Light touch only; never press hard into the rib space.
期門 Qimen
“Cycle Gate” · LV14
Foot Jueyin · 14 of 14 · front-mu of the liver
Where. Straight below the nipple, in the second rib gap down from it.
For. Tight chest and ribs; a bloated belly; hiccups.
Press. Light touch with the finger pads in the rib groove, about a minute.
Caution. Light touch only; never press hard into the rib space.
期門，肝募也，在第二肋端，不容傍各一寸五分，上直兩乳按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Qimen Sits on the Lower Chest
The dataset locates Qimen on the chest, directly below the nipple, in the sixth intercostal space, four cun lateral to the anterior midline. Three descriptors converge on one small patch of ribcage. A cun is the traditional proportional unit of point-location, measured against the person rather than a ruler: the width of the thumb joint at its widest counts as one, and the breadth of four fingers held together is traditionally reckoned as three. Four cun therefore sits a little beyond a four-finger span from the body’s centre line. As for the nipple: the classical proportional scheme assigns it that same four-cun seat from the midline, so the landmark and the measurement describe one vertical corridor. Bodies differ, and where a particular chest seems to disagree with the arithmetic, the measured distance deserves the benefit of the doubt.
What rests beneath this patch of skin explains why the record speaks carefully here. The sixth intercostal space is the groove beneath the sixth rib, low enough on the chest wall that the ribs are already angling down toward the abdomen. In the modern reading of traditional anatomy, the dome of the liver rises high beneath the right lower ribs, and the spleen tucks forward under its left counterparts; only muscle and membrane separate such organs from fingertip contact at this level. None of this forbids gentle surface work, but it sets the tone: this is territory to be touched the way one touches a book’s cover, not the way one presses a doorbell.
Qimen’s most reliable neighbours are its own two selves. The point exists on both sides of the sternum along the same vertical corridor below each nipple, and comparing the two placements against each other is the best anchor available: whatever groove your fingers settle into on the left should sit level with its partner on the right, equidistant from the centre line. Because low-chest landmarks shift subtly with posture and breath, search each side separately while upright, then cross-check. If the two disagree by more than a finger-width, return to the nipple corridor and begin again slowly.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Begin settled rather than searching. Sit upright on a firm chair, shoulders released, breathing unhurried, so the chest muscles have nothing to defend. Rest the pads of your index and middle fingers just below the nipple and let them slide straight down the slope of the ribs. Pass over the first clear groove running sideways — the gap beneath a rib’s lower edge; the second such groove is the sixth intercostal space, and Qimen belongs level with it, on the line dropped from the nipple. Keep pad contact throughout; fingertips hunt better than nail edges ever could.
Two quiet checks confirm the placement. First, gauge the horizontal reach: the spot should lie a little more than a four-finger width out from the centre of the chest, matching the recorded four cun. Second, compare sides: locate the groove once per side and satisfy yourself that the two sit level and symmetric. Most people notice only a faint, dull awareness directly on the spot and little sensation a finger-width away — a soft signature, easily missed if you expect drama. Should your fingers land on bare bone instead of a groove, slide half a thumb-width off the edge and search again.
The classic slips are predictable. Landing too high comes first — the fourth or fifth space sits closer to hand, and counting grooves downward through the pectoral muscle can blur; if you choose to count, start at the first clear gap beneath the collarbone and move slowly, checking against the other side. Drifting inward toward the breastbone is the second error; the corridor runs well out from the centre. The third matters most: pressing inward hard where the ribs yield toward the belly. Depth is never the goal here. Anyone who cannot resolve the landmarks confidently should simply rest a warm palm broadly over the lower chest and enjoy the comfort of contact, leaving precision to trained hands.
Reading the Name: Cycle Gate
The characters carry a calendar in them. Qi 期 means an appointed time, a season, the full length of a cycle — it appears in everyday words for weekly schedules and for expectation alike. Men 門 is simply a gate or doorway. Joined, Qimen has been read as the gate of the appointed time, the gate where the cycle completes, and classical commentators tied the name to this point’s station at the very end of the liver channel’s round: the place where a long journey settles its accounts. No single gloss is dogma, but the imagery fits the geography.
