五樞 Wushu
“Five Pivots” · GB27
Foot Shaoyang · 27 of 44 · crossing-point
Where. Just in front of the bony front tip of the hip, level with a spot four finger-widths below the navel.
For. Low belly pain; lower back pain; constipation.
Press. Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.
五樞，在帶脈下三寸按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Wushu Sits on the Lateral Abdomen
The dataset locates Wushu on the lateral abdomen, in front of the anterior superior iliac spine, level with a point three cun below the umbilicus. Each clause deserves unpacking. The lateral abdomen is the soft side wall of the lower trunk — the country between the lowest ribs above and the hip bones below. The anterior superior iliac spine is the bony prominence at the very front tip of the hip crest, the knob most people find under their thumbs when settling into a hands-on-hips stance. And the height is given in cun, the proportional measuring unit of Chinese point location: lengths taken from the person being examined rather than from any ruler, with the traditional shortcut gathering the four fingers of one hand side by side, which together span about three cun. On the midline of the belly, that height — three cun below the navel — passes through Guanyuan (CV4); carrying the same level around to the side of the body brings you to Wushu’s latitude.
What lies under the fingertips here makes gentler reading than for the points higher on the trunk. Layers of flank muscle sheet over the curved wing of the hip bone; there are no ribs to guard, no lung anywhere near, and no thin-walled cavity pressed close beneath the skin. The trade is that the wall here is living, mobile tissue drawn taut over bone — it shifts with every breath, step and turn — so the search rewards patience rather than force. The point keeps to the soft ground immediately in front of the bony tip, right where the flank rounds forward toward the crease of the groin; finding the frontier between bone and softness is most of the work.
The neighbouring points frame Wushu neatly. Above it, on the same line, level with the navel — where the vertical dropped from the free end of the eleventh rib meets the waistline — sits Daimai (GB26), a name borrowed outright from the Girdling Vessel itself. Below, half a cun further down and slightly in front, lies Weidao (GB28). The three descend the flank in a short chain, and locating them together confirms placement: navel level finds Daimai, the height of the hip-knob finds Wushu, and the soft spot just below and ahead belongs to Weidao. Losing track simply means returning to the navel, re-measuring three cun, and starting again.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Stand or sit with the weight even and the belly soft. First establish the height: find the navel, then lay the gathered four fingers of one hand flat on the lower belly just beneath it, fingertips pointing down; the level at their far edge marks three cun below the navel. Keep that height in mind, or hold a fingertip there while you work. Next find the landmark: place both hands on the hips and walk the thumb-tips forward along each hip crest until you reach its frontmost tip — the small, firm prominence of the anterior superior iliac spine. From that tip, slide forward off the bone until softness begins. The zone immediately in front of the prominence, at the three-cun-below-the-navel height, is where the record places Wushu.
A few quiet checks help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light and compare sides: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a finger-width away. Let a slow breath move under your hand and feel the whole flank wall swell and settle. Confirm the directions: the spot should lie clearly in front of the bony tip — never behind or above the crest’s edge — and well clear of the thigh below. If you land on bare bone, ease forward half a finger-width; if you sink toward the softness of the groin fold, climb back up to the height you measured from the navel.
The classic mistake is measuring too low: sliding down the flank lands you near Weidao and the groin crease, a full zone below the recorded site. Another common slip is wrapping backward behind the hip-knob onto the side of the hip, or drifting upward along the crest toward the waist. And the least helpful habit is force — grinding a knuckle against bone teaches the fingers nothing and the body less. Every recovery is the same: return to the navel, lay down the four-finger measure once more, and let the slow sequence finish itself.
Reading the Name: Five Pivots
The characters tell the story in miniature. Wu 五 means five — one of the oldest numerals in the written language — pronounced wǔ with a third tone, the dipping fall-and-rise that gives the syllable its questioning lilt. Shu 樞 means pivot or hinge, pronounced shū on a flat, high first tone; its oldest sense is the post on which a door swings, and from that image branch its wider meanings of hub, axis and decisive mechanism — the everyday compound for the nervous system’s central pivot keeps the old word alive. Together, Wushu reads as the Five Pivots.
Why pivot imagery suits this particular corner of the body, the classical teaching answers in its own idiom. Tradition describes the Girdling Vessel as encircling the waist like a belt, binding the channels together and holding the lower burner in order; the catalogue notes Wushu itself as a meeting-place of channel and vessel. A pivot is where movement turns, and the lower flank is exactly such a corner: trunk and thighs hinge against each other here with every step, every bend, every lift. Commentators across the centuries have taken the numeral in more ways than one, and the readings do not all agree; the page preserves the record without forcing a single story onto it.
Pinyin renders the name Wǔshū, and the hanzi pair 五樞 is short enough to memorise at a glance. Like many points named for architecture — gates, doors, windows, courtyards, pivots — the metaphor does real work rather than decorating. It tells you where the point lives: at the turning corner of the lower flank, where the gallbladder channel rounds the hip on its long descent down the side of the body. It also hints at how the tradition understood the spot: not scenery the channel passes, but a hinge its traffic leans on. The name is itself a small set of instructions.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: vaginal discharge, irregular menstruation, uterine prolapse, lower abdominal pain, hernial pain, lumbar pain, and constipation. The first cluster is read through the Girdling Vessel. Classical teaching charged that belt-like vessel with gathering and supporting the lower burner, and the vocabulary remembers the alliance: the traditional term for such discharge, daixia, takes its first character directly from the girdle’s name. Irregular menstruation and uterine prolapse belong to the same old conversation about what tradition called securing, containing and lifting the lower abdomen — functions the meeting of channel and vessel was understood to serve together.
