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Leaf 21 of 67 · Foot Taiyang
胃俞

胃俞 Weishu

“Stomach Transport” · BL21

Foot Taiyang · 21 of 67 · back-shu of the stomach

Where. Below the twelfth bump counted down from the neck bone (C7), two finger-widths to each side of the spine.

For. Stomach ache; bloating; hungry but no wish to eat.

Press. Ask a partner to press with a thumb, or lean on a soft ball against a wall, a minute.

A Self-Palpation Walkthrough

Sit upright on a firm chair, feet flat, shoulders heavy, because hunching reshapes the terrain about to be read. Bow the head slightly and hook a fingertip over the bone at the neck-shoulder junction, confirming it with the movement test — turn the head side to side and watch the landmark glide while the ridges beneath stay still. From that starting post, walk straight down the centre seam and count ridges until the twelfth — patient work, best done slowly twice rather than quickly once. At the soft step beneath the twelfth ridge, slide outward across the muscle until you have crossed roughly the width of two pressed-together fingers, and settle where the flesh forms a cord-like column flanking the spine. Repeat the whole search on the other side; there are two Weishu, and neither substitutes for the other.

Read the whole section ↓
胃俞，在第十二椎下，兩傍各一寸五分
“Weishu lies below the twelfth vertebra, one and a half cun to either side.”《針灸甲乙經·卷三》 Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3
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0 / 6breaths

按 · Press with me

Six slow breaths

About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.

鄰 · Neighbouring leaves

← BL20脾俞PishuBeside the spine, 11th bump below C7BL22 →三焦俞SanjiaoshuLow back, one bump above navel level

Where Weishu Sits on the Lower Back

The dataset places Weishu with surveyor’s precision: on the back, below the spinous process of the twelfth thoracic vertebra, 1.5 cun lateral to the posterior midline. Unpacked for hands rather than rulers, that reads as follows. The thoracic vertebrae are the twelve bones of the mid-back whose rearward ridges you can feel through the skin; the twelfth is the last of them, standing exactly where the rib cage hands its load to the lower back. Beneath it the spinal column changes character altogether, passing to the five broader lumbar vertebrae that carry the low back. Find that boundary step, settle into the soft shelf beneath the twelfth ridge, then step outward one and a half cun — and there, mirrored on both sides of the spine, sits Weishu.

A cun is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location: proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler, so a cun beside the spine of a broad-framed adult differs from a cun on a slight teenager. One rendering passed along through self-location teaching holds that the width of the index and middle fingers pressed together comes close to one and a half cun on many adult hands — helpful arithmetic, worth trusting only alongside the bony landmarks. What lies beneath the skin here deserves the same respect every back-shu point earns: the spot rests on the broad columns of muscle that flank the spine, in the transitional country where the rib cage closes and the true lower back begins. The short twelfth rib reaches toward this neighborhood, and the layers continue well below anything a fingertip needs to visit.

The neighborhood completes the map. One ridge higher, beneath the eleventh thoracic vertebra, the same lateral line carries Pishu (BL20), the spleen’s transport; one ridge lower, beneath the first lumbar vertebra, stands Sanjiaoshu (BL22), assigned in classical teaching to the san jiao. Across the trunk at the front, on the body’s midline above the navel, classical teaching seats the stomach’s mu point at Zhongwan (CV12) — the gathering place tradition often paired with the back transport, the two addresses holding the organ between them. As for the channel itself: classical cartography draws the bladder meridian as the longest pathway in the body, sixty-seven stations strong, beginning at the inner corner of the eye, sweeping over the head, and descending the whole back to the little toe. Down the spine it travels in paired vertical routes, the inner one running 1.5 cun from the midline — the road Weishu stands on, lined with the gathering stations of the organs.

A Self-Palpation Walkthrough

Sit upright on a firm chair, feet flat, shoulders heavy, because hunching reshapes the terrain about to be read. Bow the head slightly and hook a fingertip over the bone at the neck-shoulder junction, confirming it with the movement test — turn the head side to side and watch the landmark glide while the ridges beneath stay still. From that starting post, walk straight down the centre seam and count ridges until the twelfth — patient work, best done slowly twice rather than quickly once. At the soft step beneath the twelfth ridge, slide outward across the muscle until you have crossed roughly the width of two pressed-together fingers, and settle where the flesh forms a cord-like column flanking the spine. Repeat the whole search on the other side; there are two Weishu, and neither substitutes for the other.

