梁丘 Liangqiu
“Ridge and Hill” · ST34
Foot Yangming · 34 of 45 · xi-cleft
Where. Knee bent: three finger-widths above the outer top corner of the kneecap.
For. Sudden stomach ache, loose stools, sore knees.
Press. Firm thumb pressure, about a minute each leg.
在膝上二寸按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Liangqiu Sits on the Front Thigh
With the knee bent, Liangqiu occupies the front of the thigh, on the straight line that runs from the anterior superior iliac spine — the bony point you can feel at the front of the hip — down to the lateral end of the base of the patella, the upper-outer corner of the kneecap. The dataset places it 2 cun above the base of the patella, measured along that line. A cun is the traditional proportional measuring unit of Chinese point-location, taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler; at the limbs, one cun is commonly taken as the width of the thumb at its knuckle, so 2 cun means roughly two thumb-widths upward from the top of the kneecap. Because bodies differ, the same count lands on slightly different absolute distances from person to person — the landmark line, not a centimeter figure, is what actually defines the spot.
The territory under the fingertips is generous by acupoint standards. The front of the thigh carries some of the largest muscles in the body, and Liangqiu sits on their broad slope well above the joint. Bending the knee, as the dataset instructs, relaxes and reshapes those muscles so the landmarks read more clearly; many people also notice the spot more readily with the knee bent than with the leg locked straight. None of this invites force — the working rule everywhere on this site is light contact — but it does mean a fingertip here rests on cushioned muscle rather than on bare bone or thin membrane, which beginners usually find reassuring.
The point belongs to a family. The stomach channel sends a run of points down the front of the body from the face to the second toe, and several of them line the front of the thigh above the knee. Liangqiu’s neighbor one position closer to the knee, ST35 Dubi, sits right at the knee itself, in the lateral depression between the patella and the patellar ligament — the hollow the old texts call the outer knee eye. Reading the pair together anchors the search: whatever else wobbles, the distance is always counted upward from the kneecap’s upper-outer corner, never downward and never inward toward the middle of the thigh.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet resting on the floor, and bend the left knee so the foot slides back a little and the front-thigh muscles soften. Find the left kneecap and trace its upper border outward to the upper-outer corner — the lateral end of the base of the patella that the location describes. Rest the fingers of your right hand there, then walk them straight up the thigh along the invisible line that aims for the bony prominence at the front of the hip. Two thumb-widths up from the kneecap corner, still on that line, press gently: this is the recorded position of Liangqiu. Swap hands and repeat on the right side so both legs receive the same unhurried attention.
A few quiet checks help before any pressing begins. Compare sides with feather-light touch: many people find the true spot answers with a faint dull awareness, sometimes with a slight echo of sensation toward the knee, while a finger-width away stays silent. Bend and straighten the knee slowly and watch the fingertip — the recorded instruction to locate with the knee flexed exists because the tissue changes shape between the two positions, and the point reads most clearly in the relaxed one. And re-check the direction of travel: if your finger has drifted toward the inner thigh, return to the kneecap corner and start the short climb again.
Two slips account for most mislocations. The first is measuring from the wrong starting edge — from the side of the kneecap or its lower border instead of the upper-outer corner of its base; every count must begin at the top. The second is letting the line bend: the path runs toward the front-of-hip bone, not straight up the middle of the thigh, so a finger that climbs vertically through the thigh’s centreline has already wandered off the recorded coordinates. When in doubt, lay the palm flat over the kneecap, confirm the upper-outer corner, and repeat the two-thumb-width walk slowly.
Reading the Name: Ridge and Hill
The name is a small landscape. Liang 梁 pictures a beam — the timber that bridges a roof, the span of a bridge, the raised ridge of the nose; dictionaries gloss it as a horizontal support or an elevated ridge. Qiu 丘 is a hill, a small earthen mound, a naturally risen height of ground. Together Liangqiu reads as Ridge Hill: terrain that swells into a long, low elevation crowned by a mound. Point-name commentaries connect the image with the body’s own terrain — the front of the thigh above the knee rounds into exactly such a ridge-and-mound shape when the knee bends — and traditional teaching liked names that described what the searching finger would find.
Liangqiu holds a second, rarer title: it is the xi-cleft point of the stomach channel. Classical teaching assigns each of the twelve regular channels exactly one such station, described as the place where the channel’s qi and blood gather deeply, like water collecting in a cleft of rock. The tradition associates these stations with suddenness: where qi pools in reserve, acute flare-ups were thought to announce themselves first, and classical practice accordingly reached for xi-cleft points when a condition arrived abruptly rather than smoldering chronically. Whether or not one shares the old physiology, the office explains the point’s historic personality — a station kept for emergencies of its own channel.
Pinyin renders the name Liángqiū: liang carries the second tone, a quick rising inflection, while qiu rides the first tone, held flat and high. The hanzi pair 梁丘 keeps to the great landscape family of point names — valleys, streams, mounds, ridges — through which the tradition mapped the body as terrain. Read that way, the name doubles as a location memo: look for a ridge, expect a small hill, and know that beneath the mound the channel stores its reserves.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: acute stomachache, diarrhoea, swollen painful knees, paralysis of the lower limb, and breast abscess with breast pain. Take the first two together and the xi-cleft logic shows. Classical practice understood sudden stomach pain — the abrupt cramp or twist in the pit of the stomach — as the stomach channel’s distress announcing itself sharply, and the cleft point where that channel’s qi pooled was precisely where such emergencies were met; diarrhoea joined the same acute portfolio. Framed as history, this is why the point earned its reputation as a first-response station for the stomach’s sudden troubles.
