Not on a hot, swollen or newly injured knee.
曲泉 Ququan
“Spring at the Bend” · LV8
Foot Jueyin · 8 of 14 · he-sea
Where. Knee bent: at the inner end of the crease behind the knee, in the hollow in front of the tendons.
For. Difficult urination; painful periods; knee pain.
Press. Light fingertip touch, knee bent, about a minute each leg.
Caution. Not on a hot, swollen or newly injured knee.
曲泉者，水也。在膝內輔骨下，大筋上，小筋下，陷者中，屈膝得之按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Ququan Sits at the Inner Knee
The dataset locates Ququan with unusual economy and not a single measurement: on the medial aspect of the knee, with the knee flexed, at the medial end of the popliteal crease, posterior to the medial condyle of the femur, in the depression anterior to the insertions of semitendinosus and semimembranosus. Unpacked into plain language: bend your knee; find the crease that folds across the back of it; travel along that crease to its farthest inner end; then feel between two landmarks — the flared bony knob at the lower inner end of the thigh bone on one side, and the strong tendon cords descending from the inner thigh on the other. The soft hollow wedged between bone and tendons is the point. Every element of the address is relative — bone to tendon to crease — which is why no ruler is needed.
What the fingertips meet there deserves a moment of attention. On the outer side of the hollow lies the medial condyle of the femur, the smooth bony mass you can trace by running a thumb down the inside of the thigh until it swells over the knee joint. On the inner side rise the paired tendons of the hamstrings, semitendinosus and semimembranosus, which tighten into visible cords when the knee bends against resistance. Between bone and tendons runs a soft corridor occupied by little firmer than fascia and fat — and in it, the point. The arrangement explains the name before any dictionary is opened: a small pool of give tucked into the bend of the joint.
Context helps confirm placement. The liver channel rises from the big toe, climbs the inner aspect of the leg, and continues up the inner thigh before turning inward toward the trunk and ribs; the knee is where that long ascent turns a page. Below the joint, the channel’s next station down, Xiguan (LV7), keeps watch over the upper calf on the same inner line; above, Yinbao (LV9) climbs on toward the thigh root. Because every landmark involved is large — a whole crease, a whole condyle, two substantial tendons — the search forgives approximation in a way that fine counted locations do not.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit on the edge of a firm chair or on the floor with one knee comfortably bent, foot flat; an ankle-over-knee crossing works especially well, because it flexes the joint fully and turns the inner thigh toward your working hand. With the knee bent, lay the fingers of your opposite hand lightly across the back of the knee and find the transverse crease. Follow it around toward the inside of the leg until you reach its end. Just there, press gently: you will feel the hard swell of the thigh bone on one side and, on the other, one or two cord-like tendons rising out of the inner thigh. The hollow between them — in front of the tendons, just behind the bone’s edge — is Ququan.
Two confirmations settle lingering doubts. First, load the bent knee gently — press the foot down toward the floor without letting the leg straighten — and watch the hamstring tendons stand out sharply along the inner thigh; the point hides immediately in front of them. Second, compare sides: many people notice a faint dull awareness, a spreading heaviness, when light pressure settles into the true hollow, and almost nothing half a thumb-width away. Sensation is a hint, never a verdict; the structural landmarks outrank any feeling. If you find yourself squarely atop a tendon, slide slightly forward, toward the kneecap side of the leg, until the finger sinks into soft space again.
Common slips cluster predictably. Searching with the leg straight is the classic error: the crease vanishes, the tendons slacken, and every reference point disappears — bend the knee first, always. Landing in the middle of the soft hollow behind the knee misses the destination by a wide margin; the goal is the crease’s innermost end, not its midpoint. Pressing straight backward into the popliteal hollow finds nothing but discomfort; the aim is to rest the pad of a finger in a shallow pocket between bone and tendon, not to push through anything. Whenever the search goes astray, straighten and rebend the knee, watch the tendons leap back into view, and begin again at the crease.
Reading the Name: Spring at the Bend
The two hanzi draw a picture before translation even begins. Qu 曲 means bent, curved, crooked — the character’s older forms evoke a folded shape, and it lives on today in everyday words for bending and twisting. Quan 泉 means spring — water welling up from the ground, the same character that names clear mountain springs. Together, Ququan reads as the spring at the bend: a hidden water source lodged in the body’s great fold. The point sits precisely where the classical eye expected such a thing — inside the deepest crease of the knee’s underside, where the limb folds back on itself and the landscape turns soft.
