Karina Smith Yin Yoga and Chinese Medicine

Hands up who is using luo treatments in clinic?

Wow!

I know that in the ancient texts they say the three tools used are acupuncture, moxibustion and bleeding.

I had no idea it could be so powerful.

When I was first interested in this, I was primarily focused on pain relief, but now the focus is harmonising emotions, often with pain relief as a flow on effect!

In the last few weeks in clinic I have witnessed some remarkable changes in patients from luo treatments and I truly am in awe of this medicine.

Love Karina x

As the ultra waif, Ozempic, no body fat, “what happened to body positivity?” trend cycles back around through the culture again, I want to share something from Chinese medicine.

Your body needs mediumship to park things in!

What does this mean?

Mediumship includes Jing (which includes fat), blood, thin fluids, and thick fluids.

If a person gets an unexpected virus, poisoning, illness etc, the body does a remarkable thing where it will do its best to find a place to park that issue into a kind of dormancy (latency) to stop it getting to an organ and causing serious harm.

We often get messaging around fitness and foods that leads us to believe that the leaner we are, the healthier we are.

And in some respects yes, fit bodies are “healthy”

In my world, and the patients I care for, I talk a lot about these resources in the body and why a wet meal diet is so important for hydration, and blood nourishment.

Some of the cases of illness that have been severe in my clinic are when a person is extremely deficient of these.

Maybe they have over exercised to the point that their body is always teetering on blood deficiency and dehydration?

I’m also speaking to a bit of a goldilocks approach here, not too little, not too much, with the extra belly padding.

Posts around food, and bodies can be spicy, but I’m here to affirm, that “a little extra stock in the pantry” is a well resourced body that has more availability to utilise its latency if a person becomes unwell.

Love Karina x

Do you see what I did there?

I’m a bit chuffed with this metaphor.

Here is the real essence of what this means in clinic.

I’ll use the example of a person coming to see me for shoulder pain.

If the root of the issue is big unprocessed emotions, I might use a luo treatment.

If the root of this issue is a trauma that began in childhood, I might use an extraordinary channel.

If the injury is recent, and this person is well hydrated, I might use a sinew channel.

And if it’s very chronic, comes and goes, and the person is very depleted, I might use a divergent channel.

I don’t have a set protocol of acupuncture points I do for shoulder pain.

I’m listening to the history of the body, through words, facial expression, body language and pulse diagnosis to find out where the injury has come from, and then choosing which “kitchen” is the most appropriate place to prepare the treatment (meal) needed for the unique and wonderful human I am supporting.

This is the wonder and breadth of being able to choose from the compliment channels.

It has completely changed my practice, my understanding of illness and recovery (and the results!)

Love Karina x

With the deepest of respect, when I was learning my acupuncture subjects at school for treating musculoskeletal pain, it was purely to needle the places of pain and leave the needles in for 20-30 minutes.

And I have had some good results using that approach, as I’m sure many other amazing acupuncturists have as well.

When it came time to start student clinic, which we all did at least 2 years of, that approach did not really give me great results with my patients.

It was super frustrating, because I knew in my heart that this medicine is extremely powerful, and maybe I was the problem?

Was my diagnosis wrong? Was my technique off? What was the missing link?

It turns out there was a lot missing from my learning repertoire, and things completely changed when I learned how to use the Sinew channels and the Luo channels in clinic.

Shoulder pain is not just shoulder pain.

Every human has their own story, sometimes it has an emotional root, sometimes it is from an injury, and sometimes it is from a body severely depleted of blood and fluids and needs to be replenished.

Talking about hydrating through food is absolutely essential!

Our diet knowledge at uni was fantastic!

But we just didn’t get taught about the complement channels, because they are not part of TCM.

Acupuncturists are incredible doctors. We offer so much to our patients in the most profound and holistic ways.

I’m super grateful to have been shown the full set of tools I can use in clinic, and I’d love to see this available to more people.

Love Karina ❤️

This could be my last in person level 1 Yin Yoga training…

I’ve been offering this training every year since 2018 and it’s been an extraordinary journey.

