臑俞 Naoshu
“Upper Arm’s Transport” · SI10
Hand Taiyang · 10 of 19 · crossing-point
Where. Straight up from the end of the back armpit crease, in the dip under the ridge of the shoulder blade.
For. Shoulder and arm pain, trouble lifting the arm.
Press. Two finger pads, slow circles, one minute each side.
臑腧二穴，在肩髎後大骨下，胛上廉陷中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Naoshu Sits on the Shoulder Blade
On the upper back, the dataset places Naoshu on the shoulder, directly above the end of the posterior axillary fold, in the depression below the lower border of the spine of the scapula. Each term earns a moment. The armpit has a front wall and a rear wall, each thrown into a soft ridge of flesh; the rear ridge is the posterior axillary fold, and it firms up when the upper arm presses gently toward the body. Its end is the lowest, rearmost corner of that ridge. Directly above sets out a vertical line: from that corner, the fingers climb straight up the back of the shoulder. The spine of the scapula is the hard, horizontal bar of bone that runs sideways across the shoulder blade, continuing outward into the flat shelf at the top of the shoulder; its lower border is the underside lip of that bar. The yielding hollow immediately beneath the lip is the recorded seat of the point.
What lies under the fingertips deserves gentle handling. The hollow shelters the upper edges of the short muscles that run from the shoulder blade to the ball of the shoulder joint and steer its rotation; beneath those layers spreads the broad, flat plate of the shoulder blade itself. Layered machinery like this rewards patience and dislikes blunt force. The channel story gives the spot its drama: the small intestine channel climbs the back of the arm from the little finger, crests the shoulder, and sweeps clear across the shoulder blade before running on toward the neck, the face, and the ear. Naoshu stands right at the crest of the blade’s outer corner — the exact place where the long climb turns into the great crossing.
Neighbours help confirm the placement. Down at the low ground near the armpit, Jianzhen (SI9) holds a humbler station: below the back of the shoulder joint, one cun above the fold’s end. Naoshu is its tall sibling, up where the blade begins. Inland from Naoshu, toward the backbone side, the shallow basin beneath the ridge widens toward its centre, where Tianzong (SI11) rests. Cross over the ridge and Bingfeng (SI12) waits in the matching basin on its upper side. As everywhere on the body, the two sides answer each other: whatever hollow the fingers find on one shoulder blade, the mirror search should summon on the other. Searching both sides together doubles the evidence and halves the doubt.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet down and the working shoulder dropped and heavy, letting the arm hang loose. Reach your right hand across to your left shoulder. Find the posterior axillary fold first: press the left upper arm lightly against your side and feel the rear ridge of the armpit firm up under your fingers, then trace it down and backward to its end. From that corner, walk your fingertips straight up the back of the shoulder, climbing until they meet the hard horizontal ridge — the spine of the shoulder blade. Slide just below the ridge’s lower border until the pads settle into a soft hollow: this is Naoshu. Swap hands and repeat the whole search so the other side receives the same careful attention.
A few confirmations settle any doubt. Touch feather-light and compare sides: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a finger-width away. Then try the movement test: roll the shoulder slowly in small circles while a resting fingertip waits in the hollow — the hollow stays put while the texture shifts beneath it, which tells you the pad rests on muscle at the foot of the ridge rather than on naked bone. Finish with a terrain check: the pad should sit on yielding tissue, and if you feel gritty bone, ease a little lower until flesh cushions the touch.
The common mistakes cluster predictably. Stopping halfway up the slope lands on the meaty back of the shoulder — a legitimate massage spot, but not the recorded location. Climbing too eagerly and ending on top of the ridge itself is one step too far — retreat to just beneath the lower lip. And drifting inward along the ridge walks you toward Tianzong’s wide basin. When in doubt, return to the corner of the armpit fold and measure the climb again, slowly.
Reading the Name: the Upper Arm’s Transport
The characters tell a two-part story. Nao 臑 couples the flesh radical with xu 需 — the character for what is needed — and the old glossaries apply it to the flesh of the upper arm, the sturdy stretch between shoulder and elbow: an antique anatomy word. Shu 俞 belongs to the family of transport characters, written variously 俞, 腧, and 輸, which mark the stations where channel qi infuses, pools, and passes through — the way-stations of the classical map. Joined, the name reads as the upper arm’s transport station. An observant reader will ask why a point sitting on the shoulder blade borrows the arm’s name, and the old commentators answered plainly: the channel’s supply pours over the joint from the blade into the limb, so the blade’s outer corner was read as the wharf where the arm receives its cargo. It is traditional reasoning, offered as reasoning.
