With numb feet or poor circulation, ask a clinician first.
地五會 Diwuhui
“Earth Five Meeting” · GB42
Foot Shaoyang · 42 of 44
Where. On top of the foot, behind the knuckle of the fourth toe, in the valley between the fourth and fifth toe bones.
For. Headache; ringing ears; a swollen, sore foot.
Press. Light fingertip pressure, not deep between the bones, about a minute.
Caution. With numb feet or poor circulation, ask a clinician first.
地五會，在足小指次指本節後間陷者中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Diwuhui Sits on the Outer Foot
The licensed record locates the point in one unhurried sentence: on the lateral dorsum of the foot, posterior to the base of the fourth metatarsophalangeal joint, between the fourth and fifth metatarsal bones, on the medial border of the tendon of extensor digiti minimi. Unpacked piece by piece, that address becomes quite walkable. The lateral dorsum is the top of the foot leaning toward its outer edge — the side of the little toe — rather than the high bridge nearer the big toe. The fourth metatarsophalangeal joint is the knuckle at the root of the fourth toe, the ring toe, second in from the little one; posterior means toward the heel, so the point sits a short step back up the foot from that knuckle, not out along the toe itself.
Between the fourth and fifth metatarsal bones means in the soft valley separating the two long bones that serve the ring toe and the little toe. And the medial border of the tendon of extensor digiti minimi — the cord that rises from the little toe whenever you lift it — names the precise bank: the side facing the middle of the foot, not the outer rim. Worth noticing, too, is what the record leaves out: this entry measures nothing in cun. Its location is told entirely in landmarks — a knuckle, a valley, a tendon, a side — which suits self-palpation unusually well, because every one of those features can be found and checked by hand.
Two named neighbours sharpen the map. Out toward the toes, the web margin between the fourth and fifth toes holds Xiaxi, GB43, at the junction of the red and white skin just behind the web. Back toward the ankle, the record places Zulinqi, GB41, at the very same depth marker as Diwuhui — posterior to the base of the fourth metatarsophalangeal joint — but on the opposite bank of the shared tendon: Zulinqi in the hollow on its outer side, Diwuhui on the narrow strip along its inner edge — the side facing the middle of the foot. The little-toe tendon therefore divides a small neighbourhood into three addresses, and the gallbladder channel threads all of them on its recorded descent toward the fourth toe. Each foot mirrors the other, so every finding repeats on both sides.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet flat and shoulders released, and rest the ankle of one foot across the other knee if that makes the top of the foot easier to see and touch. Begin with the fourth toe — the ring toe — and find the knuckle where it joins the foot. Slide your fingertip straight back from that knuckle onto the top of the foot, staying in line with the toe, until you feel the broad, gently rounded shaft of the metatarsal beneath the skin. From there drift slightly outward, into the shallow valley that separates the ring-toe bone from the little-toe bone. Somewhere in that valley your pad will cross a fine, taut cord running lengthwise along the foot toward the little toe — the tendon of the little toe’s lifter. Settle just on the inner side of that cord, toward the foot’s midline and level with a spot a short step behind the ring-toe knuckle. That strip is the address the record describes.
A few quiet checks confirm the spot before any pressing begins. Lift and wiggle the little toe slowly: the cord should slide and tense beneath your pad, proving you are truly beside the tendon rather than lost on bare bone. Release, and touch feather-light, comparing the two feet: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true spot and little sensation a thumb-width away in almost any direction. Check the level once more — the pad should sit just behind the knuckle’s base, in line with the ring toe, neither out on the toe nor halfway back to the ankle. If any check fails, return to the knuckle and walk the short sequence again; re-finding costs nothing and resets everything.
The classic slips are predictable. Drift too far out toward the web and you land near Xiaxi’s territory; wander too far up the valley and you approach the stretch where Zulinqi waits on the tendon’s other side; press squarely atop the cord and you are on the tendon, not beside it. Counting the toes from the big toe prevents most confusion: the knuckle you want belongs to the fourth toe, the ring toe, with the little toe immediately outside it. And remember the point is symmetrical — whatever you learn about one foot, repeat the search on the other, keeping the two sides equally attended.
