November Newsletter Topics:

Tango Class to Benefit El Hogar Orphanage| Special Events | November Chinese Medicine Tips for Self-Healing | New classes | Words of Wisdom this month

Special Events

Thanksgiving Schedule

Happy Thanksgiving to all our students, friends and families. Shakti's will be closed Thursday, November 23 and Friday, November 24. We will re-open on Saturday, November 25 with Tai Chi Beginner's at 9:00-10am.

Saturday, November 25
Flamenco, Tango and Kum-Do classes cancelled

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November Self-Healing Tips —Traditional Chinese Medicine

written by: Julie Festa, L.Ac.

November takes us deeper into autumn. It is time to organize and focus. We begin our process of contraction which keeps us focused inward throughout the coming winter. Sour foods resonate this contraction in the subtle energies of the body. It is also important for us, as we reflected on in last month’s newsletter, to moisten and nourish the body’s fluids. Autumn is called the dry season in Chinese medicine. So try this for a warming, focusing, cleansing, and moistening treat:

Chinese Nutrition Self-Healing: Autumn Juice – Inspired by Paige

Any one of the great health food stores around here (my favorites are the Co-Opportunity on Broadway or PC Greens, on Highway 1 in Malibu; also Wild Oats on 5th & Wilshire is pretty good) has a sufficient juice counter. Head up there and order yourself an apple, lemon, pear, and small amount of ginger concoction. It’s intense, but purifying. The apples and pears will moisten the fluids and nourish the Lung. The ginger is pungent and warming, super with the colder weather coming. The lemon adds that sour, contracting nature we are looking for to take us deeper within. If they don’t have pears available at the juice counter, see if they’ll let you buy yourself some good organic pears and bring them back to be juiced with your other ingredients. Make sure to ask for a small amount of ginger, as the heat can sometimes be overwhelming from a regular dose.

Chinese Self-Acupressure: He Gu, Large Intestine 4; Joining Valley

Autumn is a popular time for the common cold, which Chinese medicine can explain through the relationship of the Lung with the season. In the autumn the Lung, if it is not in a state of optimal wellness, becomes more vulnerable to climactic factors. We view this usually in Chinese medicine as a Wind-Cold attack. Wind is the need to change; cold is the body’s resistance to it. There is a spiritual, as well as physical, component to everything we experience as illness.

So, in order to release Wind from the body at first signs of attack, we can stimulate the acupuncture point “He Gu”, or Large Intestine 4, Joining Valley. This point is located in the fleshy place between the base of your pointer finger and the base of your thumb – that big muscle-y place directly towards the wrist from the webbing. No doubt if you press on this point with any amount of pressure, you will feel its tenderness, especially so if you type a lot or work in other ways with your hands.

Common first signs of a Wind-Cold attack include chills and fever, headache, redness, swelling, and pain of the eyes, nasal congestion, sneezing, sore throat, and tinnitus. Even without a viral condition, any of these symptoms can be greatly alleviated by self-pressure at LI 4. Other actions of this point include restoration of yang, regulation of defensive chi, release of pain anywhere along the Large Intestine channel, and regulation of the face, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. One note of caution: Do not use if you are pregnant, or if you think you might be pregnant. This point is also used in order to induce labor.

New Classes

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