Acupuncture

So... Acupuncture.

I consider myself sceptical of just about anything. I guess that's why I got into science; where being a sceptical sonuvabitch is actually a good thing. Science still hasn't fully worked out how, exactly, acupuncture works; it could be just an advanced placebo effect, or there's a theory coming through the pipes called "gate theory" which suggests that by probing specific parts of the body; you can open "gates" which increase blood flow, circulation, and basically reinforce the body's own healing mechanism. The short answer is that we don't know.

And, let's face it, relieving pain by shoving needles in various parts of your body seems somewhat contradictory just on its own.

So, after we did our Kung Fu demonstration on Friday (which went well, by the way, but I was pretty dead at the end of it), our Daai Si Ying invited a few of us over to his place for what he calls quality control. Which is a nice way of saying "run a select few students through the wringer and see if they can still walk at the end of the day." The good thing is that you learn an enormous amount in a relatively short period of time. The down side is that you can't move the next morning. Usually because you've got such a buildup of lactic acid in your muscles that even rolling over in bed makes you wince in pain.

Then there are the bruises.

Most frequently, they're the natural result of some rough sparring sessions. I had a black eye for a while from the last no-holds-barred sparring session. Made an interesting conversation topic.

Then, there are the self-inflicted ones. These tend to be far worse because they're generally inflicted when you're in the process of breaking something that doesn't want to be broken.

A rock, for instance.

Now, as a quick primer: when a rock breaks, you don't feel anything. It's practically as if you sliced your hand through air.

When it doesn't break, it hurts like a sonuvabitch.

And at the moment, unfortunately, I'm at the point in my training where the rock breaks a lot less frequently than it doesn't.

In a rock-break attempt last night, I hit the rock exactly wrong, but with enough force to break it; and it hurt. A lot. For a second I was sure that I'd shattered at least a couple of bones in my hand. Turns out I was wrong on that one. But I'd definitely hit it hard enough to bruise it badly. Very badly.

So one of the seniormost students, who happened to witness the event in question sat me down and informed me that I had a bad deep-tissue bruise. Something I already knew, but it was nice to have some confirmation. I figured I was just gonna have to suck it up and deal with the fact that my hand was going to swell to roughly the size of a small canteloupe, and turn a nice, deep purple. I've had bruises like that before; they always take about three or four days until they're back to something resembling "normal," but they do heal.

He calmly grabs my hand and asks me how I am with needles. Then goes on to ask if I've ever had acupuncture. I replied, honestly, that I was somewhat sceptical about acupuncture. He replied that was okay; it would work regardless of whether I believed it.

That, I admit, threw me for a loop. One of the defining characteristics of a placebo effect is that whoever's receiving treatment has to believe that the treatment could conceivably help them. If he was right, Placebo was looking less likely. I shrugged it off and said I was willing to try.

So, he proceeds to stick me with a few needles. One in the tip of my pinky finger, two more just distal and proximal to the injury respectively, a third in my wrist, a fourth in just on the inside of my elbow, and a fifth in my leg, just distal to the knee. He left them in for a few minutes, then carefully removed them.

Suffice it to say that I woke up the following morning far less sceptical about acupuncture. It wasn't a cure-all, certainly. My hand is still a little sore; but swelling is practically nonexistent, and it's not purple. None of the typical morning-after results of this kind of injury are there.

Admittedly, one sample isn't exactly representative; but it definitely shows more promise than I'd previously thought.

Neat stuff, that acupuncture.