屋翳 Wuyi
“Chamber Canopy” · ST15
Foot Yangming · 15 of 45
Where. On the chest, in line with the nipple, in the second gap between the ribs.
For. Cough, a full, aching chest.
Press. Gentle pressure, about a minute each side.
屋翳，在庫房下一寸六分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Wuyi Sits: Second Rib Space, Four Cun Out
The dataset places Wuyi on the chest, in the second intercostal space, four cun lateral to the anterior midline. Take the two measures one at a time. Horizontally, four cun out from the midline uses cun, the traditional proportional unit taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler — roughly a thumb-joint width per cun on an adult — and the record itself shows which line it means, because it sets Ruzhong (ST17) at the very centre of the nipple at that same four-cun distance. Vertically, the second intercostal space is the second groove between ribs you meet when counting down from the collarbone. Put together, Wuyi sits on the line that passes through the centre of the nipple, two rib-spaces above the level of the breast’s central landmark.
The ground beneath the fingertips deserves respect. Here the chest wall carries the upper fibres of the pectoralis major, and beneath that thin muscular layer come rib, intercostal muscle, and membrane — little more, before the space where lung tissue rides high with every inhalation. This is why the licensed record attaches an explicit caution to the point, and why professional texts treat the whole row of rib-gaps along this line with care. Nothing about self-palpation changes the picture: the landmarks announce themselves to patient, light touch, and every benefit of home practice lives within a coin’s thickness of the surface. Force has no errand here; curiosity about what lies deeper belongs to the clinic, not the living room.
A vertical family of neighbours makes the address easy to confirm. One rib-space above sits Kufang (ST14) in the first intercostal space; directly below lies Yingchuang (ST16) in the third; below that again, Ruzhong (ST17) marks the centre of the nipple itself. The recorded locations trace the stomach channel stepping evenly down the front of the chest along this four-cun line, one station per rib-space, and reading the row turns a single uncertain point into a sequence you can count. Everyone carries the mirror image on both sides, and the record treats the pair alike: whatever you establish on one side, verify gently on the other.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet down and shoulders released, so the chest softens. Rest your right hand flat on your left upper chest and find the collarbone. From the middle stretch of the bone, slide your fingertips straight down until you meet the first groove between ribs — Kufang territory — then continue to the second groove, one rib lower still. Now travel outward from the breastbone along that groove until your fingers rest on the line running through the centre of the nipple, and settle there: the pads of your index and middle fingers should lie in soft tissue between the second pair of ribs. Swap hands and repeat the entire search on the right side.
A few quiet checks help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light and compare sides: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a finger-width away. Let a slow breath pass under your fingertips — the groove widens slightly as the ribs lift. Re-check the horizontal position too: the spot should sit well clear of the breastbone, out where the chest rounds toward the shoulder, level with the nipple’s vertical axis rather than drifting inward or outward from it. If your fingertip lands on bare bone, ease off the rib edge half a finger-width and search for the groove again; ribs curve, and the gap often hides close beside its bony rim.
The classic mistakes are miscounts and drift. Landing in the first groove leaves you at Kufang; dropping to the third finds Yingchuang; skipping ahead two spaces brings you level with the nipple itself, which the record keeps as a landmark rather than a working point. Drifting outward toward the armpit, or inward toward the breastbone, both abandon the recorded four-cun line. When the search tangles, stop counting forward and return to the collarbone: find the middle stretch of the bone, descend one groove at a time, and let slow repetition replace force. Two or three unhurried passes teach the fingers more than one firm press ever will.
Reading the Name: The Chamber Canopy
Wu 屋 means house or room, read wū with a first tone — a flat, high, steady pitch in Mandarin. The modern written form sets a wide, roof-like frame over zhi 至, the character for arriving, so the shape invites a homely reading: shelter drawn around someone come home. Scholars trace the character’s oldest layers differently, and the frame has not always looked as it does now; for memory’s sake, though, the picture serves. Yi 翳 is read yì with a fourth tone, falling sharply. Its dictionaries give shade, screen, and to cover, and its base carries yu 羽, the feather radical — the character originally pictured the feather awning that shaded a carriage or an inner chamber.
Read together, Wuyi renders as the chamber canopy or the room screen: the shading cover within a dwelling. Traditional commentaries took the image bodily — the trunk as the house, the chest as its inner chamber, and this point as the canopy hung inside that chamber, tempering whatever moved beneath it. Whether the ancients meant awning, curtain, or the cool shadow of a roofed room, the shared idea is shelter that moderates: not the wall that keeps the world out, but the layer that softens the air within. It is a gentle name for a point whose recorded work leans toward easing coughs and settling an oppressed chest.
The name also belongs to a neighbourhood of storerooms and windows. Upward, Kufang reads as the storehouse; downward, Yingchuang as the window of the chest; at the breast’s centre, Ruzhong plainly marks the middle of the breast. Along one short stretch of channel, the naming imagination builds an interior — storeroom, window, canopy — as though the tradition walked a corridor of rooms laid over the chest wall. Say the pinyin aloud once and the tones sketch the same architecture: Wū held flat and high, then yì dropped decisively, the sound of a roofline meeting a falling shadow. Names like these are small instruments of memory, and this one is pleasant to carry.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: cough and shortness of breath, spitting of blood and pus, distending pain of the chest and hypochondrium, breast abscess, and breast lumps. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice reached for Wuyi amid coughs and laboured breathing — the old records gathered under such headings what modern readers would recognise as many different noisy, effortful breathing patterns. Distending pain is a distinct traditional concept: a swelling, pressing fullness felt across the chest or along the side ribs below the armpit, understood as qi failing to move freely there. Spitting of blood and pus belonged, in any era, to serious illness; the classical listing shows such presentations being discussed at points like this, and today anything of the kind calls for prompt medical care, not a pressure routine.
