The lungs lie beneath: gentle pressure only, never hard or sharp.
膈俞 Geshu
“The Diaphragm’s Transport” · BL17
Foot Taiyang · 17 of 67 · eight-influential point of blood
Where. Level with the lower tips of the shoulder blades (below the seventh bump from C7), two finger-widths to each side.
For. Hiccups; belching; itchy skin.
Press. Ask a partner to press gently with a thumb, about a minute each side.
Caution. The lungs lie beneath: gentle pressure only, never hard or sharp.
膈俞，在第七椎下，兩傍各一寸五分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Geshu Sits on the Middle Back
The dataset places Geshu on the back, below the spinous process of the seventh thoracic vertebra, 1.5 cun lateral to the posterior midline. Translated for everyday hands: the centre of the back carries a seam of small, knuckle-like ridges — spinous processes, the rearward tips of the vertebrae stacked into the spinal column — and this point waits on either side of the seam, one level below the seventh ridge of the chest series. A cun, as elsewhere on this site, is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location: proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than read from a ruler. One and a half cun is customarily measured as the combined breadth of the index and middle fingers held together at their knuckles.
The recorded location hides a generous gift: the dataset itself notes that the point sits level with the lower angles of both scapulae. When the arms hang relaxed at the sides, the lowest tip of each shoulder blade reaches approximately this level — the very correspondence the record draws upon — so the shoulder blade becomes a pointer for the vertebra the search needs. One vertebral ridge higher, the catalogue sets Dushu (BL16); two ridges lower, Ganshu (BL18); and on the posterior midline directly between the pair lies Zhiyang (GV9), recorded in the hollow beneath the same vertebra. These levels sit close enough that careless searching finds one while meaning another, which is why the walkthrough below leads with the scapular landmark instead of arithmetic.
What lies beneath the skin here deserves a calm glance before touching begins. This is the true middle of the back: the rib cage has curved away toward the sides, a broad band of spinal muscles fills the groove either side of the column, and every slow breath lifts the whole frame a little. The licensed record attaches no special caution to Geshu — and that quiet record is not a license for force. Techniques that work at depth belong to professionally trained hands; the entire wisdom of home practice consists in never leaving the surface. Everything this page asks of you follows from that single decision to stay shallow.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair and let the arms hang heavy and easy at the sides, so the shoulder blades fall open and their lower tips settle into place; a partner makes the reaching easier, though self-applied hands manage too. Find the lowest downward-pointing tip of the left shoulder blade — the lower angle — with the fingers of the right hand reached across the chest. From that tip, imagine a horizontal line drawn straight toward the spine; the midline bump nearest where it lands belongs to the seventh thoracic vertebra, and the shallow hollow directly below that ridge marks the level the record describes. Now lay the index and middle fingers of your searching hand together at the knuckles, stand them sideways against the spine, and step outward to their far edge: there, on the soft band of muscle, rests Geshu on that side. Repeat the whole sequence mirrored for the right side.
A few quiet confirmations help before pressing starts. Compare sides with feather-light touch: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true spot and little sensation half a finger-width away. Check the horizontal distance too: the right address sits clearly off the midline, on the springy muscle that runs parallel to the column — not in the narrow valley hugging bone, nor drifted outward beneath the border of the shoulder blade. Breathe slowly and notice the area shift faintly under resting fingertips; at this height of the back, the rib cage joins every breath.
Two classic mistakes account for most misses. The first is counting vertebrae down from the prominent neck bone, which sounds tidy and fails quietly — miscounts compound ridge by ridge, which is precisely why the scapular landmark leads this walkthrough. The second is letting the searching finger wander: inward into the cord of the midline itself, or outward and under the shoulder blade’s edge. If the address stops making sense, abandon the attempt, drop the arms, relax for a moment, and begin again at the lower angle of the shoulder blade. The point has waited beside the seventh ridge through centuries of practice; it will wait out one more unhurried restart.
