an honors student, I’ve revealed some of the low-tech items I use to stay organized, I’ve discussed various study methods I use for acupuncture and chinese herbs - I continue to u...
In which I resume juggling
Hey everyone,\nSchool starts today (Monday, September 10) and I’m up at 4am, apparently, to mark the occasion. Ever since I can remember, I can’t sleep the day before school. Too excited! As I’ve said various times, this year...
8 Scholarship Winning habits I learned through Chinese medicine study
In the same vein as my popular article 7 Life Changing Habits I learned from Chinese medicine study, I thought I would provide something a little more focused for students since we are coming up on school season. I’ve been able to obtain big...
How to learn the acupuncture points and channels deeply by engaging your whole Self
I found it extremely difficult to learn the acupuncture points and channels despite the expert instruction I received from Jim Cleaver, LAc. When I reach a difficult point in learning a subject, I have a simple strategy I use to break through the wa...
7 tips on how to study single Chinese herbs and even enjoy it
It’s sometimes hard for me to sit down and study my single herbs. At NCNM we learn single herbs for a year, dabbling in combinations during our last term of that series and finally progressing to formulas, the holy grail of herbal education....
