With diabetes, numb feet or pregnancy, ask a practitioner first.
湧泉 Yongquan
“Gushing Spring” · KI1
Foot Shaoyin · 1 of 27 · jing-well
Where. On the sole, in the dip that forms when the toes curl, about a third of the way from the toe base to the heel.
For. Headache; dizziness; hot soles.
Press. Gentle thumb pressure, about a minute, then the other foot.
Caution. With diabetes, numb feet or pregnancy, ask a practitioner first.
涌泉者，水也。一名地沖，在足心陷者中，屈足卷指宛宛中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Yongquan Sits on the Sole
The dataset places Yongquan squarely on the sole of the foot, in the shallow depression that appears when the foot is plantar-flexed — that is, when the toes curl down and away from you — at the meeting point of the anterior third and the posterior two-thirds of the line that runs from the base of the web between the second and third toes back to the heel. Unpacked, the recipe is friendlier than it sounds: find the little valley of skin where the second and third toes fork, mark the base of that web, and picture a straight line running from there to the middle of the heel. Divide the line into three equal parts. The point waits where the front third hands over to the middle third — about one third of the way back from the toe web, closer to the pads of the toes than to the heel.
What lies under the fingertips here is unlike any other point territory on the body. The skin of the sole is the thickest anywhere on a person, stretched over a dense layer of cushioning fat, and beneath that runs a tough fibrous sheet spreading from the heel forward to the roots of the toes; under the sheet lie small muscles arranged in layers. There are no ribs, joints, or body cavities anywhere near the surface — the sole is engineered for standing and walking, built to accept pressure all day long. That construction makes this one of the more forgiving places to practise light self-contact, though it also means sensations arrive muted: patient, gradually building touch is needed before the tissues register anything at all.
Position matters as much as geography. Yongquan is counted as the opening point of the kidney channel, and classical maps draw that pathway setting out on the sole right here, climbing the inner aspect of the leg, and finishing high in the chest. The pairing gives the name extra weight: the kidney belongs to water among the five elements, its channel partner is the bladder, and the whole system is imagined as deep, stored water. That the water system should surface at the body’s lowest point, where a person literally touches the ground, struck classical writers as fitting — a spring at the bottom of the landscape, feeding everything above it.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit on a firm chair and lay your right ankle across your left knee so the sole faces you, or brace the foot flat and lean forward. First find the landmarks with your eyes: the web between the second and third toes, and the centre of the heel. Trace the invisible line between them, then slide your right thumb onto the sole and measure about one third of the way back from the web toward the heel. Now curl your toes downward into plantar flexion and watch the skin: a shallow dimple gathers under your thumb exactly where the dataset describes the depression. Release, curl again, and confirm the dimple returns in the same place. Repeat the whole search on the other foot with hands swapped.
Two confirmations settle the placement before any real pressing begins. The first is movement: the hollow appears when the toes flex down and smooths away when they relax, which distinguishes the true site from arbitrary spots on the arch. The second is sensation: press feather-light and compare sides. Most people feel a faint, dull awareness — a spreading heaviness rather than a sharp poke — at the genuine point, and noticeably less a finger-width away. Because sole tissue is thick and uncomplaining, build pressure gradually and give each increment a slow breath to register before adding any more.
The usual slips are predictable. Searching too close to the toes lands you near the ball of the foot; drifting too far back puts you on the heel pad, where nothing much yields. Some people instinctively hunt along the inner edge of the foot or on its top — Yongquan stays centred on the underside, in line with the second and third toes. Ticklishness is the other obstacle: a jabbing fingertip triggers laughter and withdrawal before anything useful happens. Resting the whole palm flat on the sole for ten slow breaths first, then working with a broad thumb pad in small circles, usually settles the reflex.
Reading the Name: Gushing Spring
The characters draw a vivid picture. Yong 湧 means to gush, surge, or well upward — it carries the water radical, and modern Chinese still uses it in yongxian, to spring forth or emerge in numbers. Quan 泉 means a spring: water rising steadily from its hidden source. Read together, Yongquan is the gushing spring. Classical texts explain the choice through the point’s position and role: at the very bottom of the body, the qi entrusted to the kidney system was said to gather below and break forth here the way groundwater finds its way to the surface — hence a spring, and a lively one.
