Not on a knee with broken or weeping skin.
犢鼻 Dubi
“Calf's Nose” · ST35
Foot Yangming · 35 of 45
Where. Knee bent: in the outer hollow just below the kneecap, beside the thick tendon.
For. Knee pain, a stiff knee, numbness at the knee.
Press. Fingertip pressure into the hollow, knee bent, about a minute each knee.
Caution. Not on a knee with broken or weeping skin.
犢鼻二穴，在膝臏下按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Dubi Sits at the Front of the Knee
The dataset locates this point with a short chain of landmarks: with the knee flexed, on the knee, in the lateral depression between the patella and the patellar ligament, also called the outer knee eye. Unpacked, that says something friendly. The patella is the kneecap, the shield-shaped bone riding at the front of the joint. The patellar ligament is the strong, cord-like band running from the kneecap’s lower edge down toward the top of the shin — straighten the leg and it stands out under the skin like a guy-rope. Flex the knee and two shallow hollows open up, one on each side of that cord. Lateral means the outer side, away from the midline of the body; the lateral hollow is Dubi, and the recorded nickname — outer knee eye — tells you the tradition saw the pair as a matched set of small openings looking out from the joint.
Two things about this geography shape how gently it asks to be treated. First, unlike most points on the leg, Dubi is found by structure rather than by measured distance: there are no cun to count, because the hollow simply appears when the knee bends and melts away when the leg straightens. Second, the terrain is thin. Beneath the hollow lie soft tissues stretched over the region of the joint capsule, and close by stand the hard edges of the kneecap and the taut band of the ligament. There is no thick cushion of muscle here to receive pressure, as there would be on the thigh or the calf. Everything about the spot invites a featherweight touch — the fingertip settles into a little valley of skin and lets stillness do the work.
The wider map helps place it. Classical teaching draws the stomach channel descending the front of the body from the face all the way to the second toe, and the front of the knee is one of its way-stations on that long walk down the leg. The dataset’s own location strings show the route continuing: the next recorded point below, Zusanli (ST36), is placed three cun below Dubi on the outer shin. Across the cord from Dubi, the matching medial hollow was given its own name and identity in tradition as the inner knee eye, a separate point. Keeping the three-way picture in mind — cord in the middle, outer hollow for Dubi, inner hollow belonging elsewhere — prevents most confusion before it starts, and whenever a search goes wrong, the lower edge of the kneecap is always waiting to restart it.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet resting easily on the floor, and let one knee bend so the heel stays lightly planted. Rest your opposite hand on that knee and walk your fingertips down the front of the kneecap until they reach its lower edge. From the middle of that edge, a firm cord runs downward toward the shin — trace it for a finger-width so you know its line. Now slide off the cord toward the outside of the leg and settle your fingertip into the soft hollow you meet there. With the knee still bent, that hollow is Dubi. Take a moment to feel its shape: a shallow pocket walled by the cord on one side and by fuller tissue on the other. Repeat the whole search on the other knee, hands swapped, so both sides receive the same unhurried attention.
A few quiet confirmations help before any pressing begins. Slowly begin straightening the leg while your fingertip stays in place: the cord tightens and firms, and the hollow under your finger grows shallower or vanishes — exactly what should happen if you are truly in the lateral depression beside the ligament. Bend the knee again and feel the pocket refill. Touch feather-light and compare knees, since many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true hollow and little sensation a finger-width away. If your fingertip is instead standing on bare bone, on the cord itself, or on nothing in particular, lift off and restart from the kneecap’s lower edge. The point is a small zone rather than a pinhead, and patience finds it faster than force ever could.
The classic slips are easy to name. Drifting too far outward leaves the hollow entirely and lands on the firm tissues at the side of the joint, where sensation goes dull and uninformative. Drifting inward crosses the cord and finds the inner knee eye — a real place, but a different point with its own story, so note the crossing and come back. Pressing squarely on the cord itself tends to produce a sharp, ropey tenderness that teaches nothing. And searching on a fully straightened leg hides the landmark altogether, because the hollow only opens in flexion. Every one of these resolves the same way: soften the knee back into a comfortable bend, return to the lower edge of the kneecap, and step through the landmarks once more, slowly.