The water imagery is not decoration; it encodes a formal classification. Classical teaching sorts selected points on each channel into five stations named for stages of a river — well, spring, stream, river, and he-sea — imagining channel activity emerging at the fingertips and toes like water leaving its source, gathering volume as it travels, and finally entering deeply at the elbows and knees, where rivers were said to widen before joining the sea. Ququan holds the last office on the liver channel: it is the channel’s he-sea point, the place where the flow was imagined to plunge inward. Commentators added a second layer: the liver channel belongs to wood in five-phase thought, and the he-sea points of the yin channels carry the water attribute — water nourishes wood, so the station reads as upstream feeding downstream.
Pinyin renders the name Qūquán: qu carries the flat, high first tone — the reading that means bending, distinct from the falling-rising third-tone reading that means tune — and quan rises through the second tone. The hanzi pair 曲泉 repays a glance: like the gates, valleys, courtyards, and seas scattered across the map of points, a spring names a function rather than merely a spot — somewhere things collect, deepen, and turn inward. The name doubles as a small set of search instructions: bend the joint, then look for the water.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications run to ten entries, and they fall into three natural clusters. The first concerns water and the urinary tract: difficult urination, and stranguria — the traditional umbrella term for painful, dribbling, or otherwise troubled urination. The second gathers reproductive complaints, which classical writers recorded in two registers: for men, impotence and nocturnal emission; for women, irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea (painful periods), vaginal discharge, and prolapse of the uterus. The third cluster is simply local: swelling and pain of the knee, and weakness of the lower limb — the complaints of the very joint the point inhabits.
The clustering follows the channel map. Classical course descriptions carry the liver pathway up the inner leg, through the knee and the root of the thigh, circling the genital region before turning upward into the trunk and ribs — so stations along the inner line stood closest, in the traditional geometry, to the systems housed at the path’s midsection. Doctrine added that the liver stores the blood and governs the smooth movement of qi, responsibilities classical texts tied closely to the menstrual cycle and to the comfort of the lower abdomen. And the local entries need no theory at all: a point lodged at the knee was naturally consulted for the knee’s own swelling and pain, and for the weakness of the limb that trails a struggling joint.
Worth stating without varnish: these ten entries are the traditional uses recorded in the licensed dataset and classical literature, offered here for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and several of them — troubled urination, menstrual change, suspected prolapse — correspond today to symptoms that deserve professional assessment on their own terms, before any self-care enters the picture. Where modern research touches acupressure at all, published reviews suggest modest effects that vary with person and context, and work specific to any single point remains scarce. Hold the tradition as heritage; hold the instinct to book appointments firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point found by the walkthrough above, arrange comfort before anything else: seated, back at ease, the working knee bent and supported so the muscles around it can soften. Rest the pad of your index or middle finger in the hollow and begin with plain contact — no pressure at all — for a few slow breaths. Then add small circles, letting the skin glide over the tissues beneath rather than grinding against them; pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily. Finish one knee, swap hands, and give the other its equal share; symmetry keeps the practice honest.
Quality outweighs duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; jabbing, grinding, or leaning in hard teaches the body nothing and can leave the inner knee bruised and grumbly. Warm hands help — chilled muscle tightens and blurs every landmark. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, and let the breath set the tempo: soften on the exhale, ease off the instant sensation turns electric. People who keep such routines often anchor them to something already habitual — after morning stretches, in the wind-down before sleep — because what these traditions actually reward is regularity, not heroics.
Treat the session as a few minutes of informed attention rather than a treatment. Honest outcomes are modest by design: perhaps the area feels less guarded afterwards, perhaps the knee feels warmer under your palm, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spent a few unhurried minutes learning a corner of your own body. Every one of those belongs to self-acupressure’s real territory. What does not belong is escalation — more force, longer sessions, pushing through pain in pursuit of a result. When curiosity pulls toward more, return to gentleness, or close the day’s practice and go do something else entirely.
Cautions and Safe Practice
An honest safety section begins with a curious fact: the licensed dataset records no caution at all under this point’s name — the catalogue’s caution field stands empty. That absence means exactly what it says: the source material attaches no technique-specific warning to Ququan. This page declines to manufacture one in its place, and declines equally to treat the blank as licence. Ordinary prudence still has weight here, because the geography itself counsels gentleness: the hollow behind the knee is a soft passage where vessels and nerves run close beneath the skin, and the two bounding tendons merit a shallow acquaintance rather than deep digging.