Because twelve is a long way to count, a second method earns its keep as a cross-check. Rest the backs of your hands on the sides of your waist and glide them backward until the lowest rib announces itself under the fingertips — the twelfth rib, shortest and most floating of the twelve, which fails to reach the front of the body at all. Trace it inward toward the spine; the vertebral level it ties into is the twelfth-thoracic neighborhood. Where that finding agrees with the counted descent, confidence doubles; where the two disagree, recount from the top rather than splitting the difference. Confirmations cost nothing besides: touch feather-light and compare sides, noting how many people register a faint, dull awareness at the genuine spot and little sensation a thumb-width away. And if bare bone meets the finger, the search has wandered onto the spine or a rib — ease back onto the muscle column and begin again.

Three slips account for nearly every mislocation. Counting the neck-base knob itself as the first ridge drops the whole search one vertebra low — the knob is the starting post, not the first runner. Drifting outward comes second; the distance sounds generous until posture and muscle conspire to shorten it, and the correction never changes: return toward the seam. Forgetting the mirror pair is third — tightness rarely arrives symmetrically, and both stations deserve their turn. This corner of the spine adds a fourth temptation all its own: the low thoracic and upper lumbar ridges sit close together and change angle as the back curves, so counters who rush arrive uncertain. When doubt outlives every test, resist guessing from wherever the wandering ended; go back to the neck, confirm the gliding knob once more, recount slowly — or simply invite a companion’s eyes and hands, or leave the point for another day.

Reading the Name: Stomach Transport

The name is a job description in two characters. Wei 胃 means stomach — plainest possible vocabulary. Shu 俞 belongs to a family of characters used across the point catalogue for stations of transfer, carrying the old sense of conveying or infusing, the way water passes along a channel from reach to reach. Together the name reads as the stomach transport: the place where the stomach system delivers its activity toward the back. Classical teaching set an entire series of such addresses beside the spine, one for each of the organs, all sharing the suffix character, ordered down the trunk in the same tidy sequence the organs themselves occupy. The stomach’s office falls just past its partner’s — the spleen’s station stands one ridge above, the two neighboring officials of the earth phase keeping adjacent offices along the spine.

Classical physiology explains why the pairing makes sense. Classical texts describe the stomach as the body’s granary — the official that receives food and begins its ripening — while the spleen’s work follows, distributing what the stomach receives. Earth-phase partners, front and back: tradition often spoke of the stomach’s front gathering place at Zhongwan (CV12) and its back transport at Weishu as matched companions, the mu point and the shu point holding the organ between them like bookends. All of this is the tradition’s own weather map, offered as heritage for understanding why digestive complaints dominate this point’s historic portfolio — warmly received, not as anatomy confirmed. A reader who wants one sentence to carry away can take this one: whatever concerned the stomach, the tradition delivered its attention to the back at this address.

Pinyin renders the name Wèishū: wei falls away on a sharp fourth tone, while shu rides a level, high first tone — the rendering this collection follows throughout. The hanzi pair 胃俞 stays legible at a glance — stomach, transport — and like many points named for what they do rather than where they sit, the label performs real work. Gates imply watching a threshold; transports imply delivery. The name quietly states its instructions: whatever concerns the stomach, this is where the tradition sent its attention on the back. A reader who remembers just the two characters carries the whole doctrine in miniature — and carries, besides, a reliable memory aid for placing the point among its neighbors on the organ-lined road.

Traditional Indications, Explained

The recorded indications read: epigastric pain, vomiting, abdominal distension, borborygmus, back pain, and hunger without desire to eat. The first three travel together in the traditional telling. Epigastric pain names discomfort in the soft central hollow just beneath the rib arch — the region older texts treated as the stomach’s own courtyard. Vomiting, in the classical record, gathered everything from passing queasiness to settled nausea and the upward rebellion of stomach qi, the traditional phrase for contents moving the wrong way. Abdominal distension describes a distinct traditional complaint: a belly felt as swollen, tight, and stuck, understood in the classical frame as qi failing to move freely through the middle burner. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice traditionally reached for the stomach’s back transport whenever the middle of the body misbehaved in these familiar ways.

