孔最 Kongzui
“Utmost Opening” · LU6
Hand Taiyin · 6 of 11 · xi-cleft
Where. On the inner forearm, thumb side, one thumb-width above the midpoint between the wrist and elbow creases.
For. Cough, sore throat, an aching elbow and arm.
Press. Firm thumb pressure, about a minute, then the other arm.
孔最二穴，在腕上七寸，手太陰郄。治熱病汗不出按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Kongzui Sits on the Inner Forearm
The dataset places Kongzui on the radial aspect of the palmar surface of the forearm — the thumb side of the inner face, palm turned up — on the line connecting Chize (LU5) at the elbow crease with Taiyuan (LU9) at the wrist crease, seven cun above the wrist crease. 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 thumb-width on a broad-framed adult differs from a thumb-width on a slight teenager. The point therefore does not live at a fixed distance in centimetres; it lives in your own body’s coordinate system, which is why landmark-based searching beats memorised millimetre figures every time.
The proportions help build a mental picture. The classical proportional map measures the whole span from elbow crease to wrist crease as twelve cun, so seven above the wrist leaves five below the elbow: Kongzui sits just past the midpoint of the forearm, shifted a thumb-width toward the elbow. What lies beneath the skin here is friendly terrain — the plump belly of the thumb-side flexor muscles, springy and well padded. Travel down toward the wrist crease and you will meet the pulse of the radial artery, the very spot classical medicine chose for reading the cunkou pulse. Searching pressure near any pulsation should stay feather-light; the point itself sits high enough on the muscle that you need not approach the vessel at all.
Two reliable anchors make the location repeatable. Chize occupies the radial, thumb-side end of the elbow crease; Taiyuan rests in the small hollow at the thumb-side end of the wrist crease, right beside the pulse. A straight line joins them, and Kongzui stands guard on that line, seven cun up from the wrist end. Losing your bearings mid-search simply means returning to either anchor and drawing the line again — the geography is generous, and the two creases never move.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit down and lay your forearm on a table, palm facing up, arm fully relaxed so the muscles lie flat and honest. Find the thumb-side end of your wrist crease first: let your fingertip settle into the small hollow beside the pulse — that is Taiyuan. Next find the thumb-side end of the elbow crease — that is Chize. Connect the two in your mind, or walk your free hand’s fingertip along the line once so your fingers learn it. Then, starting at the wrist crease, step up the line seven thumb-widths. If successive thumb-widths feel fiddly, use the shortcut: find the midpoint of the line first, then move one more thumb-width toward the elbow. Somewhere under your fingertip, in the fullest part of the muscle, sits Kongzui.
A few confirmations help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light and compare forearms: most people notice a faint, dull heaviness at the true point, like a fingertip pressed gently into the depths of the muscle, and almost nothing a finger-width away. The texture underfoot differs from the lower forearm too — down near the wrist you cross cord-like tendon grooves, while here the tissue reads as full, soft muscle belly. Classical lore adds that cleft points often carry a whisper of sensitivity; treat any tenderness you find as information, never as something to press harder to prove.
Three classic slips account for nearly every miss. The first is wandering to the little-finger side — Kongzui stays on the thumb side of the forearm from start to finish. The second is mixing up the measuring ends: the seven cun belong to the wrist crease, and counted from the elbow the distance is five, so carrying the seven up to the elbow end lands you far off the mark. The third is curling around the edge of the arm until you are palpating the back of the forearm instead of the palmar surface. Every slip has the same remedy: return to the two creases, redraw the line, and measure slowly one more time.
Reading the Name: Utmost Opening
The two characters each pull their weight. Kong 孔 means an opening or aperture — a pore in the skin, a crevice in rock, any small passage through a surface. Zui 最 means most, or utmost, the superlative of degree. Read together, Kongzui is the utmost of openings. On its own the name sounds abstract; set inside channel theory it becomes concrete and vivid, because it points to the place where the lung channel’s qi gathers most deeply and abundantly along its course.
