What a busy last few days it's been! We got an early start Wednesday morning with our Acupuncture lecture. We were all pretty tired but our professor was wonderful and kept us all awake, interested, even laughing. I was so impressed by his lecture and his knowledge! After learning all about subcutaneous acupuncture, we spent a while talking about practical applications, which is always my favorite part of any lecture. We learned how to use acupuncture to treat patients with a neck sprain, frozen shoulder, tennis elbow, upper back myofascitis, and ankle sprain. One of the girls in our group had lower back pain so the professor applied a dermal needle to her leg, along a meridian that passed through her lower back. Within minutes, her pain has decreased significantly! We then practiced inserting filiform needles into each other's arms... what an experience!
After a delicious Korean lunch, we went to our second lecture of the day. This class was over more of the Traditional Chinese Medicine that we started earlier in the trip. Our professor spent many years being trained in Tai Chi and he taught us massage techniques that are derived from Tai Chi moves. It was difficult for us to catch on since we only know the little bit of Tai Chi that we have learned on the trip, but after repeatedly practicing on each other, we got the hang of things. But our bodies were all beat up by the end of class!
Before calling the day to an end, we went to our final Tai Chi class. When our teacher told us that we were doing a performance at our farewell ceremony, she wasn't kidding! We put all of the moves together and rehearsed for our performance. The rest of the evening was busy as we polished our papers and studied for our final exam and practical. I don't know how much sleep everyone got Wednesday night because we were all anxious for the next day: submitting our paper, taking our final, performing the practical, and putting on our Tai Chi performance!