Category deepens the metaphor. Classical teaching arranges five special points along every channel and names them for the stages of flowing water — well, spring, stream, river, and sea. The well points sit at the tips of the limbs, where channel qi is described as barely surfaced, like water at a source; Yongquan holds the well office for the kidney channel. In the five-phase scheme laid over those offices, the well points of the yin channels are assigned the quality of wood — the image being new life drawn upward out of deep stores. A point named a gushing spring yet holding the well seat, inside the body’s great water system, could hardly wear its nature more openly.
Pinyin writes the name Yǒngquán: a third tone on yong — the dipping, rising contour that starts low, sinks further, then climbs back — and a second tone on quan, a clean rise from mid-level. The hanzi 湧泉 are simple enough to memorise at a glance, and they join a large family of water-named points: springs, valleys, ravines, seas, and pools scattered along the channels. The naming tradition is not decoration. It encodes how the old authors experienced each site — a gate here, a pool there — and at Yongquan they chose their most energetic water word, reserving it, notably, for the point closest to the ground.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: loss of consciousness, heatstroke, epilepsy, infantile convulsions, headache, dizziness, coughing blood, sore and swollen throat, difficult urination, constipation, and hot soles. The first cluster belongs to the history of emergency medicine. Classical practice reserved its strongest revival techniques for this point, reaching for it when a person had collapsed, when seizures or childhood convulsions took hold, or when summer heat overwhelmed someone. Whatever the old records hoped for, the modern response to any of those situations is immediate professional emergency care — calling for help, not applying pressure. They appear on this page because the dataset preserves them, not because any home routine addresses them.
The middle entries reward slower reading. Headache and dizziness were approached through the traditional idea of drawing excess downward: when activity and heat crowded the head, practice aimed to guide the surplus toward the lowest ground, and the sole was the natural outlet. Sore and swollen throat followed similar logic, the throat sitting on the route the channel travels toward the chest. Hot soles names a pattern rather than an accident — a persistent warmth burning in the palms and soles, classically read as heat rising from depleted deep reserves, often noticed most at night. Difficult urination and constipation were framed as stuck movement in the lower body, and downward-drawing practice again supplied the reasoning.
As everywhere on this site, these are the traditional uses preserved in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats any condition, and they do not replace assessment by a qualified clinician. Where modern research has examined foot-point acupressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and depend heavily on context, and evidence tied to this specific point remains thin. Hold the tradition with interest, and hold the safety boundaries without exceptions.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located, settle in: seated, the chosen foot resting over the opposite knee or flat on the floor, hands warmed first — feet lose heat quickly, and cold makes both tissue and mood contract. Rest your thumb pad on the spot and begin with contact alone for a few unhurried breaths. Add small, slow circles, letting the skin travel over the tissue beneath rather than scrubbing across it. Aim for a comfortable dullness or mild spreading warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, timed to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap sides and finish evenly.
Technique favours patience over power. If the foot is ticklish, spend the first minute simply holding the palm flat and heavy against the sole until the reflex quiets, then narrow to the thumb pad. People who keep a routine tend to anchor it to something already habitual — after the evening foot-wash, just before sleep, during the mid-afternoon lull — because regularity, not force, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. Many treat the practice as a pause for grounding: sitting with attention on the body’s lowest point while the day’s noise drains downward. The image does honest work whether or not one credits the framework behind it.
Keep expectations sized to the act. Across weeks you may notice the feet feel less tense, that settling at night comes easier on evenings you practised, or perhaps nothing changes except that you spend a few minutes a day attending to yourself — every one of those outcomes sits inside the honest scope of self-acupressure. What sits outside it is escalation: pressing harder, longer, or with tools to force a result. When curiosity pulls in that direction, return to gentleness or set the practice aside for the day. The point will still be there tomorrow, at the same quiet address.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record for this point carries no specific caution — the dataset registers none — but absence of a warning is not an invitation to force. Two features of the site shape sensible practice. First, the thick, slow-to-complain skin of the sole muffles feedback, so it is easier here than almost anywhere else to press harder than intended without noticing; keep the effort at the level where you could still hold an undistracted conversation. Second, the sole takes daily punishment — calluses, dryness, cracked heels — so inspect the skin before touching, and work around rather than over any broken area.