Then come two entries that repay slower reading. Borborygmus — the record keeps the physician’s word for it — is the gurgling, rumbling noise a working gut makes, and classical writers listened to the belly the way a craftsman listens to a well-built machine, taking the sounds as reports of qi and fluids moving, hurrying, or stalling. Hunger without desire to eat is the record’s small paradox: appetite felt, yet no wish to sit down to food. Classical commentary read such states as the stomach’s receiving gate out of tune with its ripening work — hunger signaling, refusal answering — a framework offered here for understanding, not as diagnosis. And honesty asks one plain sentence: severe, persistent, or bloody abdominal complaints have always belonged to urgent medical care, in every era and every system, and still do.

Last on the list, back pain looks like the outlier until the channel map opens. The bladder meridian pours down the entire back in paired routes, and the inner line on which Weishu stands runs beside the spine from shoulder to sacrum; stations along that road served the territory they traversed, and the paraspinal muscles at this height share the same long column of tissue that aches in many backs. Candid readers will still notice that the thread tying this point to the low back runs looser than the thread tying it to the stomach — the tradition kept the entry, and an honest footnote beats an invented explanation. It bears repeating plainly: these are traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, presented for cultural and historical understanding, not claims that pressing this point treats disease. 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.

Self-Care Acupressure at Home

Once located, settle into position: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders heavy. Reaching the mid-back asks one small decision — invite a partner to lend their fingertips, or reach the opposite hand over the shoulder and walk down beside the spine until the muscle column found earlier rests under the pads. Curl the fingers and touch with the pads — never the tips. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against the ridge below. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, each circle riding a long exhale out; then swap hands and match the other side so the pair stays symmetrical.

Quality outranks duration, as it does everywhere in gentle practice. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is the whole discipline; jabbing teaches the body nothing and startles a stretch of back that cannot see the hand arriving. Warm cold hands first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen and let the session double as a pause — some people fold it into an unhurried evening wind-down, others into a mid-afternoon stand-and-stretch; either anchor works, because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. Readers working with a partner may prefer to trade turns: a minute each way keeps both sides honest about what gentle pressure actually feels like, and turns the practice into a small shared ritual rather than a chore.

Treat the exercise as a few minutes of attention paid to a stretch of yourself that cannot see itself. Across weeks you may notice the area feels less guarded, or simply that you spent ninety seconds tending your own back — both outcomes fit the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation: pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result. Curiosity pulling that way should meet the same answer every time — return to gentleness, or stop for the day. The point is not going anywhere; tomorrow it will wait at the same address beneath the twelfth ridge, unhurried as ever.

Cautions and Safe Practice

The licensed record speaks plainly here, and the sentence deserves a paragraph of its own: the dataset cautions practitioners, do not needle deeply. That warning travels with the whole family of back transports, and Weishu’s own entry carries it — a fact worth meeting with respect rather than alarm. Geography explains the spirit of the rule: this point stands in the transitional country where rib cage becomes lower back, the muscles hug the spine closely, and the structures beneath continue well beyond anything visible or fingertip-reachable. Professional training manages the risks of deep technique with years of study; home self-care manages them differently and completely — by never leaving the surface at all. Honouring the recorded caution costs gentle practice nothing and builds precisely the habits it wants.

For fingertip practice the rules follow from the picture. Keep contact light and strictly superficial — the intention stays in skin and superficial muscle, never driving inward toward the spine. Use finger pads, never elbows, knuckles, tools, or devices. Skip the point entirely during feverish illness or any acute episode, and over broken or irritated skin. After recent back injury or surgery, wait until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once, and not again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with a chronic digestive condition or taking regular medication for one, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice. And when energy runs low or illness visits, the wisest session is the postponed one — rest is also self-care.

