Not in pregnancy.
四滿 Siman
“Four Fullness” · KI14
Foot Shaoyin · 14 of 27 · crossing-point
Where. Three finger-widths below the navel, half a thumb-width out from the midline.
For. Belly ache; constipation; irregular periods.
Press. Lying down, a light fingertip touch, about a minute.
Caution. Not in pregnancy.
四滿，一名髓府，在中注下一寸按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Siman Sits on the Lower Abdomen
Siman occupies the middle stretch of the lower belly. The licensed dataset locates it on the lower abdomen, two cun below the centre of the umbilicus and half a cun to the side of the anterior midline. 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 across a broad-framed adult differs from a cun on a slight teenager. On the front torso the classic span from navel to pubic ridge runs five cun, which makes two cun below the navel about two-fifths of the way down that journey — squarely mid-belly, still comfortably above the bony floor, yet far enough down that the tissue here already feels softer and deeper than the wall around the navel.
What lies beneath the skin explains much of the point’s temperament. Half a thumb-width either side of the midline, the fingertips rest on the vertical band of the rectus abdominis — the paired muscle cords running from ribs toward the pubic bone — while the shallow midline groove itself lies unpressed just beside them. Below the muscle comes the soft lining of the abdominal cavity, and at this level the coils of small intestine typically settle, shifting gently with breath and position. The bladder, too, fills upward into exactly this neighbourhood. None of this forbids light fingertip contact, but it sets the register: patient, feather-light work only, never firm digging, and every suggestion on this page stays inside that boundary.
The wider channel map fixes the point in place. Classical teaching draws the kidney meridian beginning on the sole of the foot, climbing the inner aspect of the leg, surfacing on the lower abdomen near its floor, and then continuing straight upward along the front of the trunk about half a thumb-width beside the midline before rising toward the chest. Siman stands on that vertical ladder midway up the lower abdomen: Qixue sits one station nearer the pubic ridge below, and Zhongzhu one station nearer the navel above. Counting upward from Henggu at the very bottom, Siman arrives as the fourth point of the climb — a detail the name itself may be keeping.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Begin settled rather than rushed: lying on your back with the knees softly bent relaxes the abdominal wall best, and a visit to the bathroom first keeps the practice from resting on a full bladder. Find the centre of your navel, rest two fingertips there, and walk them straight down the midline for two of your own thumb-widths — thumbs vary, so measure with yours, not an imagined standard. If you prefer working from solid ground, find the upper edge of the pubic bone instead and count three thumb-widths up from it. Either route reaches the same level. From there, slide sideways about half a thumb-width clear of the midline: the soft patch under your pad is Siman’s neighbourhood. Repeat the search on the other side, since the point exists as a symmetric pair.
A few quiet confirmations help before any pressure begins. Touch with almost no force and compare sides; many people notice a faint, deep awareness at the true spot and little sensation a finger-width away. Check your clearance: the pad should sit clearly off the midline groove, neither riding it nor straying far past the muscle band beside it. Confirm what lies under the fingertip too — soft, yielding wall rather than bone; if the pubic ridge pushes up against you, you have wandered too low, and gliding upward a thumb-width will bring the search back on track. Everything should register as mild warmth or dull attention; anything sharper belongs to another day.
Common slips deserve naming. A wide thumb measuring down from the navel can undershoot toward the bony floor; a narrow thumb can overshoot toward the navel — which is why the pubic-ridge method, anchored on bone, suits many hands better. Drifting outward is the other trap: the kidney channel hugs the midline along the whole abdomen, so the point lives close beside it, not out toward the hip. Losing count mid-search simply means returning to a landmark — navel or pubic ridge — and measuring once more, slowly. Trust the skeleton over arithmetic whenever the two disagree.
Reading the Name: Four Fullness
The characters carry the argument. Si 四 means four, spoken with a falling fourth tone — the voice drops sharply and stays down. Man 滿 means full, filled, fullness, spoken with a dipping third tone that sinks first and lifts again, like a question asked twice. Read together, Siman is usually rendered Four Fullness: a place named for gathered, brimming sensation. The hanzi pair 四滿 is compact enough to memorise at a glance, and like most points on this channel it takes its title from the terrain it overlooks rather than from any organ it serves.