The breast entries repay a careful, conservative reading. Classical practice grouped abscesses and lumps of the breast among the complaints addressed along this chest line, reasoning through the channel map: the stomach channel’s passage crosses the chest over the breast territory, and the stations standing on that passage were drawn into classical discussions of breast complaints. This is traditional framework, not licence. A breast abscess is an acute infection needing prompt clinical treatment, and a newly found breast lump belongs before a clinician promptly, whatever else a person chooses for comfort. What the record preserves is a historical geography of care — where practitioners looked, and why — offered here for understanding, never as instruction to self-treat.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. 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. Hold the tradition lightly; hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located, settle in: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders heavy. Curl the index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — never the tips — on the spot. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against the ribs. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness, and never a pushing sensation aimed inward between the ribs. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched where possible to long exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and repeat on the other side, keeping the sessions symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; hard jabbing teaches the body nothing and risks bruising the thin tissues over the ribs. Warm cold hands first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner rather than a screen, and let the practice double as a breathing pause: inhale through the nose, feel the upper chest move under still fingers, add the faintest extra weight only on the long exhale. People who keep such routines usually anchor them to an existing habit — after morning washing, before an afternoon walk — 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 weeks, notice what changes: perhaps the area feels less guarded, perhaps breathing feels smoother while you press, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend ninety seconds attending to your own chest. Every one of those outcomes sits inside the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not belong is escalation — heavier hands, longer sessions, deeper intent — and least of all here, where the ribs sit thin over quiet, important territory. When curiosity pulls toward more, answer it with gentler, or set the practice down for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point carries an explicit caution in the licensed record, and it deserves to be heard plainly: do not needle deeply — professional technique is directed obliquely or transversely, sideways along the tissue rather than straight into the chest. The reason is geography. High on the chest wall at the second intercostal space, only skin, a thin sheet of muscle, and the intercostal layers separate the surface from the pleural space where the lung lies — tissue that rises higher still on every inhale. Professional training manages that risk with exact technique. Home self-care manages it far more simply: it stays on the surface, always, without exception.
For fingertip acupressure the practical rules follow. Keep pressure light and strictly superficial — the intention stays in skin and superficial muscle, never driving inward between the ribs. Use finger pads only; no elbows, knuckles, or tools. Skip the point entirely during any acute breathing difficulty, during a feverish illness, over broken or irritated skin, and after recent chest injury or surgery until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not try again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with lung or heart conditions, 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 comfort care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical attention — not a pressure routine — for breathlessness at rest or on mild exertion, chest pain, coughing blood or material that seems purulent, a cough persisting beyond a few weeks, wheeze that will not settle, or any symptom that frightens you; a newly noticed breast lump likewise belongs with a clinician promptly, examined properly, however mild it feels. Persistent symptoms deserve licensed assessment, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The safest gift Wuyi offers most people is a calmer acquaintance with their own chest wall, treated kindly and lightly.
Wuyi — the Chamber Canopy, Wūyì — stands on the upper chest in the second gap between the ribs, four cun out from the body’s midline. Classical practice reached for it amid cough, tight breath, distending pain of the chest and side ribs, and troubles of the breast. This guide walks through finding it by touch, the story in its name, and how to press it safely at home.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Keep insertion shallow, angled obliquely or transversely.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Wuyi without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the collarbone and the nipple as the whole map. Count two grooves straight down from the middle stretch of the collarbone, then run your finger sideways along the second groove until it rests on the line passing through the centre of the nipple. That crossing — second rib-space, nipple line — is the location the record describes. Cun measurements encode the same landmarks proportionally, so the body itself remains the only ruler you need.
- Is pressing Wuyi myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, because it engages skin and superficial muscle far short of the structures behind the ribs. The recorded danger concerns deep professional techniques reaching toward the lung — a category home acupressure never approaches. Respect the stop signals: sharp pain, electric or radiating sensation, breathlessness, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately, and skip the point altogether during any illness affecting breathing.
- What did classical practice use Wuyi for?
- The traditional record lists cough and shortness of breath, spitting of blood and pus, distending pain of the chest and hypochondrium, breast abscess, and breast lumps. Its station on the stomach channel’s passage across the chest placed it in classical discussions of both respiratory and breast complaints. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims, and never a substitute for clinical care where symptoms are real.
- Why does a stomach-channel point sit up on the chest?
- Classical channel theory draws the stomach pathway beginning beside the nose, climbing the face, and then descending the front of the body all the way to the second toe. On that descent it emerges near the collarbone and steps down the chest along the four-cun line — Qihu, Kufang, Wuyi, Yingchuang, Ruzhong — before continuing into the abdomen. The recorded locations themselves trace the route, and Wuyi is simply one station on the high balcony of a channel mostly known for its digestive work.
- I have noticed a breast lump — should I press Wuyi for it?
- No. A newly found breast lump should be examined by a clinician promptly, regardless of size or how mild it feels, and point work must not delay or substitute for that assessment. The traditional listing reflects historical practice, preserved here for cultural understanding; it is not guidance for self-treatment. Once a clinician has evaluated the lump and cleared ordinary activity, gentle general self-care remains reasonable for a healthy adult.
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 and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for ST15 Wuyi — 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/st15/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st15/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st15/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST15",
"name": {
"en": "Wuyi",
"gloss": "Chamber Canopy",
"zh-Hant": "屋翳",
"zh-Hans": "屋翳"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 15,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "On the chest, in line with the nipple, in the second gap between the ribs."
},
"for": [
"cough",
"a full",
"aching chest"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle pressure, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st15",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}