Over everything stands the wider rule: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a longer pressing session — for persistent vomiting or inability to keep fluids down, severe or worsening abdominal pain, vomit containing blood or stools that look black, fever with belly pain, or unexplained weight loss; these are signals that belong before a doctor promptly. Persistent complaints of any kind belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the problem. The image of the stomach’s window on the back is elegant, and it earns its keep as memory and meaning; but the safest gift Weishu offers most people is a calmer acquaintance with their own lower back, tended lightly and surrendered promptly whenever the body asks for more than gentleness can give.

In short

Weishu, the Stomach Transport, stands low on the back beneath the twelfth thoracic vertebra, a thumb-and-a-half out from the spine’s central seam. Classical teaching made it the stomach’s own address on the back, reached for when epigastric pain, queasiness, or a bloated, rumbling middle troubled someone. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently.

Cautions from the classical sources

  • Keep insertion shallow.

Self-care limits

Self-care means feather-light fingertip contact beside the spine — no tools or devices, no force directed inward, none during fever or acute illness, and none over irritated skin. Stop at once on sharp sensation. Persistent vomiting, severe abdominal pain, or any alarming symptom calls for prompt medical care; lingering complaints belong with a licensed clinician, and this page is educational only. Self-acupressure is educational self-care, not medical care. Stop if a sensation becomes sharp, and seek professional help for persistent symptoms.

Frequently asked

How do I find Weishu without knowing anything about cun?
Use two maps and trust neither alone. Map one: find the knobby bone at the junction of neck and shoulder that slides under the fingers when the head turns, walk straight down the centre seam counting ridges until the twelfth, then slide sideways about the width of two pressed-together fingers onto the muscle column beside the spine. Map two: find the lowest, shortest rib at the side of your waist, trace it toward the spine, and search one step outward at that level. Where the two agree, press with confidence; cun measurements simply encode the same landmarks in proportional language.
Is pressing Weishu myself actually safe?
Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, engaging skin and superficial muscle far short of the deeper territory the recorded caution concerns. The warning against going deep describes professional techniques — a category home acupressure never approaches. Respect the stop signals all the same: sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens means finish immediately, and fever or acute illness cancels the session entirely.
What did classical practice use Weishu for?
The traditional record lists epigastric pain, vomiting, abdominal distension, borborygmus, back pain, and hunger without desire to eat — an unmistakably digestive portfolio, fitting for the stomach’s own transport point on the back. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
Why does every organ get a point beside the spine?
Classical cartography draws the bladder meridian descending the back along two paired routes, and the inner line — 1.5 cun from the midline — carries a procession of stations the tradition matched organ by organ: the spleen at BL20, the stomach at BL21, the san jiao at BL22, continuing down the spine in the order the torso stacks its organs. The ordering gave practitioners a single tidy map: find the organ’s row, and its back address follows. Bilateral symmetry doubles everything — there is a Weishu on each side of the spine.
Can acupressure at Weishu replace seeing a doctor about stomach trouble?
No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool. Persistent vomiting, severe abdominal pain, blood in vomit or black stools, fever with belly pain, or unexplained weight loss call for professional assessment promptly — think of daily self-care and clinical medicine as caretakers of two different doors, each minding its own threshold, neither substituting for the other.

Sources

  1. 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
  2. 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition, back-shu theory, and bladder-channel context.
  3. 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for BL21 Weishu — location, point class, actions, and caution record.

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.

{
  "id": "BL21",
  "name": {
    "en": "Weishu",
    "gloss": "Stomach Transport",
    "zh-Hant": "胃俞",
    "zh-Hans": "胃俞"
  },
  "channel": {
    "id": "BL",
    "order": 21,
    "of": 67
  },
  "location": {
    "text": "Below the twelfth bump counted down from the neck bone (C7), two finger-widths to each side of the spine."
  },
  "for": [
    "stomach ache",
    "bloating",
    "hungry but no wish to eat"
  ],
  "press": {
    "text": "Ask a partner to press with a thumb, or lean on a soft ball against a wall, a minute.",
    "seconds": 60
  },
  "cautions": [],
  "source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
  "url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/bl21",
  "lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}