The second cluster gathers the pains: lower abdominal pain, hernial pain, lumbar pain — read in the traditional frame as qi and blood faltering in their movement through the lower burner and along the channel’s sweep around the hip — plus constipation, approached as flow that wanted encouragement. One piece of modern housekeeping belongs beside the old records. Any new lump, bulge or swelling in the groin calls for prompt medical assessment today, whatever the classics wrote; sensations of something slipping or bearing down in the pelvis deserve clinical eyes first, too. Tradition explains why this point entered those discussions; present-day triage decides who should be seen, by whom, and how soon.
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 claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing in this guide replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and depend heavily on context, 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 into position. Lying on the back with the knees bent and the feet flat lets the abdominal wall soften and the landmarks stand out; sitting upright works too, once the search is practised. Curl your index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — not the tips — on the spot. Begin with contact alone for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than dragging across it. 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, matched where possible to slow exhales. Swap hands and repeat on the other side, keeping the two sessions symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; hard jabbing causes harm and teaches the body nothing. Warm cold hands first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, and let the practice double as a breathing pause: inhale through the nose, feel the lower flank expand under still fingers, press gently on the long exhale. People who keep a routine often anchor it to an existing habit — morning washing, an evening wind-down — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Notice what changes across weeks: perhaps the area feels less guarded, perhaps the belly moves more freely while you press, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend a minute or two attending to a part of the body most routines forget. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, longer or deeper to force a result, least of all beside a bony prominence that rewards gentleness alone. When curiosity pulls that way, return to a light touch or simply stop for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record attaches no specific caution to this point. Unlike the rib-shielded points higher on the trunk, whose files carry solemn warnings about deep professional technique, Wushu’s neighbourhood is muscle laid over bone, and the record reflects that calmer geography. Absence of a caution is not an invitation to force: every rule of gentle surface practice still applies here as everywhere, and the deeper abdomen below and inward was never part of home practice in the first place. The point of the observation is proportion, not complacency.
For fingertip acupressure the practical rules follow. Keep pressure light and strictly superficial, with finger pads and no tools, elbows or knuckles. Skip the point over broken or irritated skin, during feverish illness, and while anything acute is running its course; stop at once on sharp, electric or radiating sensation, and leave the point for the day. Pregnant readers should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice, and anyone recently through abdominal or pelvic surgery should wait until a clinician clears ordinary activity again.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for a new lump or bulge in the groin, persistent or worsening pain in the lower abdomen or pelvis, unusual discharge or bleeding, sensations of something slipping or bearing down, or constipation that lasts beyond a few weeks. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The pivot imagery is handsome, but the safest gift Wushu offers most people is a better acquaintance with their own lower flank, treated kindly.
Wushu — the Five Pivots — sits low on the flank, on its soft wall just in front of the bony knob at the front tip of the hip crest, level with a spot three cun below the navel. Classical practice reached for it amid lower-abdominal complaints: irregular cycles, discharge, dragging pain, sluggish bowels. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently and safely.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Wushu without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the navel and the hip bone as the whole map. Lay your gathered four fingers just below the navel to mark the height; then rest your hands on your hips and slide a thumb to the frontmost knob of the hip crest; finally step forward off that knob at the marked height, onto the first soft ground you meet. That zone is the location the dataset describes. Cun measurements simply encode the same landmark sequence in proportional language — the four-finger gather is itself the traditional three-cun span.
- Is pressing Wushu myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults. Unlike some points higher on the trunk, this one carries no recorded caution about structures lying dangerously close beneath, and home acupressure never approaches the deep techniques those warnings address. The ordinary disciplines still apply: light touch, finger pads only, and instant respect for the stop signals — sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately.
- What did classical practice use Wushu for?
- The traditional record lists vaginal discharge, irregular menstruation, uterine prolapse, lower abdominal pain, hernial pain, lumbar pain and constipation. Classical teaching read the cluster through the Girdling Vessel, whose belt-like circuit around the waist was understood to bind and support the lower abdomen — and this point stands recorded as a meeting-place of channel and vessel. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does a point with a women’s-health record sit on the gallbladder channel?
- Classical channel theory draws the pathway from the outer corner of the eye, zigzagging across the head and down the side of the body toward the fourth toe — forty-four stations in all. Along the lower flank the channel crosses the Girdling Vessel, and meeting-points were understood to share duties with the partner they intersect. The girdle’s traditional portfolio — supporting the lower abdomen and its rhythms — therefore appears in the records of the points along this stretch, Wushu among them. Geography first, portfolio second: the channel’s route chose the theme.
- Can acupressure at Wushu replace seeing a doctor about lower-abdominal symptoms?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and lower-abdominal complaints carrying red flags — a new groin lump, unusual bleeding or discharge, escalating pain, sensations of bearing down — need professional assessment promptly. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs that you visit when symptoms persist or escalate. Neither substitutes for 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, Girdling Vessel theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for GB27 Wushu — location, actions, and point-class 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.
- GET /en/points/gb27/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/gb27/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/gb27/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "GB27",
"name": {
"en": "Wushu",
"gloss": "Five Pivots",
"zh-Hant": "五樞",
"zh-Hans": "五枢"
},
"channel": {
"id": "GB",
"order": 27,
"of": 44
},
"location": {
"text": "Just in front of the bony front tip of the hip, level with a spot four finger-widths below the navel."
},
"for": [
"low belly pain",
"lower back pain",
"constipation"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/gb27",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}