Reading the Name: Calf’s Nose
The characters paint a small pastoral scene. Du 犢 means a calf — a young ox, the word classical writers reached for when they wanted an image of something tender, sturdy, and quietly alive. Bi 鼻 means nose. Why would a point at the knee carry such a name? Commentators comparing the old texts to the living body have long pointed to the answer visible in any bent knee: flexing the joint raises two shallow hollows flanking the patellar ligament, small and rounded, like the nostrils of a calf’s muzzle. The likeness named the point outright, and the paired hollows carried it further still — tradition came to call them the eyes of the knee, with Dubi holding the outer one. It is worth pausing on how much affection the image holds: among gates, valleys, and storehouses, this is the one point named for the calm breathing of a young animal at rest.
The knee-eye pairing also shows how the tradition reads the body as landscape. Two soft openings beside one tense cord, and the classical eye sees a matched pair of features rather than two unrelated dents — so completely that each received its own point identity, inner and outer. The stomach channel gives the imagery a second layer: classical texts describe the stomach channel as especially rich in qi and blood, the moving vitality the tradition understands as nourishing every region it passes. A hollow at the front of the knee on such a route becomes, in the traditional imagination, one of the places where that abundance breathes closest to the surface. None of this is anatomy as a modern textbook writes it; it is the older, poetic cartography that made the system memorable, and the name doubles as its own memory aid.
Pinyin renders the name Dúbí, and both syllables ride the same rising second tone — du on the calf and bi on the nose, each spoken with a lift, as if calling across a yard. The readings were checked character by character against dictionary entries for both hanzi rather than assumed. The pair 犢鼻 is compact enough to memorise at a glance, and like the best of the classical names it doubles as an instruction sheet: bend the knee, look for the nostril-like hollow, take the outer one. A student who forgets every measurement can still rebuild the location from the name alone — which is precisely what a good point name was built to allow.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The dataset records five indications, and the first three stay close to the joint itself: knee pain, restricted flexion and extension, and numbness of the knee. Read as tradition, these are direct. Restricted flexion and extension is the classical phrase for a knee that will not bend fully or straighten fully — stiffness, tightness, a joint that moves grudgingly. Numbness of the knee belongs to the traditional vocabulary of sensation: a patch of reduced feeling, an area experienced as muffled or wrapped in cloth, understood in the old framework as qi and blood failing to reach the region or move freely through it. For all three, the logic of placement is plain: a hollow lying directly at the front of the joint, on the channel passing over it, was an obvious station from which classical practitioners approached complaints centred there.
The remaining two indications reach further down the leg: paralysis of the lower limb, and beriberi. Both deserve careful framing. Weakness and paralysis of the legs formed a large traditional category — the classics grouped under labels of wilting and paralysis what modern readers would sort into many different conditions of strength and control. Beriberi needs a double correction for modern ears: the term in old Chinese medical books translates jiaoqi, a long-established traditional category of leg complaints marked by heaviness, swelling, numbness, or weakness — it is neither the vitamin-deficiency disease that later borrowed the name nor the fungal infection that a similar-sounding colloquial word describes today. Listing these reflects what the record says this point historically stood beside, approached along a channel that runs the length of the leg.
It bears repeating plainly: these 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 hollow improves any condition, and nothing in this guide replaces assessment by a qualified clinician — least of all for knees, where persistent pain, swelling, or mechanical trouble genuinely benefits from professional eyes. 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 warmly, and hold the safety rules firmly; the rest of this page is arranged in exactly that order.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the hollow located by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, the knee comfortably bent, the whole leg supported and idle. Curl your index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — not the tips — in the hollow. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath. Sensation should register as pleasant dullness, faint warmth, or a mild spreading ache — never sharpness inside the joint. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per knee, once or twice daily, matched where possible to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and repeat on the other knee, keeping the sessions symmetrical, and let the straightening test from the walkthrough remind you now and then that the hollow is still exactly where you think it is.
Quality matters more than duration, and at the knee the margins matter more than in most places. Warm your hands first, because chilled tissue guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, and treat the minutes as a pause rather than a project. Give the thigh some support so the leg can go fully loose — a secretly working thigh muscle stiffens the whole area and steals the hollow. Do not grind across the kneecap or saw back and forth over the cord; the circles stay small, and outside them the contact stays still. People who keep a routine often anchor it to an existing habit — morning coffee steeping, an evening stretch — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. If a session leaves the knee feeling worse rather than neutrally attended to, take that as information and let the practice rest for a day or two.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Notice what changes across weeks: perhaps the area feels less guarded, perhaps the knee simply enjoys being touched kindly, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend ninety honest seconds caring for a joint that carries you everywhere. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result, especially at a joint. Knees answer stubbornness with swelling, not gratitude. When curiosity pulls toward force, return to gentleness, or simply stop for the day and let the hollow be a hollow again tomorrow.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed dataset attaches one caution to this entry, and it deserves to be read in full and taken seriously: “Do not needle a knee that is ulcerated or suppurating.” Ulcerated or suppurated means skin or joint tissue that has broken down, become infected, or is discharging pus — a knee in an actively diseased state. The warning addresses professional practice, and its message carries into home care with doubled weight: such a knee is no place for any technique, and it is also a knee that needs medical assessment promptly in its own right. Skin breakdown, oozing, spreading redness, or a joint that is hot and swollen are findings to bring to a clinician, not problems to manage with pressure of any kind. Home practice adds one further simplification: whatever the state of the knee, fingertip work happens only on healthy, intact skin, or it does not happen at all.