Reading the Name: the Diaphragm’s Transport
The name opens with a dictionary lookup. Ge 膈 means the diaphragm: the dome-shaped muscular partition dividing the chest from the abdomen, and dictionaries give exactly this anatomy as the character’s core sense; the pinyin renders it gé, the rising second tone. Shu 俞, the second syllable, is the character shared by the name of every station along this line beside the spine, and classical usage ties it to yu 腧, the old word for a place where a channel’s flow gathers close beneath the skin. Spoken aloud the name is Géshū — the rising tone on the first syllable, the flat first tone on the second — and spoken plainly it reads as the diaphragm’s own transport: the point standing level with the partition it honours.
Geography and name agree. Classical texts treated the diaphragm as the great frontier of the torso, with the heart and lung enthroned above it and the digestive offices at work below. Frontiers gather traffic, and the tradition watched what crossed here: food and drink descending, breath rising, and — in the old physiology — the interplay of qi and blood that the crossing invited. Commentators reasoned that a station placed opposite the frontier stood naturally at the service of whatever the frontier governed; the pairing of name and address was, to the writers who chose it, self-evident.
The dataset’s category line adds a second title: Geshu is recorded among the eight influential points, holding the office of blood. Classical teaching gathered the body’s fundamentals into eight offices — one each for the organs, the bowels, qi, blood, sinew, the vessels, bone, and marrow — and appointed a single gathering place for each. To the point beside the diaphragm fell blood. Later commentators connected the appointment to the geography just described: the diaphragm as the meeting-ground of chest and abdomen, where the currents of qi and blood were understood to exchange. The category is doctrinal furniture rather than a modern claim, recorded here because the tradition carried it wherever the point travelled — and because it explains otherwise puzzling lines in the list below.
Traditional Indications, Explained
Read as a record rather than a prescription, the dataset’s actions are: vomiting, hiccups, rebellious rising conditions such as belching and bleeding, anaemia and all blood disorders, urticaria, skin itching, tidal fever, and night sweats. Rebellious rising is the old physiology’s phrase for flow moving the wrong way: stomach qi was expected to descend, and when it surged upward instead — belching, hiccup, vomiting — the records called it rebellion, and the point standing opposite the diaphragm, the frontier every surge crosses, belonged naturally in those discussions. Reading the body from behind has its own logic too: classical texts describe the bladder channel setting out at the inner corner of the eye, crossing the head, and running down the back to the little toe — the longest of the classical pathways — and the line of transport points marching beside the spine was where the tradition read the organs’ workings nearest the surface from behind.
The remaining entries travel through the blood-office door. Anaemia and all blood disorders — the sweep is the record’s own — reflect the influential appointment: whatever the tradition filed under blood came before this point. Skin itching and urticaria entered the same way, since classical commentary often read the skin through the state of the blood that fed it. Tidal fever describes warmth that ebbs and swells like the sea; night sweats arrive, as the name says, with the dark. Old lists grouped both among signs of heat working from within, and the blood-gathering point stood in such company.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered here for cultural and historical understanding. They are not statements that pressing this point treats any condition, and nothing here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle the practice. Sitting astride a chair and leaning forward over its back, or lying face down over a cushion, frees both hands and lets the back muscles slacken; reaching across the chest with the opposite hand works seated as well. Rest the pads of the index and middle fingers — never the tips — on the spot beside the spine. Begin with contact alone for several slow breaths, then add small circles, letting the skin travel with the fingers rather than dragging across it. Pressure should read as pleasant dullness or spreading warmth. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched to easy exhales; finish with the other side so the pair stays symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Warm the hands first — chilled muscle guards — and choose a quiet corner over a screen, because the practice doubles as a posture pause for anyone whose days pile tension across the middle back. People who keep such habits usually anchor them to something existing — after the morning wash, before closing the laptop — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. If a partner joins, agree beforehand that lighter beats firmer: the back reports honestly through dullness and warmth, not through ache.
Treat those few minutes as attendance rather than achievement. Perhaps the area feels less guarded afterwards; perhaps breathing drops a little more freely; perhaps nothing changes except that you spent ninety seconds noticing the middle of your own back. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — heavier thumbs, longer sessions, pressure driven inward to force a result. When curiosity pulls toward force, answer it with gentleness, or simply stop for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record attaches no special caution to Geshu, and the absence deserves a precise reading. It is not a promise that anything goes; it is simply the dataset declining to add a warning beyond the ones every point shares. Deep bodywork at this site remains the province of professionally trained hands, and the entire wisdom of home practice consists in never leaving the surface. Fingertip pressure held in skin and superficial muscle engages none of the depth professional work contemplates — which is why gentle, patient, purely external contact has always been the shape of this page’s advice.