Reading the Name: Earth Five Meeting
The three characters compress a small cosmology. Di 地 means earth — the ground, the low country; in point-naming it often marks the lower reaches of the body as against heaven above. Wu 五 is simply five. Hui 會 means to meet, gather, converge — a character that recurs across the channel maps wherever streams of qi are described as pooling. Read plainly, Diwuhui is the meeting of the earthly five: a gathering place in the low country below, named for a coming-together rather than a gate or a valley.
What exactly gathers there, the tradition left open enough that different commentators have offered different readings, and the licensed records preserve the name without adjudicating among them. Some readers take the five as the five toes spread just below the point, the whole fan of the forefoot converging toward this strip of dorsum; others hear in it the broader family of fives that organises classical physiology, the five zang among them. Attributions of that kind belong to the tradition’s commentary habits, and this guide repeats them as context, not as settled fact. One documentary detail is solid, though: unlike its famous neighbours — Zulinqi holding the office of stream point and eight-confluent point, Xiaxi a spring point — this entry carries no recorded point class. An unranked address, remembered chiefly for its indications and its caution.
Pinyin writes the name Dìwǔhuì: a falling fourth tone on di, a dipping third tone on wu, and another falling fourth tone on hui. The hanzi 地五會 are plain enough to memorise at a glance, and like much of this channel’s vocabulary — streams, springs, ravines, gatherings — the name does quiet work. It says the tradition thought of this spot as somewhere things collect: toes, channels, influences counted in fives. A meeting implies traffic, and traffic implies a road; the gallbladder channel passing directly over the strip explains why a modest-looking patch of dorsum earned a name at all.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: headache, red swollen eyes, tinnitus, deafness, hypochondriac pain, swelling and pain of the foot, breast abscess, and dizziness. Framed as tradition rather than promise, several of these cluster naturally around the channel’s own geography. The gallbladder channel zigzags down the side of the head and body before descending to end at the fourth toe, and classical practice accordingly read complaints of the side of the head — one-sided headaches, dizzy spells, ringing or muffled hearing in the neighbourhood of the ear — as lying within this channel’s customary reach. Points on its descending course were gathered into those discussions, and Diwuhui’s presence on the list reflects that habit of thinking along the channel rather than any claim about what pressing it achieves.
Red swollen eyes belong to the same channel-minded bookkeeping: eye complaints recur across the gallbladder records, and classical practice traditionally paired reddened, irritated, or painful eyes with points of this channel. Hypochondriac pain — the dull, blocked ache of the rib-side — follows from the channel’s long passage down the flank, the side of the body its route traces. Swelling and pain of the foot needs no theory at all: a point pressed close against the swollen, tender forefoot was naturally reached for what lay near it. Breast abscess is the entry that gives modern readers pause; the old records frequently paired distant limb points with complaints of the breast, reasoning through the channel map rather than local anatomy, and the pairing is preserved here as a document of that reasoning.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, 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. Headaches, ear noises, and eye irritation in particular have many possible causes, some of them serious; self-care at a point on the foot never substitutes for their being looked at properly. Hold the tradition lightly, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, foot supported, toes relaxed. Curl your index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — never the tips or a knuckle — on the strip just inside the little-toe tendon. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, patient circles, letting the skin glide over the firm structures beneath rather than grinding across them. 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. Then swap feet and repeat, keeping the sessions symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, regular, unhurried contact fits the wellness register this page practises; jabbing at thin skin stretched over bone teaches the body nothing and risks a bruise. Warm cold hands first, since chilled tissue guards itself. Choose a quiet corner over a screen and let the practice double as a pause: breathe in through the nose, notice the foot under still fingers, ease the pressure on the long breath out. People who keep such routines usually anchor them to an existing habit — after morning washing, beside an afternoon stretch — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask.
Treat the minutes as a ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Across weeks you might notice the area feeling less guarded, the ritual itself becoming a signal to slow down, or nothing shifting except that you spent ninety seconds attending to your own feet. All of that fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation. This particular point carries a firmer historical boundary than most, and that alone argues for giving it the gentlest hand on the whole foot: when curiosity pulls toward harder, longer, deeper, return to lightness, or simply stop for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point earns its caution paragraph more than most on the foot, and the reason is written in the licensed record. The dataset carries a single, striking line: Classical texts record this point as not to be needled. Where most caution notes fence off a direction or a depth, this one closes the door outright — the old literature marks Diwuhui as a point to leave alone when needles come out. The dataset preserves the instruction without an explanation we could honestly quote, and inventing one would be worse than silence. What matters practically is the division of labour the note implies: decisions about professional needle work belong exclusively to qualified practitioners weighing the full record, and nobody resolves a centuries-old caution at the kitchen table.
