The most important but most difficult to master are the techniques called Set-Mountain on Fire and Penetrating-Heaven-Coldness. Set-Mountain on Fire is used for deficiency syndromes such as: fatigue, lack of energy, poor memory, spontaneous and night sweat, feeble breathing, palpitations and diarrhea. Penetrating-Heaven-Coldness is used for excess syndromes such as: sturdiness, agitation, coarse breathing, distension and fullness in the chest and abdomen and constipation. When an acupuncturist is capable of performing these two acupuncture techniques with a success rate of 50%, he or she is considered an excellent acupuncturist. The secret of these two techniques is on the tip of the needle.
After lifting and thrusting the needle thousands and thousands of time, acupuncturist may be able to feel the tip of the needle. When "De Qi", the sensation of the tip of the needle is different from "Bu De Qi".
By lifting and thrusting, it's the friction of the needle that an acupuncturist must be really aware of.For every acu-point, there is Heaven level, Human level and Earth level. For higher success rate of Set-Mountain on Fire and Penetrating-Heaven-Coldness, the key lies at the deep level.
Both hands are used for these two techniques. The needle hand do lift and thrust, the other hand should do lift and thrust as well. Two hands should work together in harmony to have higher success rate.
These two acupuncture techniques require complicated manipulations of the needle. Therefore the techniques should only be performed on the thick muscle acu-points. For example: ZuSanLi, ShenXu, HuanTiao and NeiGuan etc.