The catalogue adds a second credential: Naoshu is recorded among the crossing-points. Commentarial tradition describes this spot as a meeting-ground where pathways beyond the small intestine channel converge — the Yang Linking Vessel and the Yang Stepping Vessel are the two named here, both members of the eight extraordinary vessels, the deep trunk-routes of classical cartography. Whether one takes that picture literally or as metaphor, it explains the point’s seniority: a place where roads meet always led the old discussions of the region, and the shoulder region was precisely this point’s beat.
Pinyin renders the name Nàoshū, with a falling fourth tone on Nao and a flat first tone on Shu. The hanzi pair repays a glance: complex enough to look scholarly, simple enough to recognise again at sight. Set in its channel context the name gains one more layer. Gates, valleys, courtyards, pools: the classical names read like a landscape, and the small intestine channel’s own journey is a travelogue — springing from the little finger, ascending the back of the arm, swinging outward at the shoulder, crossing the blade, then making for the ear and cheek. Naoshu is the pass on that journey’s summit: the corner where climbing becomes crossing. Like many of the old names, it is a locating instruction written into the language.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The record lists three traditional indications: shoulder and arm pain, inability to raise the shoulder, and cervical scrofula. Take them in order. The first is the oldest and plainest logic in the tradition: the channel passes over this very ground, so when ache was judged to have settled into the shoulder and arm, practice selected the local station to stir the flow through the affected territory. A local point for a local complaint asks no elaborate theory — only the map and the ache.
The second, inability to raise the shoulder, is traditional shorthand for a shoulder refusing its office: a lift gone stiff, weak, or guarded, the arm declining overhead work. Old formularies paired such stations with the hope of restored movement, and anecdote credits celebrated physicians with freeing locked shoulders in a single visit — stories that survived because they flattered the point’s fame, documenting reputation rather than evidence. Loss of shoulder power today belongs squarely with medical assessment and rehabilitation teams, and nothing here suggests otherwise. The listing is kept the way a map keeps an old road: as a record of how people once thought, not as a route anyone should now rely on.
The third indication reaches furthest from the shoulder. Cervical scrofula was the traditional term for chains of lumps along the sides of the neck, a complaint old medicine read through stagnation of qi and phlegm. The bridge is route logic once more: having crossed the blade, the small intestine channel runs on toward the collarbone hollow, the neck, the cheek, and the ear, and stations along a road were drafted for trouble appearing anywhere the road travelled. It bears repeating plainly: any lump persisting in the neck today calls for prompt medical assessment, without exception. These three listings are traditional uses recorded for cultural and historical understanding — not claims that pressing the 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 into position: seated, feet down, spine tall but unforced, the working shoulder heavy. Curl index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — not the tips — in the hollow. Begin with contact alone for a few unhurried breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against the ridge. 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, matched where possible to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and repeat on the other side, keeping the two sessions symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; hard jabbing invites the muscles to guard, which undoes everything the pause is for. Warm your hands first if they run cold, because chilled muscle braces. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, since the practice doubles as a small ceremony of attention rather than background fidgeting. People who keep a routine usually anchor it to an existing habit — after the morning wash, midway through an afternoon at the desk — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually reward. Across weeks, notice what changes without demanding outcomes: perhaps less guardedness, perhaps easier motion while pressing, perhaps only ninety borrowed seconds of attending to your own body.
Boundaries belong inside the practice, not just around it. If the search itself — reaching across, climbing the ridge — provokes sharp pain, shrink the motion or ask a companion to help confirm the hollow while your arm hangs loose. Never press into a wince, and never escalate force, duration, or depth to hurry a result; escalation is the one move this practice never rewards. On days when the shoulder refuses even gentle contact, grant it the day off. Curiosity that pulls toward forcing is answered the same way every time: return to gentleness, or stop for today.
Cautions and Safe Practice
An honest page states every word the record carries. For this entry the licensed dataset attaches a caution asking practitioners to needle with caution and never deeply — a demand for restraint addressed to trained hands, and several neighbouring shoulder-blade entries carry notes in the same family. The geography helps explain the spirit of it: here, layered muscle spreads over the broad flat plate of the shoulder blade, so everyday light touch engages only surface tissue. Professional training manages the recorded risk with exact technique; home self-care manages it differently and far more simply — by never leaving the surface at all.