For self-care the practical rules write themselves. Keep contact light and strictly superficial; use finger pads only, and leave elbows, knuckles, and tools out of it entirely. Skip the point completely during a feverish illness or any acute episode, over broken or irritated skin, and after recent back injury or surgery until a clinician clears ordinary movement. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stopping at once and not retrying that day; the same goes for lightheadedness — stop, rest, let it settle. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with a significant spinal condition, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Prompt medical care — not a longer pressing session — is the right response to vomiting blood, repeated forceful vomiting or signs of dehydration, hiccups persisting beyond a day or two, difficulty swallowing, or any numbness, tingling, or weakness spreading into the legs. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner, Western medical or East Asian medical as the complaint suggests. The diaphragm’s transport has carried its image across centuries; for most people its safest gift is a calmer, better-known middle back, handled gently and honestly.
Geshu, the Diaphragm’s Transport, rides the middle of the back beside the spine, level with the lower angles of the shoulder blades. Classical practice reached for it in vomiting, hiccups, and other risings, naming it in the old teachings as the gathering place of blood. This guide walks through finding it and pressing it gently.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Geshu without counting vertebrae?
- Let the shoulder blades do the counting. With arms hanging relaxed, find the lowest tip of one shoulder blade and draw an imaginary horizontal line toward the spine; the midline bump nearest where it lands is the seventh thoracic vertebra, and the recorded location places Geshu level with exactly this landmark, one and a half cun to either side. Lay two joined fingertips against the spine and step to their far edge, on both sides. For surface-level self-care, landing within a finger-width of the recorded spot changes nothing that matters — gentleness, not precision, carries the practice.
- Is pressing Geshu myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults. The licensed record attaches no special caution to this point, and home acupressure works only in skin and superficial muscle, far short of anything delicate. That quiet record is still not an invitation to force: deep bodywork here belongs to professionally trained hands. Honour the stop signals regardless — sharp pain, electric or radiating sensation, or discomfort that builds all mean finishing immediately.
- What did classical practice use Geshu for?
- The traditional record lists vomiting, hiccups, rebellious rising conditions such as belching and bleeding, anaemia and all blood disorders, urticaria, skin itching, tidal fever, and night sweats. Classical teaching additionally appointed it the gathering place of blood among the eight influential points, which is why blood-related entries anchor its historic portfolio alongside the rising-flow items. These are traditional frameworks documented for cultural context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does the gathering place of blood stand opposite the diaphragm?
- Because the tradition read the geography as destiny. Classical writers treated the diaphragm as the frontier between the chest above and the abdomen below — the crossing where food and drink descended and breath rose, where qi and blood were understood to meet and exchange. Appointing the point level with that crossing as the gathering place of blood followed naturally in their scheme. It is doctrinal reasoning preserved in the category line of the dataset, not a modern physiological statement.
- Can acupressure at Geshu replace seeing a doctor about vomiting or hiccups?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic instrument. Vomiting blood, repeated forceful vomiting, signs of dehydration, hiccups that persist beyond a day or two, difficulty swallowing, or unexplained weight loss all need professional assessment promptly — a pressure routine delays exactly the examination such signs deserve. Think of daily self-care and clinical medicine as different floors of one building: routine maintenance downstairs, the consulting room upstairs. Visiting one floor never abolishes the other.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition, influential-point theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for BL17 Geshu — location, point class, and actions.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/bl17/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/bl17/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/bl17/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "BL17",
"name": {
"en": "Geshu",
"gloss": "The Diaphragm’s Transport",
"zh-Hant": "膈俞",
"zh-Hans": "膈俞"
},
"channel": {
"id": "BL",
"order": 17,
"of": 67
},
"location": {
"text": "Level with the lower tips of the shoulder blades (below the seventh bump from C7), two finger-widths to each side."
},
"for": [
"hiccups",
"belching",
"itchy skin"
],
"press": {
"text": "Ask a partner to press gently with a thumb, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"The lungs lie beneath: gentle pressure only, never hard or sharp."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/bl17",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}