Why four, and why fullness? Two readings travel together in the commentarial tradition, and this page offers both without preferring either. One counts: climbing the straight abdominal line from Henggu at the floor of the torso, through Dahe and Qixue, Siman arrives as the fourth point — the numeral may simply number its rung on the ladder toward the navel. The other reads the body: classical commentators associated this site with distending, pressing sensations that seemed to gather around the lower abdomen and spread outward in every direction, so four came to stand for the four quarters of that fullness. Both are traditional ways of remembering the point, documented as context rather than asserted as mechanism.
The dataset adds a credential beyond the name: Siman is recorded as a crossing point. Classical sources describe it as one of the places where the qi of the kidney channel meets another vessel travelling through the lower abdomen, commonly identified in the literature with the penetrating vessel — the chong mai of classical theory. Meetings like this made a point noteworthy in classical discussions, the way a junction town earns its place on an old map: converging movement marked a spot worth attending to. The imagery is cartographic, not clinical — a way of honouring convergence, not a claim about outcomes.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: abdominal pain, hernia, constipation, irregular menstruation, vaginal discharge, enuresis, and nocturnal emission. Read as tradition rather than promise, the leading item describes the lower belly in Chinese-medical language — pain felt as distension, pressure, or a stuck quality, understood as qi and fluid failing to move smoothly in the lower burner. Hernia appears throughout the older literature in its own sense: downward-drifting sensations and bulgings toward the groin, discussed alongside lower-abdominal discomfort wherever channels descended. Constipation belonged to the same district — bowel movement read as sluggish transport, the intestines lacking the smooth, moistened push that tradition attributed to freely moving qi and fluids. These were the situations in which classical authors most often named this point.
The remaining items form two clusters that dominate the point’s historic portfolio. Irregular menstruation and vaginal discharge belong to the gynecological side: in the traditional frame, the vessels converging at this level of the lower abdomen were closely involved with women’s cycles and with the damp accumulations the old texts called discharge, which is why a meeting point standing there drew such discussions. Enuresis and nocturnal emission belong to the water-and-essence side: tradition assigned the kidney the storing of essence and the securing of the lower gates, and a kidney-channel point surfaced on the low abdomen fit that frame neatly. All of this is framework thinking, documented for context rather than asserted as effect.
It bears repeating plainly: these are traditional uses preserved 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 here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and heavily context-dependent, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. Several of the conditions named above — persistent or severe abdominal pain, and marked changes in menstruation or discharge among them — always warrant proper medical evaluation today. Hold the tradition lightly, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the area found by the walkthrough above, arrange comfort first: lying down or reclined, knees supported, abdomen unclenched, bladder emptied beforehand. Curl index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — never the tips — on the spot. Start with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding inward. Sensation should read as gentle dullness or spreading warmth, nothing more insistent. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched to long exhales so each circle rides the breath out; then swap hands and give the other side equal time.
Quality outranks duration everywhere on this page, and doubly so over organs. Warm the hands first, because chilled muscle guards; choose a quiet corner rather than a screen. People who sustain a routine usually anchor it to an existing habit — after morning washing, before sleep — because regularity, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually reward. If anything feels tender beyond mild awareness, lighten further or pause entirely for a few days; the abdomen forgives patience and resents insistence. And let the practice remain a surface practice: the moment curiosity suggests pressing harder to feel something more, the day’s session has done its work and should end.
Treat the minutes spent here as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Perhaps the lower belly softens; perhaps warmth spreads; perhaps nothing shifts except that you spent three minutes attending honestly to a part of the body that quietly carries more than it advertises. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — heavier pressure, deeper digging, longer sessions aimed at forcing a result. Return to gentleness, or close the day’s practice on a single slow breath.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed dataset records no specific caution entry for this point, and this layer echoes that empty record exactly, as policy requires. An empty record is information, not permission: absence of a written caution is not an invitation to force, because the geography has not changed — soft wall, mobile intestine, and a bladder that rises when full all shelter behind this stretch of belly. Prudence at lower-abdominal points therefore follows from anatomy rather than from any warning label. Light, brief, superficial contact is the entire assignment here, and it would remain so even if a caution stood in the record.