Practical rules follow. Use thumb or finger pads only — never elbows, knuckles, or massage tools — and never press while holding the breath or through pain. Skip the point entirely during feverish illness, over cuts, blisters, warts, or fungal cracks, and while any acute illness runs its course. People living with diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, or circulation problems in the feet should speak with a qualified practitioner before adding foot pressure of any kind, since reduced protective sensation removes the body’s early-warning system. Pregnant readers should consult a qualified practitioner before beginning any new point practice. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and leave the point alone for the rest of the day.
And the wider rule stands above the rest: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Fainting, seizures, suspected heatstroke, coughing blood, inability to pass urine, and severe constipation with pain are matters for prompt professional or emergency medical care — never for a pressure routine. Persistent symptoms of any kind belong with a licensed practitioner, Western medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. Yongquan offers most people a modest, pleasant practice and a fresher acquaintance with their own feet; that is the honest gift, and it is enough.
Yongquan, the Gushing Spring, opens the kidney channel at the very sole of the foot — the lowest ground the body offers. Classical practice imagined the deep reserves of the kidney system breaking the surface here, like water rising through earth. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently at home.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I reach Yongquan on my own feet without help?
- Easily — people have located this point on themselves for centuries. Sit with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, find the web between the second and third toes, and picture the line running from there to the centre of the heel. One third of the way back from the toe web, curl your toes down and feel for the shallow dimple that gathers under your thumb. A phone camera pointed at the sole helps the first few times.
- Why would pressing the bottom of the foot matter to anything above it?
- The honest answer splits in two. In the traditional frame, the kidney channel surfaces on the sole and links that spot to the inner leg, the chest, and the head-and-throat territory its course passes, so practice at the sole was read as practice along the whole route. In the modern frame, no comparable wiring is established, and research on single-point effects remains thin and mixed. Treat the traditional map as cultural knowledge, and the practice itself as comfort and ritual rather than mechanism.
- What did classical practice actually use Yongquan for?
- The record spans two moods. At the urgent end stand the revival entries — collapse, seizures, infantile convulsions, heatstroke — where classical technique applied its strongest stimulation; those situations today belong to emergency services alone. At the everyday end stand headache, dizziness, sore and swollen throat, difficult urination, constipation, and hot soles, addressed through the traditional idea of guiding excess downward. Both lists are documented heritage, not treatment guidance.
- My feet are unbearably ticklish — is the practice closed to me?
- Not necessarily, though it may shrink. Broad, still contact usually tames the reflex faster than targeted probing: lay the whole palm flat on the sole, add gentle weight through the heel of the hand, breathe out slowly for a minute, and only then introduce the thumb pad in tiny circles. Shorten sessions and lower the ambition. If even that provokes squirming, take the hint — plenty of wellness habits exist, and no rule obliges anyone to conquer their own feet.
- Old stories say Yongquan can rouse someone who has fainted. Is there anything to that?
- The revival reputation is genuinely part of the historical record, but it should stay there. Modern first aid for fainting is settled and simple: lay the person down, raise the legs, loosen tight clothing, and seek medical advice — promptly if recovery is slow, incomplete, or unwitnessed, or if the person is injured, pregnant, or has heart trouble. Do not spend those moments hunting for a point on the sole. The tradition documents what practitioners once reached for; present-day safety decides what anyone should do.
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, jing-well theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for KI1 Yongquan — location, point class, and actions 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/ki1/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/ki1/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/ki1/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "KI1",
"name": {
"en": "Yongquan",
"gloss": "Gushing Spring",
"zh-Hant": "湧泉",
"zh-Hans": "涌泉"
},
"channel": {
"id": "KI",
"order": 1,
"of": 27
},
"location": {
"text": "On the sole, in the dip that forms when the toes curl, about a third of the way from the toe base to the heel."
},
"for": [
"headache",
"dizziness",
"hot soles"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle thumb pressure, about a minute, then the other foot.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"With diabetes, numb feet or pregnancy, ask a practitioner first."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/ki1",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}