Practical rules follow plainly. Keep contact strictly at the surface: finger pads only, no elbows, knuckles, or tools, and no force directed into the popliteal hollow or driven between tendon and bone. Skip the point entirely over broken, irritated, or infected skin; during feverish illness; and whenever a knee is hot, swollen, freshly injured, or recovering from surgery — those situations call for assessment, not pressure. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and do not retry that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with kidney or urinary conditions, a bleeding disorder, or a knee already under medical care, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Some findings outrank any routine outright — inability to pass urine, blood in the urine, fever arriving alongside urinary symptoms, a new lump or bulge in the groin or pelvis, unusual bleeding or discharge, or sudden calf or knee swelling after long travel or immobility: seek prompt medical care for these rather than another pressing session. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner — Western medicine or East Asian medicine, whichever suits the complaint. A spring, after all, teaches by yielding: it holds its place, moves quietly, and never forces its banks. Practiced within those limits, that composure is most of what this old station has ever had to offer.
Ququan, the Spring at the Bend, rests in the hollow at the inner end of the crease behind the knee — a spot found only when the knee bends. Classical practice gathered the liver channel’s flow here, reaching for it in urinary difficulty, men’s and women’s complaints, and swollen knees. This guide covers finding it by touch, pressing it gently, and reading its record honestly.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Ququan without knowing any anatomy?
- Let the knee do the anatomy for you. Bend it fully, find the crease folding across its underside, and walk along that crease to its innermost end. Press the foot lightly toward the floor without straightening the leg and the two hamstring cords pop forward along the inner thigh, with the bony knob just ahead of them. The soft hollow wedged between the bone’s edge and the tendons is the spot. No measurements and no counting — three large landmarks converge on one small hollow.
- Is pressing Ququan myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held at the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults. Worth knowing: the licensed record attaches no technique caution to this point specifically — its caution entry is empty — which is an accurate report, not an invitation to press harder. Ordinary prudence still governs: stay superficial, avoid broken skin and acutely inflamed knees, and treat any sharp, electric, or radiating feeling as an immediate stop signal for the day.
- What did classical practice use Ququan for?
- The traditional record lists difficult urination, stranguria, impotence, nocturnal emission, irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea, vaginal discharge, prolapse of the uterus, swelling and pain of the knee, and weakness of the lower limb. Classical texts describe it as the liver channel’s he-sea point — the station where the channel’s flow was imagined to enter deeply — which placed it at the head of traditional discussions touching the lower abdomen and the water passages. Those are frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does a point at the knee appear in lists about urination and periods?
- Because the traditional map connects them. Classical course descriptions run the liver channel from the big toe up the inner leg, past this point, through the root of the thigh, and around the genital region before climbing to the ribs — so the inner-line stations sat nearest, in the old geometry, to the organs of the pelvis. Doctrine added that the liver stores the blood and keeps qi moving smoothly, duties tied closely to women’s cycles. The knee entries joined the list for the simplest reason of all: the point lives at the knee.
- Can acupressure here replace seeing someone about urinary or menstrual problems?
- No. Changes in urination, new pelvic pain, unusual bleeding or discharge, and suspected prolapse are reasons for professional assessment, and home pressure neither diagnoses nor treats any of them. Picture the two as neighbours who never trade jobs: daily self-care tends its quiet garden; clinical medicine keeps the consulting room. When symptoms persist, worsen, or frighten you, you visit the consulting room — and going late helps no one, however diligent the gardening has been.
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, he-sea theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for LV8 Ququan — 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/lv8/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/lv8/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/lv8/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LV8",
"name": {
"en": "Ququan",
"gloss": "Spring at the Bend",
"zh-Hant": "曲泉",
"zh-Hans": "曲泉"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LV",
"order": 8,
"of": 14
},
"location": {
"text": "Knee bent: at the inner end of the crease behind the knee, in the hollow in front of the tendons."
},
"for": [
"difficult urination",
"painful periods",
"knee pain"
],
"press": {
"text": "Light fingertip touch, knee bent, about a minute each leg.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"Not on a hot, swollen or newly injured knee."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/lv8",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-25"
}