For fingertip practice the rules follow from that picture. Keep every contact strictly superficial — skin and the outermost muscle layer, never driving inward. Use finger pads only; no knuckles, elbows, or tools. Skip the point entirely during pregnancy, since lower-abdominal points are approached with particular restraint in that period; over broken or irritated skin; during any acute abdominal complaint — pain, fever, vomiting — until a clinician has looked at it; and through the recovery period after abdominal or pelvic surgery. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not retry that day. Readers living with chronic digestive, urinary, or gynecological conditions should ask a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice.
And the wider rule stands over everything: certain signs belong to prompt medical care, not to any pressure routine — sudden or severe abdominal pain, pain with fever or vomiting, blood in stool or urine, inability to pass stool or gas, a painful firm bulge in the groin, and persistent changes in menstruation, discharge, or urination. Persistent symptoms of any kind call for a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. Self-acupressure is educational self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Practised within those rails, what Siman offers most people is quieter: a few honest minutes of attention on the lower belly, taken gently, and clearer instincts about where everyday care ends and professional care must begin.
Siman, Four Fullness, stands on the lower belly two thumb-widths below the navel, half a thumb-width beside the midline. Classical practice reached for it in distending abdominal pain, hernia, constipation, and a traditional cluster of concerns around menstruation and the water passages. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently and safely at home.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Siman without knowing anything about cun?
- Use your own hand and the skeleton. Lie back, find the navel, and measure two of your thumb-widths straight down the midline — or find the top of the pubic bone and measure three thumb-widths up. At that level, slide sideways half a thumb-width clear of the midline. That soft patch beside the central groove is the area the dataset describes. The written measurements simply encode, in proportional language, the same short journey your fingertips have walked.
- Is pressing Siman myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip contact held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, because it stays far short of the depth of the structures the abdomen shelters. The licensed record carries no specific caution for this point, though prudence at lower-abdominal sites comes from anatomy rather than labels: keep pressure light, sessions short, and stop signals strict. Sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately and try nothing harder that day.
- What did classical practice use Siman for?
- The traditional record lists abdominal pain, hernia, constipation, irregular menstruation, vaginal discharge, enuresis, and nocturnal emission. Classical theory framed these through the kidney channel’s climb and the point’s recorded meeting with the penetrating vessel at this level of the abdomen. Those are frameworks for understanding the body, preserved for cultural context — not evidence-backed claims about what pressing the point achieves.
- Why is the point called Four Fullness?
- Si means four and man means full or fullness. Commentators have offered two compatible readings: the point stands fourth on the kidney channel’s straight climb up the abdomen from Henggu, and classical discussion also tied the site to brimming, distending sensations felt around the lower abdomen spreading toward the four quarters. Both are traditional commentary rather than settled fact, and neither needs settling before the point can be found and treated kindly.
- Can pressing Siman replace seeing a doctor about my symptoms?
- No. Severe or persistent abdominal pain, blood in stool or urine, feverish complaints, a painful groin bulge, or lasting changes in menstruation, discharge, or urination need professional assessment promptly. Think of self-care and medicine as different floors of one building: daily comfort practices live downstairs, and the consulting room upstairs exists precisely for symptoms that persist, worsen, or frighten. 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, crossing-point context, and channel course.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for KI14 Siman — 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.
- GET /en/points/ki14/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/ki14/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/ki14/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "KI14",
"name": {
"en": "Siman",
"gloss": "Four Fullness",
"zh-Hant": "四滿",
"zh-Hans": "四满"
},
"channel": {
"id": "KI",
"order": 14,
"of": 27
},
"location": {
"text": "Three finger-widths below the navel, half a thumb-width out from the midline."
},
"for": [
"belly ache",
"constipation",
"irregular periods"
],
"press": {
"text": "Lying down, a light fingertip touch, about a minute.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [
"Not in pregnancy."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/ki14",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}