That gathering role names the point’s official category. Classical teaching assigns each of the twelve regular channels one xi-cleft point, and the character for cleft originally means a gap or seam — the kind of place where rainwater sinks into stone instead of running off. The xi-cleft points sit below the elbow and knee, and tradition pictures them as pockets where channel qi pools and concentrates. Classical texts add that when trouble arrived suddenly, these deep pockets were precisely where practitioners looked first, which is why the category carries an enduring association with acute moments. Kongzui holds that office for the lung channel — the “most” in its name measures the depth of the gathering.
Pinyin renders the name Kǒngzuì, a dipping third tone on kong and a falling fourth tone on zui. The hanzi pair 孔最 is a glance to remember. Channel points wear the vocabulary of landscape and architecture — gates, valleys, courtyards, deep pools — and Kongzui’s image is a pool collected deep inside a seam of rock: not the shallows where the stream crosses, but the place where the water gathers and settles. Like Zhongfu’s treasury or Lieque’s breach, the name is a small set of instructions: seek the deepest pocket of the lung channel, and you have found it.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: cough, asthma, coughing blood, sore and swollen throat, and spasmodic pain of the elbow and arm. Take the first two in the traditional frame. Classical practice met coughs of every temperament — the sudden harsh bout and the one that lingered for weeks — and selected along the lung channel for all of them, while the old records grouped under asthma a broad family of noisy, effortful breathing patterns rather than the single modern diagnosis. The category logic explains why a cleft point appears so often in these discussions: tradition reached for xi-cleft points precisely when problems arrived abruptly, and a fit of coughing or wheeze is the classic sudden arrival.
The sore and swollen throat belongs to the same channel logic one storey up: classical descriptions tie the lung channel upward to the throat, so complaints of that region fell naturally within the lung channel’s field of view. The coughing blood entry carries the deepest traditional reasoning — teaching linked the yin channels’ cleft points to blood-related patterns, and the lung channel is a yin channel, so Kongzui recurs in classical discussions of that frightening symptom. One modern rule must stand over the whole paragraph, plainly stated: coughing blood today always calls for prompt medical assessment. The record is preserved here so readers can understand how classical practitioners reasoned, never as a suggestion for handling the symptom at home.
The final indication, spasmodic pain of the elbow and arm, is neighbourhood logic: the lung channel travels the very strip of inner forearm where Kongzui sits, so cramping and aching along that route were approached at points on the route itself, and the channel’s deep-gathering point stood among the natural candidates. It bears repeating what kind of statements these are. They are traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding — not claims that pressing this point treats disease. 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.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, forearm resting on a cushioned table edge, palm up, shoulders heavy and easy. Use the pad of your thumb or index finger — never the fingertip point — and begin with bare contact for a few breaths, letting the skin warm under you. Then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the muscle beneath rather than grinding against it. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild spreading warmth, the sensation of a knot politely acknowledged rather than assaulted. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily; swap hands afterwards so both forearms receive the same unhurried attention.
Quality matters more than duration, and rhythm helps quality. Match each circle to a slow exhale so the pressure rides the breath out rather than pushing against it. Warm your hands first if they run cold — chilled muscle guards itself, and guarded muscle teaches nothing. Some people enjoy a closing stroke: after the focused minute at Kongzui, sweep the finger pads lightly up and down the whole line from Chize to Taiyuan, greeting the neighbours on the channel. Anchor the practice to an existing habit — morning coffee brewing, an afternoon pause between tasks — 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. Across a few weeks, notice what changes: perhaps the forearm feels less braced, perhaps a minute of pressing doubles as the day’s quietest moment, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend ninety seconds attending to your own body. 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. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness, or simply stop for the day and let the practice stay small.