Office adds to imagery. Classical teaching assigns each of the zang organs a gathering place on the front of the trunk, called a mu point, where that organ’s activity was thought to pool nearest the surface; Qimen holds the office for the liver. In the traditional frame the liver governs the free flow of qi through the body, and its mu gate reads as the door through which that activity addresses the front of the trunk. Channel context deepens the picture: classical maps trace the liver pathway from the big toe, up the inner leg, to the ribs — fourteen stations in all, with Qimen numbered last. Nor does the classical circuit dead-end here: texts describe the current handing back to the lung channel, so the ring closes and begins anew.
Pinyin renders the name Qīmén. The syllable qi carries the first tone — a high, steady, level note, like a held flute tone — while men takes the second tone, the rising contour Chinese voices give to questions. Spoken aloud, the name climbs gently and keeps climbing, an oddly hopeful sound for a gate at the end of a road. The hanzi pair 期門 stays easy to recall once seen. Like many channel points named for architecture — gates, courtyards, storehouses — the metaphor performs work rather than decorating: it says the tradition treated this spot as a threshold where something finishes and something else falls due.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: breast abscess, distending pain of the chest and hypochondrium, abdominal distension, hiccups, vomiting, retention of urine, and enuresis. Read as history rather than prescription, the list maps the liver system’s traditional jurisdiction. Breast abscess — the old records’ term for hot, swollen, painful gatherings in the breast — entered the list because classical teaching placed the breasts within the liver channel’s sphere: its network was drawn across the chest and around the reproductive region, so swellings there were often reasoned about through the liver and its emotional associations. Distending pain of the chest and hypochondrium — the ribside flanking the trunk — belonged even more plainly to this channel, whose course spreads across exactly that territory; the era explained oppressive, bloated discomfort as liver qi failing to move smoothly, and the organ’s mu gate was the natural address for it.
The remaining entries cluster around the middle and lower trunk. Abdominal distension, hiccups, and vomiting were read as counterflow — qi ascending when it ought to descend, food and gas travelling the wrong way in the physiology of the time — and a front gathering point stood high enough to meet what rose yet near enough to the middle burner to reason about it. Retention of urine and enuresis look furthest afield until the course drawings are consulted: classical maps send the liver channel around the genital region, tying it to the lower body’s waterways, and the tradition held that when liver qi moved freely, the gates of water opened and shut in due season. Whatever one makes of these ideas today, they formed a coherent map in their own era.
It bears repeating plainly what this section does not claim. Listing historical indications asserts nothing about whether pressing this point affects any condition; nothing here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician, and several items on the list — a hot, swollen breast foremost — deserve prompt medical attention when newly noticed. Where research has touched self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and dependent on context, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. The honest value of these old lists is orientation: they show how the tradition reasoned, and why it kept a gate at the end of its longest limb-to-trunk journey.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
Let comfort set the pace. Once located, rest two or three finger pads flat on the spot and simply keep company with it for a few slow breaths before adding anything. Then draw small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath; pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A rhythm of one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, suits home practice, hands swapped so both corridors receive equal attention. Matching circles to long exhales turns the minute into a breathing pause as much as a touch.
A few habits keep the practice kind to this particular address. Warm your hands first, since chilled muscle guards. Choose a chair over a bed if lying down makes you drowsy mid-session — or embrace the drowsiness and treat the practice as a short rest with intention; either serves. Leave screens aside, because part of the value lies in looking away. And resist the quiet temptation to test whether firmer might be better: along this depth-sensitive stretch of ribcage, firmness buys nothing and risks exactly the wrong thing. Consistency over weeks, not intensity within minutes, is what self-care traditions actually reward.
Hold honest expectations alongside the routine. What gentle surface work here may offer is comfort, a loosening of habitual guarding around the lower chest, and the quieter benefits shared by every deliberate pause — slower breath, gathered attention, a few minutes of care aimed at a region usually ignored. Perhaps nothing shifts except that you attended to yourself; that too belongs to the practice’s honest scope. What does not belong is escalation — pressing deeper, longer, or harder to force an outcome. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness, or close the session for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point carries an explicit caution in the licensed record, and it deserves to lead this page’s safety notes: the compilers warn not to needle deeply here, because deep insertion may injure the liver or spleen. The warning follows from plain geography. Low on the chest wall where the ribs angle toward the abdomen, the sixth intercostal space overlies organs that rise surprisingly high — the liver’s great dome reaches up under the right lower ribs, the spleen shelters beneath its left partners — with only muscle and membrane standing guard. Professional training manages that risk with exact technique; home care manages it differently and far more simply, by never leaving the surface at all.
