Introduction from your tutor
Welcome to the course. I hope you enjoying learning with me, Suzanne Yates, founder of Wellmother and author of your course materials.
Suzanne Yates teaching birth work with sacrum
Don’t forget you can ask for clarification of anything or discuss with me and other students in the forum. This is accessed in each lesson by scrolling down to the end of the lesson. Try it now!
I hope this course inspires you to start using the Extraordinary Vessels more in your work and in your life. There are such profound energies that they will transform your practice. Please don’t expect to have understood all the theory by the end of the course! Some of it is put in here for background material and for you to refer back to as you start using them more. With the practical, there are a lot of suggestions, so again, just work with what makes sense to you. You might want to have some individual in person supervision with me or another Wellmother teacher or attend an in person course to deepen your understanding of the practical work. I am still discovering their depths even after having started working with them over 20 years ago!
First exercise:
What do you want to learn from this course? I invite you to take 10 minutes and note down what you already know about the Extraordinary Vessels and what you would like to learn by the end of this course. Come back to this at the end of the course and compare!
What you will learn
How the course is structured:
The course is set up with 6 lessons. It is probably best initially to work through them in order from 1 to 6: but you can go back and forward between the Lessons. In each lesson there a mix of videos, audios and text documents. At the end of each lesson is a quiz to check your learning and an assignment, which is either doing and recording some practical work, or a reflective piece. You can work through these lessons and the assignments at your own pace. Once you have completed all the lessons and assignments you receive a certificate.
I have given an indication of length of video, audio and an average reading time for the text documents.
Total length of time for the course is about 10 hours, not including any personal exercise practice or working with friends or clients.
Don’t forget you can ask for clarification in the forum
Supporting material (for all lessons)
Extraordinary Vessels
My blogs: search Extraordinary Vessels on the main wellmother.org website
My recent articles in the Shiatsu Society journal:copied on the blog
Some information in my book: “Pregnancy and Childbirth” chapter 4 p 121-129 and “Shiatsu for midwives” p35-43
None of the following books have quite the same “take” on the Extraordinary Vessels as I do, but you might find them interesting to read.
Royston Lowe: 1983 The Secondary Vessels of acupuncture: Thorsons
It is out of print but you might be able to get a second hand copy.
Macicioa G 2006: Channels of acupuncture, Churchill Livingstone
This is a useful book to have. It covers not just the Extraordinary Vessels and 12 Channels but also Connecting Channels, Muscle Channels, and Divergent Channels
Jeffrey Yuen 2005: The Eight Extraordinary Vessels, New England School of acupuncture
It is a transcript of lectures, but I like the way he presents his ideas. You might need to do some googling to find out how to get it!
Psycho- emotional pain and the eight extraordinary vessels: Yvonne Farrell, Singing Dragon 2016
She is a student of Jeffrey Yuen. I don’t completely agree with everything she says, but it is an interesting read.
Eight Extraordinary Channels David Twicken Singing Dragon 2013
A more classical interpretation, but interesting for his detailed knowledge of the points.
Embryology
Books:
Nessa Carey “ The epigenetics revolution”
“Endless forms most beautiful” Sean Carroll (the new science of Evo Devo)
Bruce Lipton “The Biology of Belief”
Sadler, Langman’s medical embryology
Larsons embryology
website: http://www.embryology.ch/ (in French, German and English)
Some of the pictures are from here and the ones in the videos and there is much useful information.
Hi Suzanne,
I have really enjoyed the course. I would love to be able to continue to access the course even after its all finished. The material is great reference. Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to produce a theoretical textbook.
Do you recommend any textbooks? I would love one for my practice to keep close by when I am with my clients. I occasionally have thought how handy a quick reference would be.
Thanks for this course. Hope to make it over to the UK at some point for more training. Or perhaps next time you are in Australia.
Interestingly this article came up when I looked for some information about the Chinese saying about the differences in blood and Uterine blood
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27460-womb-milk-nourishes-human-embryo-during-first-weeks-of-pregnancy/
Hi Suzanne
I am currently doing a course with Maria Mercati at Body Harmonics in Cheltenham. I have completed Tui Na massage with her and am now struggling through a mountain of TCM theory and case studies for acupuncture. The course is very compacted and needs a lot of home study. I am finding that doing your course is helping me to re-inforce some of the learning and make it more interesting 🙂
Sorry I realised that I didn’t reply. Glad that my course is helping to reinforce your learning.