Cautions and Safe Practice
An honest safety note starts with what the record does and does not say. Unlike the chest and upper-back points of this channel, Kongzui carries no point-specific caution in the licensed dataset — there is no deep-organ warning of the sort that makes Zhongfu famous, because the forearm here holds only muscle, tendon, and bone, with no vulnerable cavity behind it. Structurally, this is one of the friendlier addresses on the lung channel. Yet absence of a recorded caution is not an invitation for force; it simply means the usual rules of gentle practice carry the whole load, unassisted by special warnings.
Those rules, applied here: keep pressure light and strictly superficial, working with finger pads only — no elbows, knuckles, or tools. Skip sessions entirely over broken or irritated skin, during a feverish illness, or through any acute flare that has you unwell. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation — nerves and vessels share this forearm corridor, and they answer rudeness promptly. Be patient with recently injured or operated forearms until ordinary activity is cleared, and note that a tendency to bruise easily, whether natural or from medication, argues for an even lighter hand. Pregnant readers should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice, as with any change to a self-care routine.
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 coughing blood, breathlessness, chest pain, fever, or a cough lasting beyond a few weeks, and bring persistent or worsening symptoms of any kind to a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The pool-in-the-rock imagery is lovely, but the safest gift Kongzui offers most people is a better acquaintance with their own forearm, pressed kindly and put down again.
Kongzui, the Utmost Opening, rests on the thumb side of the inner forearm, a little past the halfway mark between elbow crease and wrist crease. As the lung channel’s xi-cleft point, classical practice gathered channel qi here when troubles arrived suddenly — stubborn cough, wheezing breath, a raw sore throat. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently at home.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Kongzui without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the two creases as the whole map. Palm up, find the thumb-side end of the wrist crease and the thumb-side end of the elbow crease, connect them in your mind, then search along that line just past the halfway point toward the elbow — about seven thumb-widths up from the wrist. The proportional cun system simply encodes the same landmark sequence in measuring language.
- Is pressing Kongzui myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults. The forearm at this level contains muscle, tendon, and bone — none of the vulnerable structures that make chest points delicate — and the licensed record attaches no special caution to this point. Respect the universal stop signals regardless: sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means finish immediately, and broken skin postpones the session.
- What does it mean that Kongzui is a xi-cleft point?
- Classical teaching gives each of the twelve regular channels one cleft point where channel qi gathers deeply — the image is rainwater collecting in a seam of rock rather than running off the surface. Tradition reached for such points when problems arrived suddenly, and linked the yin channels’ cleft points with blood-related patterns. Kongzui holds both roles for the lung channel, which shapes everything about how the old literature discusses it. These are frameworks for understanding the body, not treatment claims.
- What did classical practice use Kongzui for?
- The record lists cough, asthma-style wheezing breath, sore and swollen throat, spasmodic pain of the elbow and arm, and coughing blood — the last reflecting the traditional link between yin-channel cleft points and blood patterns. Respiratory complaints dominate its historic portfolio. Those entries are documented tradition offered for context; today, coughing blood in particular belongs in a clinic promptly, never in a self-care routine.
- My forearm stayed tender for a day after pressing. Should I worry?
- Mild soreness that fades within a day usually means the pressure simply ran heavier than the tissue enjoyed — lighten the touch and shorten the session next time. Different in kind are sharp pain during pressing, numbness or tingling that travels, spreading discolouration, or tenderness that refuses to settle: stop the practice and ask a qualified practitioner to take a look before continuing.
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, xi-cleft theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for LU6 Kongzui — 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/lu6/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/lu6/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/lu6/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LU6",
"name": {
"en": "Kongzui",
"gloss": "Utmost Opening",
"zh-Hant": "孔最",
"zh-Hans": "孔最"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LU",
"order": 6,
"of": 11
},
"location": {
"text": "On the inner forearm, thumb side, one thumb-width above the midpoint between the wrist and elbow creases."
},
"for": [
"cough",
"sore throat",
"an aching elbow and arm"
],
"press": {
"text": "Firm thumb pressure, about a minute, then the other arm.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 5",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/lu6",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}