For fingertip practice the rules follow from that picture. Keep pressure light and strictly superficial — the intent stays in skin and superficial muscle, never driving inward where the ribs yield. Use pads only; elbows, knuckles, and tools are ruled out entirely at this site. Set the point aside completely over broken or irritated skin, during feverish illness, and whenever anything about the area feels unwell. Be cautious, and seek advice beforehand, after chest or abdominal surgery, with known liver or spleen conditions, and during pregnancy, when any new point practice deserves a professional nod first. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and leave the point alone for the rest of the day.
And the standing rule rises over everything: this page is educational, acupressure is self-care, and neither diagnoses nor treats anything. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for severe or persistent abdominal pain, vomiting blood, blood in the urine, a newly noticed breast lump, fever alongside local tenderness, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner — Western medicine or East Asian medicine, whichever suits the complaint. A gate, in this tradition, also knows when to stay shut; let gentleness, and good sense, decide when yours opens.
Qimen, the Cycle Gate, stands low on the front of the chest directly below the nipple, where the ribs begin their descent toward the belly. It closes the liver channel as its fourteenth station and holds the office of the liver’s front-mu point. Classical practice reached for it in breast complaints, distending chest and ribside pain, abdominal fullness, hiccups, and vomiting.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Keep insertion shallow; a deep needle can damage the liver or spleen.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- Can I find Qimen without confidently counting six intercostal spaces?
- Trust the corridor more than the count. Drop a vertical line from the nipple and follow it down toward where the ribs begin angling away toward the belly; the clear groove your fingers meet just before they do — a little beyond a four-finger span from the centre — is the neighbourhood the dataset describes. Cross-check the two sides against each other for symmetry, and if uncertainty remains, rest a warm palm broadly over the lower chest instead — gentle comfort does not require surveyor-grade precision.
- Is pressing near the liver and spleen really safe?
- Light fingertip contact held on the surface engages skin and superficial muscle, far short of the organs the record warns about — the danger named in the dataset concerns deep professional techniques that home acupressure never approaches. For healthy adults practising gently on intact skin, the risk picture resembles any other chest-wall point. Respect the stop signals all the same: sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens means finish immediately and try nothing further that day.
- What did classical practice use Qimen for?
- The traditional record lists breast abscess, distending pain of the chest and hypochondrium, abdominal distension, hiccups, vomiting, retention of urine, and enuresis. Classical texts describe it as the liver’s front-mu point, where the organ’s activity gathers nearest the surface, and the channel map ties it to the ribside and the genital region — which explains how one point collected such varied duties. These are documented frameworks for understanding, not claims that pressing treats disease.
- Why does the liver channel end at the chest rather than somewhere grander?
- In the classical circuit, endings are beginnings. Maps trace the liver pathway rising from the big toe, climbing the inner leg, and arriving at the ribs, where Qimen closes the route as its fourteenth station — and texts describe the current then passing back to the lung channel, restarting the whole circulation. A gate at the terminus made philosophical sense: the cycle completes, the door swings, and the next round is already underway. The point’s very name leans on that image.
- Should a newly noticed breast lump change my plans for this point?
- Entirely. Any new lump, thickening, or persistent swelling in the breast belongs with a doctor first — assessment is straightforward, most findings turn out benign, and that judgement cannot be made at home. Think of the sequence as fixed: clinical questions go upstairs to the consulting room, and once a professional has looked at matters, gentle surface practice can resume its modest supporting role downstairs.
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, mu-point theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for LV14 Qimen — location, 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/lv14/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/lv14/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/lv14/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LV14",
"name": {
"en": "Qimen",
"gloss": "Cycle Gate",
"zh-Hant": "期門",
"zh-Hans": "期门"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LV",
"order": 14,
"of": 14
},
"location": {
"text": "Straight below the nipple, in the second rib gap down from it."
},
"for": [
"tight chest and ribs",
"a bloated belly",
"hiccups"
],
"press": {
"text": "Light touch with the finger pads in the rib groove, about a minute.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [
"Light touch only; never press hard into the rib space."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/lv14",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}