Yang Sheng Mastery - Core Theory - 5 Phases Decoded for Practical Use

• Learn the core of Yang Sheng Theory - A very practical but also fundamental model to look at yang sheng. Rooted in the Huang Di Nei Jing but the basis of everyday Yang Sheng in modern East Asian culture. Never taught like this before in the West.
• Be able to immediately apply this not only into daily and seasonal cycles but into Chinese medicine physiology, pathology and clinical practice of any Chinese medicine therapy.
• Understand how the Huang Di Nei Jing derives the 5 elements from first principles. Get answers to Why those 5 colours? Why those 5 flavours? What is the Sheng and Ke cycle and where do they come from? When we talk about the 5 elements, are we talking about Organs? Organ function? the Qi in the channel? their correspondences? a principle of nature? body physiology? climatic Qi? All at the same time? And... What ACTUALLY are the 5 phases/elements? Why those five?
• Understand flavour dynamics in a way that can take your Chinese dietary therapy cooking to the next level.
• Learn how to derive the Sheng and Ke cycles from first principles. See how they are not arbitrary but follow a clear logic implicit in the Huang Di Nei Jing.
• Understand the secrets of the Tai Ji (yinyang) symbol. Learn how to derive it mathematically. 

In this free 2.5 to 3 hour talk, I will explain a powerful perspective on yang sheng and Chinese medicine as a whole that will be the basis for a 5 weekend Yang Sheng Mastery course that I will be running in 2022. You can find out more details about the full course here  - www.daomedicine.com/yangshengcourse. 

However, the talk also has great standalone value, clarifying many aspects of Chinese medicine. In particular you will learn a way of thinking that is laid out explicitly in the Huang Di Nei Jing that unlocks the secrets of the 5 elements.

Much of yang sheng theory is never taught in schools or textbooks. This is something that also applies to a large extent in East Asia too as it is typically held within the overall culture rather than in books. However, understanding yang sheng theory can not only make us and our patients better at yang sheng, but it answers many core questions about Chinese medicine itself. It also ties together all the different disciplines and therapies of Chinese medicine.

So what is this Yang Sheng theory? In Chapter 2 of the Nei Jing the essence of this laid out. In fact, this is the chapter where the term 'Yang Sheng' was most famously mentioned. Unfortunately, the four concepts in this chapter of SHENG (growth), ZHANG (maturity), SHOU (gathering) and CANG (storage) are most often lost in translation. Their origin is also not typically highlighted and explained by English language textbooks or commentaries. 

Understanding the significance of these four terms and the fifth emergent term HUA (transformation) is a master key that unlocks a great amount of the underlying logic of the classic and of Chinese medicine itself. It is also a way to separate out different levels of the five phases so we can be very clear and deliberate when we are working with them. 

This is not a style or lineage of Chinese medicine, rather I would like to point something out which is an incredibly useful lens to look at the knowledge we all already have. Once you see it, you can't unsee it! And I hope that on coming to this seminar, you, like me, will have a 'Seeing through the Matrix' moment where things start to fall into place. This is something that only started to come together for me after experiencing yang sheng culture in Taiwan and China, studying with a yang sheng master, studying acupuncture, herbs, tuina, dietary therapy and qi gong, studying the I Ching and reading various medical texts closely including the Huang Di Nei Jing and the Yao Xing Zong Yi chapter of the Ben Cao Bei Yao. 

This is a free talk which has standalone value. You will be able to take the principles and play with them straight away. 

It will also serve as the introduction to the full Yang Sheng Mastery course that I will be running next year. This course will run across five weekends, each coinciding with a different season and will show in detail how to apply these concepts but also be a means by which I can teach the knowledge that I have accumulated from 20 years of exposure to Chinese language and culture, 10 years of practising medicine and 10 years of teaching Yang Sheng to the general public. www.daomedicine.com/yangshengcourse

At this free talk I will also be giving out a 'Super Earlybird Discount Code' for the full course next year.

I'm really excited to share this knowledge with you. This will be the first time I have put this together for a public audience so I hope you can come along and join me on this journey!

About the Speaker

Alex Jacobs is a practitioner of Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal Medicine, Tuina, Chinese Dietary Therapy and a Qi Gong and Tai Chi teacher working in North London. He first became interested in Chinese medicine while studying Mandarin in Taiwan 2002-2005. He returned to study and gain his qualifications in the UK and has been in practice for 10 years. He regularly returns to Taiwan and has been studying Yang Sheng in depth over the years. In 2012 he set up the London Chinese Medicine Meetup Group where he teaches monthly classes on Yang Sheng to the general public. He has a particular interest in Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome and is published in the Journal of Chinese Medicine on the subject of its related Chinese disease term, 'Shan disorder'. He organised the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine conference for 8 years and was elected president of the organisation in 2020. He has just taken on a position as a Clinical Supervisor in Acupuncture at the City College of Acupuncture, London.