- Are you afraid of acupuncture needles?
- I don't like needles when they poke in me.
- Micah, do you trust me?
- Yes.
- You should trust me.
I promise.
You'll be safe.
- Wait... how long am I gonna have the needle in me?
(playful music)
- Hi!
- My name is Selene.
What's your name?
- Monica.
- Hi, nice to meet you.
- You too!
Do you know what I do?
- I think so.
Is it an acu... puncher... punkier...
I don't know how to say it.
- Yes.
I'm an acupuncturist.
- What's that?
- It is a person who uses very thin little pins to,
let's say, correct the way the energy
is flowing in your body.
Sometimes if you study martial arts,
they will talk about 'chi'.
- Oh yeah, I know what that is.
- What made my arm go up?
- Energy.
- Energy inside me.
When you learn acupuncture, you're learning about
how the energy moves inside of people.
I can feel people's energy.
- What do you mean you can feel their energy?
- Have you ever gone into a river
and felt the current pull on your foot?
- Yeah.
- The current in the river is energy.
It's a special way of feeling things.
- So, are you a doctor?
- I'm not a physician in the same way as a medical doctor,
but I do have a license
to practice medicine in Washington State.
If you had, let's say, a headache, you could come to see me.
- How about the hiccups?
- Yes, and the place that you would do acupuncture
for hiccups would be on your shin and on your foot.
Yep.
- If guys get kicked in the... private part,
do they get acupuncture?
- You would get acupuncture if you had pain
in any part of your body.
But the needles would not go.... there.
Would you be interested in seeing a model
that has all the acupuncture points on it?
- Yes.
- Look at that!
All those little numbers are acupuncture points.
- What happens if you put a lot of needles
in all the points at the same time?
- You would never never never do that,
because it's too much stimulation for the person's body.
The number one rule for every medical practitioner
in the whole world, can you guess what it is?
- Not too much needles.
- That's close.
It's do not harm the patient.
- So, my Dad, he said he went to an acupuncturist
but it didn't work, so does it work all the time,
or sometimes does it not work?
- Yeah, that's a really good question.
Maybe he needed to have like, six or seven treatments,
and he only got one or two.
- Do you think kids can do it?
- Actually, kids get acupuncture a lot.
Maybe today, we'll even do a little acupuncture.
- Oh!
- It'll be really fun.
- Yay!
- Would you like to have just a mini
acupuncture treatment with one acupuncture needle?
- Okay.
- Wait... how long am I gonna have the needle in me?
- Just a couple minutes.
- Oh God!
- Are you a little bit nervous?
- Yes.
- Okay, it's gonna be no big deal.
Do you have any aches or pains anywhere?
- Um... no.
- It itches a lot?
- Yeah, and then...
- You have a lot of itchy, okay.
- Oh yeah!
Oh my gosh!
- We're gonna clean off a point that is for
releasing inflammation from your legs.
It's actually gonna be right here.
So, there it is, it's really thin.
We're gonna put it in this little tube
called the guide tube.
- Uh-oh.
Ow!
- That's it!
- Oh, that's not that bad actually.
- Ah!
- Now, see it's vibrating a teeny tiny bit?
- Whoa.
- That's the energy inside your own arm making it vibrate.
- That's weird!
- Feel that funny little achy feeling?
- Yeah.
- That's what's making the heat come out of your leg.
- It's feeling a little weird.
- Sometimes it feels tingly.
- It looks really creepy right now.
- You can touch it a little bit if you want.
- No thanks!
- They actually teach you to stimulate
the needle by flicking.
- Ow, don't do that please.
- I won't do it again.
- What does it do for my health?
- Well, one reason we would use this particular
acupuncture point could be for something like...
Constipation!
- For some reason, I'm feeling weird.
- Do you wanna take it out?
- Yes.
- Got it.
There's one, there's two.
- Ah... I feel relaxing.
- Very good, I'm glad to hear that it made you relaxed.
- Can I put one in you?
- No, you can't.
- What's the candle for?
- The candle is used for this technique called 'cupping',
and that's when you create suction inside of a glass cup,
and then you suck it on to a part of the body
that has bad circulation.
So, we're gonna put alcohol on our cotton ball,
light it on fire, and put it inside the glass cup,
and I'm gonna put this on my own leg, not you.
- Oh, okay.
- I wanna feel what it feels like.
- We could do that.
Promise you'll never try this.
- I'll never try it.
- See how it's stuck to my leg?
- What the...
- Here we go.
Now, see how it's stuck on there?
- Yeah!
This feels good!
Feels so good!
- So you can just pop it off whenever you're ready.
Just pull it right off.
(pop of suction releasing)
(giggles)
Do you feel any different after having
acupuncture for the first time?
- Yes.
- How do you feel?
- Like happy and energetic.
- And that is exactly what I'm trying to do with people,
is make them happier and have better energy.
- Thank you for poking me.
- You're welcome!
Hi, I'm Monica.
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