然谷 Rangu
“Blazing Valley” · KI2
Foot Shaoyin · 2 of 27 · ying-spring
Where. On the inner edge of the foot, below the bony knob in front of the ankle, where the top skin meets the sole.
For. Sore throat; irregular periods; sore, swollen feet.
Press. Gentle finger pressure, about a minute, then the other foot.
然谷者，火也。一名龍淵，在足內踝前起大骨下陷者中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Rangu Sits on the Inner Foot
The dataset places Rangu plainly: on the medial side of the foot, below the tuberosity of the navicular bone, at the junction of the red and white skin. Each landmark repays a closer look. Run a thumb along the inner border of the midfoot and it meets one unmistakable rounded knob — the tuberosity of the navicular, sitting roughly midway between the base of the big toe and the front edge of the inner ankle bone. Below points toward the sole rather than toward the toes. And the junction of red and white skin is traditional location vocabulary for the line where the thicker, pinker skin of the sole gives way to the thinner, paler skin facing inward and upward. Three observations stacked together fix the site precisely enough for fingertips.
The ground under this point is modest and worth respecting. The knob itself belongs to one of the small tarsal bones that shape the arch, and the tendon that helps keep the arch sprung anchors onto that very prominence. Just below it the firm bone yields to the softer, springy wedge where the arch rolls over into the sole, cushioned by thin soft tissue. Many people find the area distinctly sensitive — a faint ache or ticklishness under light touch — which is simply the native texture of the spot, not a warning sign. Palpation here rewards patience and lightness; pressing hard only blurs the boundary between bone and the tender hollow beside it.
Rangu occupies a short, busy stretch of the kidney channel. The registry describes that pathway as ascending from the sole of the foot, up the inner leg, to the chest. Its journey surfaces at Yongquan (KI1) on the sole, passes Rangu low on the inner border of the foot, and climbs onward to Taixi (KI3), which sits behind the inner ankle bone in the hollow between the tip of the malleolus and the Achilles tendon. Reading the three neighbours together makes confirmation easy: sole, inner-border hollow, then the groove behind the ankle. If your three findings line up in that order, the middle one is almost certainly Rangu.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit comfortably and bring the foot within easy reach — crossed over the opposite knee, or resting flat with the body relaxed. With your thumb, trace the inner border of the foot backward from the base of the big toe, moving slowly enough to feel what passes beneath. The first definite bony prominence you encounter, roughly halfway along the inner arch, is the navicular tuberosity. Once found, slide the pad of your thumb a short step below it, toward the sole, and settle where the skin changes character — from the firmer sole side to the thinner upper side. A slightly soft, faintly achy hollow there marks Rangu. Repeat the search on the other foot so both receive equal attention.
A few quiet confirmations help before any real pressing begins. Compare sides with feather-light touches: most people register a subtle dull awareness at the true point and little sensation half a finger-width away. Flex and spread the toes, or gently flatten and release the arch — the bony knob stays put beneath your finger while everything soft moves around it, a useful way to tell bone from tendon. Check orientation too: Rangu should sit clearly in front of the inner ankle bone, out along the midfoot, not tucked against the ankle. If everything feels like hard bone, you are probably still on top of the tuberosity; ease a little further down toward the sole and search again.
Three classic slips account for most missed finds. The first is settling on the crown of the knob itself — one landmark too high — which produces pressure on bare bone rather than the mild ache of the point. The second is wandering backward into the hollow behind the inner ankle, comfortable territory that already belongs to Taixi. The third is overshooting forward into the thick pad of the sole, losing the colour boundary altogether. None of these matter much: return to the big-toe base, walk backward again, and take the drop from the knob one unhurried time. Slow repetition teaches the landscape faster than any diagram.
Reading the Name: Blazing Valley
The hanzi carry the story. Ran 然 is the ancient form of the character now written with a fire radical to mean to burn or blaze; gu 谷 means valley — the low ground between heights where water gathers. Read together, Rangu is the blazing valley, and the geography fits hand in glove: the navicular prominence rises like a hill, and the tender hollow just beneath it forms the valley floor. Point names across the channels lean on such landscapes — springs, streams, ravines, courtyards — and here the image does double duty, describing both the lie of the land and, as classical commentators heard it, something of the point’s temperament.