For fingertip self-care the practical rules follow plainly. Keep every touch on the surface: finger pads only, no tools or devices, no driving pressure into the valley between the bones. Skip the point entirely over broken or irritated skin, blisters, insect bites, or recent injury, and during any acute flare of swelling and pain in the forefoot. Anyone with reduced sensation in the feet or with circulatory problems should ask a clinician before adding foot-point practice of any kind, because the usual warning signals of overdoing it cannot be trusted when feeling is dulled. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not retry that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone managing a chronic condition, should consult a qualified practitioner before beginning anything new.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical attention — not a pressure routine — for a sudden severe headache, a headache pattern that changes or keeps worsening, new or worsening hearing loss, a red painful eye with vision changes, spreading redness or swelling of the foot, fever, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the concern. The safest gift this small meeting-place offers most people is acquaintance with their own feet and a daily excuse to sit still for two minutes — taken kindly, within limits, and always on the surface.
Diwuhui — the Earth Five Meeting — rests on the outer dorsum of the foot just behind the knuckle of the fourth toe, between the fourth and fifth metatarsals on the inner side of the little-toe tendon. Classical practice reached for it when headache, red swollen eyes, or tinnitus weighed on a person. This guide covers finding it by touch and pressing gently within strict limits.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Classical texts record this point as not to be needled.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Diwuhui without learning any anatomy?
- Use the ring toe as the whole map. Find the knuckle where the fourth toe joins the foot, slide back onto the top of the foot in line with that toe, then drift slightly outward into the valley between the ring-toe and little-toe bones. Cross the fine, taut cord you meet there and settle on its inner side, toward the middle of the foot. That strip — level with a spot just behind the knuckle — is the address the record describes, and wiggling the little toe confirms the cord is the tendon.
- Why would classical writers mark a point as not to be needled?
- The old literature preserves the instruction without an explanation surviving in the licensed records, and this guide declines to invent one. Boundary marks of this kind are part of how the tradition transmitted caution alongside technique. For readers at home the practical translation is simple: professional needle decisions stay with qualified practitioners, and self-care answers the note in the only way available — by keeping every touch strictly on the surface.
- What did classical practice use Diwuhui for?
- The traditional record lists headache, red swollen eyes, tinnitus, deafness, hypochondriac pain, swelling and pain of the foot, breast abscess, and dizziness. Most of the list follows the gallbladder channel’s own route down the side of the head and body, which is how classical practice reasoned. These are traditional frameworks documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Is pressing Diwuhui myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, and it operates far from the category of technique the old caution addresses. Even so, the note argues for a lighter hand here than on most of the foot: shorter sessions, lighter pressure, no tools. Respect the stop signals — sharp pain, radiating sensation, numbness, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately — and skip the point entirely over broken skin or active injury.
- Can acupressure here replace care for my headaches or ear noises?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and headaches, tinnitus, and eye irritation carry real red flags — sudden severe pain, changing patterns, hearing loss, vision changes — that deserve prompt professional assessment. Think of the two as different floors of one building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs for when symptoms persist or escalate. Neither substitutes for the other.
Sources
- 01aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for GB42 Diwuhui — location, actions, and caution record.
- 02WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 03A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition and channel context.
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/gb42/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/gb42/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/gb42/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "GB42",
"name": {
"en": "Diwuhui",
"gloss": "Earth Five Meeting",
"zh-Hant": "地五會",
"zh-Hans": "地五会"
},
"channel": {
"id": "GB",
"order": 42,
"of": 44
},
"location": {
"text": "On top of the foot, behind the knuckle of the fourth toe, in the valley between the fourth and fifth toe bones."
},
"for": [
"headache",
"ringing ears",
"a swollen",
"sore foot"
],
"press": {
"text": "Light fingertip pressure, not deep between the bones, about a minute.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [
"With numb feet or poor circulation, ask a clinician first."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/gb42",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-25"
}