For gentle self-care on an ordinary, healthy-feeling knee, the rules follow from the geography. Keep contact light and strictly superficial — the intention lives in skin and the soft tissues immediately beneath, never driving into the joint line. Use finger pads, never knuckles, elbows, or tools, and never press while holding the breath or through pain. Skip the point entirely during any acute episode: a knee that is swollen, hot, or red; a knee newly injured or recently operated on; a knee that locks or gives way — all of these wait for a clinician’s clearance before any new point practice begins. Readers managing a diagnosed knee condition should ask their clinician how a gentle routine fits alongside their treatment plan. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and do not try again that day — this hollow asks nothing of anyone that resembles heroism.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for a hot, swollen, or red joint, knee symptoms accompanied by fever, inability to bear weight, a knee that locks or gives way, injury from a fall or twist, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent pain, ongoing swelling, or stiffness that limits daily life belongs with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The calf resting at the front of the knee is a gentle image, and gentleness is the entire instruction: treated kindly, this small hollow is a fine teacher of attention; treated roughly, it is simply the wrong place to be impatient.
Dubi, Calf’s Nose, rests in the small hollow on the outer side of the strong cord below the kneecap — one of the two “eyes of the knee” that classical maps drew at the front of the joint. Tradition reached for it when knees ached, stiffened, or went numb. This guide walks through finding it by touch, pressing it gently, and knowing when a knee belongs with a clinician instead.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Do not needle a knee that is ulcerated or suppurating.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Dubi without knowing anything about cun?
- Good news: this is one of the few leg points that barely needs them. The location is structural — bend the knee, find the lower edge of the kneecap, identify the cord running down from it, and settle into the hollow on the cord’s outer side. The hollow opens and closes with flexion, which confirms you are in the right place. Cun measurements only return when you continue onward to the points below, such as Zusanli (ST36), placed three cun further down the shin.
- Is pressing Dubi myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, because it engages skin and the soft tissues above the joint, far short of anything a professional technique might reach. The recorded danger concerns treating a knee whose skin or tissue has ulcerated or become infected — a situation home care avoids entirely and routes straight to a clinician. Respect the stop signals: sharp pain, electric or radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately.
- What did classical practice use Dubi for?
- The traditional record lists knee pain, restricted bending and straightening, and numbness of the knee, with two further entries reaching down the leg: paralysis of the lower limb and the old category translated as beriberi. Its identity as the outer knee eye — a hollow at the front of the joint on the descending stomach channel — explains why knee-centred complaints dominate its historic portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why is it called the outer knee eye, and where is the other one?
- When the knee bends, two shallow hollows open on either side of the patellar ligament, and classical observation treated them as a matched pair — the eyes of the knee. The lateral one, on the outer side, is Dubi. The medial one, toward the inner side of the leg, received its own identity in tradition as the inner knee eye, a separately named point. Finding one therefore means being able to find both: cord in the middle, two hollows flanking it, and yours on the outside.
- Can acupressure at Dubi replace seeing a doctor about my knee?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and knees in particular reward early professional attention when something is genuinely wrong. Hot, swollen, or red joints, fever alongside knee symptoms, inability to bear weight, locking or giving way, and injuries from falls or twists all belong with a clinician promptly. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs for 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, knee-eye imagery, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for ST35 Dubi — 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/st35/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st35/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st35/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST35",
"name": {
"en": "Dubi",
"gloss": "Calf's Nose",
"zh-Hant": "犢鼻",
"zh-Hans": "犊鼻"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 35,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "Knee bent: in the outer hollow just below the kneecap, beside the thick tendon."
},
"for": [
"knee pain",
"a stiff knee",
"numbness at the knee"
],
"press": {
"text": "Fingertip pressure into the hollow, knee bent, about a minute each knee.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [
"Not on a knee with broken or weeping skin."
],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 5",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st35",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}