Body piercings and chi flor?

[Ray Pina]

I had an earing since I was a young teenager and then a nose ring when I was in my later teens up to a few years ago.

I had some hippy friends studdying Chinese medicine at the time telling me it was bad for my chi flow. Especially the ear they said. Made some sense, but I was young and dumb and wanted to be "cool".

Then I started fighting on a regular basis and they had to go, even with thehead gear it became apparant that if I wanted to be a fighter, it had to go.

So now I am jewely free, except for various beaded nechlaces (which, note to self: need repair). ANyway, any thoughts on this?

[dwid]

Piercings are generally not missing tissue, so all the acu-points, etc... are still there, they've just been moved a little to make room for the jewelry. There is what is called dermal punching, in which a hole is actually punched in the ear. I could see where this might be problematic.

As far as piercings go, I have 1/2 inch plugs in my ears that are totally organic, and I've had them a pretty long time and have not noticed any ill effects. I wouldn't recommend keeping acrylic jewelry in for too long, as this is pretty unnatural stuff, but organic and even stainless steel jewelry I think is okay.

Also, I used to have my septum pierced (between the nostrils on the nose). I got it done after my sifu died as a sort of ritual (laugh at that if you must). Anyway, I too had to take it out due to sparring, but I have an old roommate who has had his septum pierced for years, and he's pretty sensitive to energies, etc... and has not had any problems.

In my book, piercings are totally fine chi - wise.

[Ray Pina]

I do have to say, I have felt a differnce. I don't know if its their removal or my new training. In know its the training, but even before that, I felt as if I was a bit more sensitive to thing.

Who knows, could all be in the head.

[dwid]

I don't know, maybe there's something to this, but that just adds support to my favoring organic jewelry. I can say that on some level organic stuff has always been more intuitively appealing to me (maybe that's my chi talking to me). The plugs in my ears are bone, and my friend with the septum ring used to have jade, and now I think it's horn or bone.

[Daredevil]

I have three piercings in my ears and an old hole from a stud on my lower lip (that may have healed up by now though). I've often wondered about the TCM point of view on them, though. I don't feel like the ear piercings do any harm, though, and I can easily take them off for training that might knock/rip them off.

I'd actually like more piercings in my ears.

Funnily enough, most of my jewelry these days consist of bead necklaces and, heh, I'm not even a surfer (we don't get much surfing up here in Finland, heh). :)

[miscjinx]

This reminds me of when I started studying Okinawan Kempo and pressure points.

My old teacher had a couple stories about this. He said that once when he was with some teacher (I can’t remember the name) that knew pressure points really well, another student came up and asked if he knew of something to help her. Shortly after looking her over, the teacher said that the reason she feels sick and has been having health problems was because of her ear rings. He suggested she remove them and not where them there again. She followed his advice and her health problems went away. This teacher told my teacher that if someone want to get a piercing, it should be done by an accupuncturist – as they can avoid the nasty locations.

At another time, this teacher pointed out someone wearing ear rings and told my teacher, See where the ear rings are - that will take 5 years of her life.

There are many stories concerning pressure points, but remember the ears are particularly a problem because the entire body is represented in the ears. Ever wonder why pirates wore gold ear ring in one ear? I don’t know to what extent there is truth to this, but as the legend goes it was to better one’s eyesight for distances. It was a specific place in the ear that the ear ring was worn.

I have studied and done enough stuff with pressure points to not totally write these stories off, so I give the advice my teacher gave me – if you want a piercing, see an accupuncturist.

[Ray Pina]

Doesn't sound like bad advice.