As I look ahead to 2027 (yes I plan my trainings 1 - 2 years out) im just not sure if I will offer this training next year.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the offering, and the content is super important, but I may be moving in new directions.

So if you are interested, this is the time to tell me!

This year is absolutely happening.

Dates:

Friday 16th online meet and greet 6:30pm

Training:
Wed 21st - Sun 25th October

10:30am - 4:30pm daily

+ 20hours of online supplementary content with LIFETIME access

Location:
Yoga & Reiki Newport
Challis street Newport

Investment:
$1675 AUD

Payment plans available

7 places remaining for 2026

Link in bio

Or DM me

🙏🏻 I also have a fully accredited on demand yin yoga training course on my website if you want to study at your own pace anywhere in the world. Life time access to the materials.

For the love of Yin Yoga

Love Karina xx ❤️

Hi there!

Welcome if you are new!

A lot of new people have subscribed in this past week so I thought I should say hello.

My name is Karina, I’m a classical acupuncturist and yin yoga educator based in Melbourne Australia.

I have been blessed to learn Classical Chinese medicine with my teacher , which dates back to the Han dynasty in china, and is a deeply spiritual, heart centred medicine.

Im passionate about supporting humans in a holistic way; understanding that a persons history informs their body, and that unresolved emotions can create disease states.

Thanks for following along!

I’d love to hear why you are following me, and what you would like me to share with you in my content,

Love Karina x

What I know now, that I wish I knew back then…

Acupuncture Edition.

It’s sooo many more things than in this video.

And it’s the whole point (pun intended) of being on a journey!

We learn as we practice, find new teachers, from our patients feedback and time!

By far, the most enormous learnings I have received have been from my deep dive into classical acupuncture, and learning about the channels that I did not learn about in my university degree.

This is a life times worth of learning, and acupuncture is my life long path, so I’m not in a rush, but WOW, in 4 years the ways in which I have been able to support my patients in clinic and in their lives has been remarkable,

This has been a combination of learning classical medicine from and my people/language/mapping NLP skills from

I cannot recommend these two women more highly for finessing your craft!

What do you know now that you wish you knew back then?

Love Karina

When I stepped into the acupuncture world for the first time my understanding of the medicines’ healing capacity was limitless.

And then, moving through the university system and learning about the medicine in a structured academic way, poured a bit of cold water on that limitless feeling.

Don’t get me wrong, school was incredible, the teachers and students were amazing and I honestly don’t know how else you could teach all of the knowledge at university any other way.

I do sometimes wonder if the ancient style of forest academy could have a revival!

I was blessed to met my teacher 2 years after I started private practice. Ann is doing an incredible job at helping acupuncturists learn the parts of acupuncture that did not make it into TCM. That includes the luo channels which I am referencing in this video.

Every day in clinic is a place of wonder, as these channels reveal to me what is possible, and what is limitless.

If you are an acupuncturist that knows deep in your heart that acupuncture is wildly powerful, but you are not having that experience in your clinic, I strongly encourage you to open yourself up to the complement channels and spending some time learning them.

Love Karina x

We go to acupuncture school knowing deep in our hearts that we are about to learn a truly profound medicine that can really heal people’s health conditions.

And somewhere along the way, we start offering treatment to clients and they don’t seem to get the big changes we know are possible with acupuncture.

We might think, they just need more sessions, but honestly, there is a whole lot of information missing from schools.

If you were only taught to use the primary channels, you are missing so much.

Yes primary channel treatments are amazing, but I would not go for them if I have a patient with musculoskeletal pain (I would use the sinew channels), emotional distress (I would bleed the luo channels), old unhealed emotional trauma (I would use the extraordinary vessels) or chronic degenerative illnesses like autoimmune, cancers or arthritis (I would use the divergents)

The complement channels give you an incredible tool box to draw from to support any kind of human need that walks into your clinic.

Yes it takes time to learn this information, but this is the full breadth of acupuncture! This is the complete medicine.

I’m at the beginning of my journey, and I’ll be learning from the medicine my whole life and I’m beyond blessed to be a part of the full complete medicine returning to modern acupuncture.

Love Karina x