The practical rules gather quickly. Use finger pads only — no elbows, knuckles, or tools — and keep the intention strictly superficial. Stop at once, and for the day, on any sharp, electric, or radiating sensation. Skip the point entirely while a shoulder is hot, swollen, or freshly injured, over broken or irritated skin, and during any feverish illness; after shoulder surgery or a significant injury, wait until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Pregnant readers, and anyone managing significant health conditions, do best consulting a qualified practitioner before adding new point work to their routine. None of these rules costs the practice anything; gentleness was already the plan.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care — comfort and companionship for a body, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical attention, not a longer pressing session, for severe shoulder pain following a fall or accident, any obvious deformity, numbness or weakness spreading down the arm, a hot swollen joint arriving with fever, stiffness that marches past a few weeks without easing, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner — Western medicine or East Asian medicine, whichever suits the complaint. The ridge imagery is calm and solid, and the safest gift Naoshu offers most people matches it: a few quiet minutes of knowing your own shoulder blade better, treated kindly.
Naoshu, the Upper Arm’s Transport, stands high on the outer corner of the shoulder blade, tucked into the soft hollow just beneath the bony ridge that crosses it. Classical practice reached for it when a painful shoulder would not lift, and old commentary counted it among the meeting-places where several routes converge. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it safely.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Needle cautiously and shallowly.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Naoshu when the shoulder is too stiff to search comfortably?
- Let comfort lead. Sit with the arm well supported and start the search from the corner of the armpit fold rather than from the ridge — walking upward asks less of the shoulder than hunting blind. Park a fingertip just below the ridge and roll the shoulder in tiny circles; the hollow often announces itself without any lifting at all. Compare sides with a feather-light touch, and if one shoulder refuses the whole exercise, borrow its twin: the mirror position on the comfortable side teaches your fingers what to seek. Slow, repeated searches beat one determined probe.
- Is pressing Naoshu myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip contact held on the surface is reasonable everyday self-care for healthy adults: it engages skin and superficial muscle spread over a broad plate of bone, far short of the finer machinery of the shoulder joint. The recorded caution speaks to professional technique and its discipline around depth — a category home acupressure never approaches. Respect the stop signals regardless: sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens, all mean finish immediately.
- What did classical practice use Naoshu for?
- The traditional record lists shoulder and arm pain, inability to raise the shoulder, and cervical scrofula — the old term for chains of lumps along the neck. Commentarial tradition describes the point as a crossing-place where extra vessels join the channel, which gave it seniority in old discussions of the shoulder. Those frameworks document how tradition mapped the body — offered for cultural understanding, not as evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why would a shoulder-blade point belong in conversations about neck lumps?
- Through the route logic of the classical map. The small intestine channel sweeps from the little finger up the back of the arm, crosses the shoulder blade where Naoshu stands, and runs on toward the collarbone hollow, the neck, the cheek, and the ear. Stations standing along a road were drafted for trouble appearing anywhere the road travelled, so a shoulder station could be called into service for the neck. Whatever the old ambition, a lump persisting in the neck today belongs promptly with medical assessment.
- Can acupressure at Naoshu replace treatment for a shoulder that will not lift?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not diagnosis or therapy, and a shoulder that stays painful or immobile deserves proper assessment — what is actually wrong determines what actually helps. Picture two floors of one building: daily gentle self-care lives downstairs, while the consulting room upstairs belongs to licensed clinicians you visit when symptoms persist or escalate. 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 theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for SI10 Naoshu — location, point class, action record, and caution note.
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/si10/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/si10/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/si10/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "SI10",
"name": {
"en": "Naoshu",
"gloss": "Upper Arm’s Transport",
"zh-Hant": "臑俞",
"zh-Hans": "臑俞"
},
"channel": {
"id": "SI",
"order": 10,
"of": 19
},
"location": {
"text": "Straight up from the end of the back armpit crease, in the dip under the ridge of the shoulder blade."
},
"for": [
"shoulder and arm pain",
"trouble lifting the arm"
],
"press": {
"text": "Two finger pads, slow circles, one minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 4",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/si10",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}