That temperament comes from the record itself. The dataset files Rangu under the ying-spring class, one of the five antique point grades classical teaching assigns along every channel. In the five-phase scheme, the spring points of the yin channels are marked with a fire nature — so on the kidney, the water element’s own channel, this single station carries the flame. Commentators accordingly pictured Rangu as a small contained blaze within the kidney waters: fire kept low and useful, warming without boiling over. Whether one takes the imagery literally matters little; it encodes how the tradition thought about the point — a water-route waypoint with an unusually bright disposition.
Pinyin renders the name Rángǔ: a rising second tone on ran and a dipping third tone on gu. The two hanzi are spare enough to memorise at a glance. Like many channel names drawn from nature, the metaphor quietly instructs: valleys collect what the slopes shed, and this valley was understood to gather what the kidney system sent down to its lowest reaches. Names in this literature rarely decorate; they compress a location, a classification, and a theory of function into two syllables. Learning to read them is a small skill in itself, and Rangu is among the more rewarding examples.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications span eleven items: irregular menstruation, vaginal discharge, prolapse of the uterus, nocturnal emission, impotence, difficult urination, coughing blood, sore and swollen throat, diabetes, lockjaw in infants, and swelling and pain of the foot. The first cluster reads naturally in traditional physiology. The kidney system stores essence and governs water, growth, and reproduction in the classical picture, so complaints of cycle, discharge, descent, and generative vitality gathered under its channel’s care, and a point low on that channel stood ready at hand. This is reasoning inside the traditional framework — described here to explain the record, not to assert effect.
Other entries reach far from the foot. Coughing blood, sore and swollen throat, and the item the record calls diabetes belong to older discussions in which the whole channel formed one connected territory, and commentators often leaned on this point’s fire nature when explaining its link with heat-type complaints. Modern readers should hear several of these names with care. Coughing blood has always been a sign demanding prompt medical attention. Lockjaw in infants referred in classical times to grave newborn illness, and any infant today who cannot feed or open the jaw normally is an emergency — never a matter for home pressure. The entry rendered diabetes corresponds to the old wasting-thirst pattern — persistent thirst, hunger, and weight loss — overlapping but not identical with the modern disease; anyone with unrelenting thirst, increased urination, or unexplained weight change needs proper clinical assessment, not acupressure.
The last indication returns to the neighborhood: swelling and pain of the foot, the plainest case of a point attending to the ground it stands on. Taken together, the record shows a tradition working at several scales at once — local, systemic, and symbolic — and it is offered here exactly as such: the traditional uses preserved in a licensed dataset and classical literature, presented for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, with evidence for any single point remaining thin. Hold the tradition lightly and the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located, settle in: seated and relaxed, one foot flat or crossed over the opposite knee. Place the pad of your thumb — never the tip — on the spot and 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 bone. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per foot, once or twice daily, matched where possible to long exhales. Finish by swapping hands or seats and giving the other foot the identical attention, keeping the sessions symmetrical.
Quality outranks duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is what the wellness tradition on this page practises; jabbing force injures tissue and teaches nothing. Cold feet benefit from a warm-up — rub the hands together, or soak the feet briefly in warm water — because chilled tissue guards itself. Choose a quiet corner over a screen and let the session double as the day’s first or last pause: soften the jaw, lengthen the exhale, let the thumb rest in its small valley. People who keep such routines do best anchoring them to an existing habit — after evening washing, before bed — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care actually asks for.
Treat the exercise as a few minutes of attended rest rather than a treatment. Across weeks you may notice the spot feeling less guarded, a spreading warmth under the thumb, or nothing at all except that you spent time looking after your own feet. Every outcome on that list sits inside the honest scope of self-acupressure. What sits outside it is escalation — harder, longer, deeper pressure pursued to force a result. Curiosity that pulls that way should be answered with gentleness, or with stopping for the day. The point will still be there tomorrow, exactly where the valley has always been.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed dataset records no special cautions for Rangu — and that empty field is information, not invitation. Nothing about it licenses force. The foot is a thin-tissue landscape where bone lies close beneath skin, so every rule of gentle practice applies in full: pads of the fingers or thumbs only, never elbows, knuckles, or tools; complete avoidance wherever skin is broken, irritated, or infected; immediate cessation on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, with no retry that day. Judgment matters more here than point selection — the manner of touching is the whole of the safety story.