The knee indications follow plainer geography. Liangqiu sits on the thigh just above the kneecap, directly on the stomach channel’s descent toward the foot, and classical practice treated complaints along a channel’s course at stations along that course. Swollen painful knees and the old records’ paralysis of the lower limb — weakness and loss of movement in the leg — therefore belonged naturally to this stretch of the pathway, and Liangqiu stood ready among the thigh’s other stomach-channel points.
Breast abscess and breast pain look strangest on a modern map and least strange on the classical one. The stomach channel’s recorded course runs down the whole front of the trunk, and the front of the chest lies inside that corridor; the old literature duly lists breast-region complaints among the channel’s concerns, and Liangqiu appears in that company. This guide reports the association as the record keeps it — history, not mechanism. And the wider honesty applies to all five indications: they are traditional uses documented in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural 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 tied to any single point remains thin.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, spine easy, the leg relaxed with the knee slightly bent. Curl the index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — never the tips — on the spot. Begin with bare contact for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the muscle beneath rather than digging in. Pressure should register as a pleasant dullness or mild warmth, nothing sharper. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, timed where possible to slow exhales; then swap hands and give the other thigh its turn.
Quality outranks duration here as everywhere. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is the register this page practises; hard jabbing teaches nothing and risks nothing but a bruise, even on the best-padded thigh. Warm cold hands before beginning, choose a quiet moment over a distracted one, and let the pressing ride the breath: settle on the inhale, deepen the attention on the long exhale. Readers who keep the habit often anchor it to something already fixed in the day — after a shower, before lunch — because what these traditions ask for is regularity, not intensity.
Treat the few minutes as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Across weeks you might notice the area feeling less guarded, the knee moving with a little more ease, or simply the quiet satisfaction of having attended to yourself; all of that fits self-acupressure’s honest scope. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder or longer to force a result. When curiosity pulls that way, answer it with gentleness, or with stopping for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record carries no point-specific caution for Liangqiu — the dataset’s caution list for this entry is genuinely empty, and this page echoes that emptiness faithfully rather than inventing warnings to fill it. But an empty caution field is not an invitation to force. The general laws of self-care govern every point: the aim is comfort, contact stays on the surface, and the body’s stop signals outrank any routine.
Practical rules follow. Skip the point over broken, irritated, or infected skin, and around a knee that is hot, swollen, recently injured, or recently operated on, until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Use finger pads, never elbows, knuckles, or tools; never press through pain, and never while holding the breath. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and leave it for the day. Pregnant readers, and anyone managing chronic illness or taking blood-thinning medication, should ask a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice.
And the standing rule covers everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressing routine — for sudden severe abdominal pain, vomiting blood, black or bloody stools, diarrhoea with fever, signs of dehydration, diarrhoea persisting beyond a few days, a knee that is hot, swollen, and unwilling to bear weight, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent complaints belong with licensed practitioners, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. Ridge Hill keeps its old promise best when it is visited lightly.
Liangqiu, Ridge Hill, is the xi-cleft gathering point of the stomach channel, sitting on the front of the thigh two thumb-widths above the upper-outer corner of the kneecap. Classical practice kept it for sudden complaints — acute stomachache foremost among them — alongside swollen painful knees. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it safely.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Liangqiu without knowing anything about cun?
- Let the kneecap do the measuring. Locate its upper-outer corner, set two thumb-widths of your own hand straight up from there along the line that heads toward the bony point at the front of your hip, and press where the second thumb-width ends. That is the recorded position expressed in body-proportional language — which is all a cun ever meant.
- Is pressing Liangqiu myself actually safe?
- For healthy adults, gentle fingertip pressure on the surface is generally reasonable self-care: the point lies on thick, well-padded muscle, and surface contact stays far above anything delicate. Respect the usual boundaries — no pressing over broken skin or around an injured, swollen knee, no pressing through pain, immediate stop on sharp sensation — and the practice remains what it should be, a light daily kindness to a hardworking limb.
- What did classical practice use Liangqiu for?
- The traditional record lists acute stomachache, diarrhoea, swollen painful knees, paralysis of the lower limb, and breast abscess with breast pain. Its special office was the xi-cleft role — the stomach channel’s gathering place for sudden complaints — which shaped the first pairing in particular. These are documented traditional frameworks, offered for context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does a stomach point live on the thigh?
- Because the channel passes through. Classical mapping draws the stomach channel running down the front of the body from the face to the second toe, and the front of the thigh is one long stretch of that road, dotted with its stations. Liangqiu serves the neighborhood twice: locally, for the knee and leg beside it, and functionally, as the channel’s xi-cleft reservoir for sudden trouble arising along its own route.
- Can acupressure at Liangqiu replace seeing a doctor about stomach pain?
- No. Self-acupressure is comfort care, not diagnosis. Sudden severe abdominal pain, bloody or black stools, vomiting blood, fever with diarrhoea, or symptoms that persist or worsen need professional assessment promptly, however soothing a pressing routine feels. Keep the two in their lanes: daily self-care manages ordinary comfort, and clinical medicine owns everything that bleeds, burns, fevers, or refuses to settle.
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 ST34 Liangqiu — 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/st34/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st34/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st34/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST34",
"name": {
"en": "Liangqiu",
"gloss": "Ridge and Hill",
"zh-Hant": "梁丘",
"zh-Hans": "梁丘"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 34,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "Knee bent: three finger-widths above the outer top corner of the kneecap."
},
"for": [
"sudden stomach ache",
"loose stools",
"sore knees"
],
"press": {
"text": "Firm thumb pressure, about a minute each leg.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st34",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}