Some readers should add a preliminary step. Pregnant readers do best consulting a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice. Anyone recovering from foot injury, fracture, or surgery should wait until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Readers living with diabetes — particularly where sensation in the feet has dulled — do well asking their clinician before beginning any regular foot-pressure routine, since feet that cannot report discomfort reliably cannot supervise their own care. And illness always outranks practice: pause during fever or acute sickness, and let worsening symptoms route you toward care rather than toward longer sessions.
Over everything stands the wider rule. This page is educational; self-acupressure is comfort care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical attention — not a longer pressing session — for blood in the cough, any abnormal symptom in an infant, unrelenting thirst accompanied by weight change, foot swelling or pain that persists or worsens, or anything that frightens you. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, Western or East Asian medical as suits the situation. The blazing-valley image is charming, but perhaps the safest gift Rangu offers is a slower, kinder acquaintance with your own two feet.
Rangu, the Blazing Valley, rests low on the inner border of the foot just below the navicular bone’s small prominence. Classical practice reached for this ying-spring point across a wide field — menstrual irregularity, sore throat, urinary difficulty, aching feet among them. This guide walks through locating it by touch and pressing it gently within sensible safety limits.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Rangu if I cannot feel the navicular bone?
- Find its neighbours instead. Settle your thumb into the hollow behind the inner ankle bone — the spot that belongs to Taixi — then walk forward along the inner border of the foot. The first definite bony knob you meet, roughly midway to the big-toe base, is the navicular tuberosity, and Rangu waits a short step below it at the skin-colour boundary. High arches and thick pads can hide the knob from the eye even when the thumb finds it easily, so search by feel, slowly, and compare the two feet.
- Is pressing Rangu myself actually safe?
- For healthy adults, gentle surface-level pressure with a thumb pad is generally reasonable everyday care, and the licensed dataset records no specific cautions for this point. That absence simply hands responsibility back to common sense: keep the touch light and superficial, use pads rather than tools, and honour the stop signals — sharp pain, radiating sensation, or anything that worsens means finish at once. Professional technique is a separate discipline with its own training; home acupressure stays on the surface and does not attempt it.
- What did classical practice use Rangu for?
- The traditional record lists irregular menstruation, vaginal discharge, prolapse of the uterus, nocturnal emission, impotence, difficult urination, coughing blood, sore and swollen throat, the wasting-thirst pattern the entry renders as diabetes, lockjaw in infants, and swelling and pain of the foot. Classical teaching files it as the fire-natured ying-spring point of the water-element kidney channel, which shaped how commentators explained its unusually wide portfolio. These are traditional frameworks documented for context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does a foot point carry indications about cycles and kidneys?
- Because channel thinking treats the route as one country. Classical theory draws the kidney channel starting on the sole and climbing the inner leg all the way to the chest, so points scattered along the path were read as windows onto the organ system they serve, wherever the complaint appeared. The five-phase reading adds another layer: as the fire point on a water channel, Rangu was imagined as a steady small flame helping keep the kidney waters temperate. The framework is traditional, the inference belonged to the old physicians, and the record preserves it for understanding rather than as promise.
- Can pressing Rangu replace seeing a doctor about my symptoms?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice without diagnostic power. Persistent menstrual changes, noticeably heavier bleeding, pelvic pain, foot swelling that will not settle, or any symptom accompanied by fever, weight loss, or fatigue deserves professional assessment promptly. Think of the two as different kinds of care rather than rivals: daily maintenance keeps ordinary life comfortable the way sweeping keeps a room tidy, while clinical medicine looks after the wiring and plumbing. Neither substitutes for the other, and knowing which door to knock on is itself a health skill.
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, ying-spring theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for KI2 Rangu — location, point class, actions, and indication 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/ki2/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/ki2/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/ki2/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "KI2",
"name": {
"en": "Rangu",
"gloss": "Blazing Valley",
"zh-Hant": "然谷",
"zh-Hans": "然谷"
},
"channel": {
"id": "KI",
"order": 2,
"of": 27
},
"location": {
"text": "On the inner edge of the foot, below the bony knob in front of the ankle, where the top skin meets the sole."
},
"for": [
"sore throat",
"irregular periods",
"sore",
"swollen feet"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle finger pressure, about a minute, then the other foot.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/ki2",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}