It sits on the foot pulse; keep the touch light.
衝陽 Chongyang
“Surging Yang” · ST42
Foot Yangming · 42 of 45 · yuan-source
Where. At the highest point of the top of the foot, where you feel a pulse between the tendons.
For. A weak or sprained foot, stomach ache.
Press. Light pressure just beside the pulse, about a minute each foot.
Caution. It sits on the foot pulse; keep the touch light.
沖陽，一名會原，在足趺上五寸骨間動脈按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Chongyang Sits on the Foot Dorsum
Turn the term dorsum around in your mind first: it means simply the upper surface of the foot, the part that faces skyward when you stand, as opposed to the sole beneath. The dataset places Chongyang at the highest point of that surface — not near the toes, not tucked at the ankle, but at the crest of the natural arch where the top of the foot climbs and then begins to fall away toward the leg. It sits between the tendons of extensor hallucis longus and extensor digitorum longus. Those Latin names translate plainly: the first is the long tendon that lifts the big toe, running up the foot toward its inner border; the second is the long tendon group that fans out to lift the four lesser toes, spreading toward the outer side. Between the two cords lies the shallow channel where Chongyang lives.
The location closes with a phrase that does double duty as landmark and warning: where the dorsal artery of the foot pulses. A vessel of real size crosses this stretch of the foot’s summit, close enough to the surface that a relaxed fingertip can feel its beat without any effort. Classical locators named the pulse because it pins the position precisely — few landmarks on the body identify themselves as readily as a heartbeat you can touch. But the same phrase explains why this point carries a caution in the licensed record, and why every instruction in this guide leans toward gentleness. On the top of the foot there is little padding: skin, thin soft tissue, then tendon, bone, and vessel, all within a few millimeters of the surface.
Context on the channel map completes the picture. Classical texts describe the stomach channel beginning beside the nose and descending the entire front of the body — across the face, down the throat, through the chest and abdomen — before stepping onto the front of the thigh, past the knee and down the shin, arriving at the dorsum of the foot on its way toward the second toe. Chongyang stands late on that long journey, near its end, at the crossing where the channel’s line meets the crest of the arch. Locating the point therefore locates a station on the corridor as well, and the corridor — as later sections show — explains much of what the classical records assigned to this spot.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit comfortably and bring one foot up where you can see and reach its top — crossed-legged on the floor, or ankle resting across the opposite knee, whichever suits your body. Take off the sock so the skin can move freely, and let the foot hang loose and heavy rather than pointing or flexing. Now lift your toes upward without lifting the forefoot: watch the top of your foot as you do it, and two sets of cords will stand out clearly — a single stout cord running up toward the big toe, and a bundle of thinner cords fanning toward the other four. Those raised structures are exactly the tendons the dataset names. Let the toes relax again and feel the cords soften back into the foot; repeat the lift a few times until the two territories are familiar.
With the toes lifted, place a fingertip in the valley between the big-toe cord and the fanning bundle, then walk it upward along that valley toward the ankle until the top of the foot rises to its peak and the valley begins to shallow. The highest point of the dorsum, level with the middle of the arch, is the neighborhood the record describes. Settle the pad of your index or middle finger into that spot, barely touching, and give it a few unhurried seconds: many people notice a soft, rhythmic swell under the skin — the beat of the dorsal artery confirming the address. Treat that beat strictly as a signpost. It tells you the location is right; it is never the object of the pressure.
Three common misses are worth naming. First, searching too far forward: the territory near the toe roots feels similar, but the true spot sits back at the crest of the arch, where the foot is tallest. Second, hunting on the wrong surface altogether — the sole is the foot’s underside, and nothing in the record places Chongyang there. Third, drifting too high toward the ankle crease, past the peak and into the folds of the joint; if the landscape turns to stringy cords and bony ridges, come back down toward the arch. And if the foot is currently swollen, tender, or injured enough that the landmarks blur, set the search aside for another day rather than pressing harder in hopes of finding clarity through force.
Reading the Name: Surging Yang
The two characters sketch the scene in miniature. Chong 衝 means to surge, to rush, to pour — the word evokes water on the move, gathering force, as a current pours through a channel or a wave breaks upward. Yang 陽 is the familiar half of the yin-yang pairing: the sunny, active, outward-facing aspect. On the limbs the vocabulary becomes geography — the sole of the foot, sheltered and shaded, belongs to yin country, while the dorsum turned open to the air belongs to yang. Set the halves together and the name reads naturally as Surging Yang: the place where the yang surface of the foot carries a visible surge.
Every element of the name checks out against the site itself. The strongest beat anywhere on the foot’s top surface rises exactly here, where the dorsal artery crosses the crest of the arch — a pulse the old writers could hardly miss, and one they read attentively, since pulse-taking stood at the centre of classical diagnosis. The channel theory added a second layer of yang: the stomach channel belongs to the yangming family, which classical teaching described as richest in qi and blood of all the channels, and this point holds a particular rank on that abundant route. Classical teaching assigns each of the twelve principal channels a yuan-source point — the place where that channel’s qi is understood to pool nearest the surface, something like the residence where a household keeps its seal — and Chongyang holds that office for the stomach channel.
Pinyin renders the name Chōngyáng, with a flat, sustained first tone on chong and a rising second tone on yang — the voice stays level through chong, then lifts through yang. The hanzi pair 衝陽 is compact enough to memorise at a glance, and like many points on the lower limb named for water and weather — streams, valleys, springs, floods — the metaphor does genuine work: it tells you a forceful movement happens at this spot, and it tells you which surface of the foot to search. The name compresses location, landscape, and the old ways of thinking about the body into two syllables.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: weakness of the foot, sprain of the foot, rheumatic arthritis, deviation of the mouth and eye, epilepsy and mania, stomachache, and abdominal distension. Read as a group rather than a pharmacy list, three clusters emerge. The first gathers the foot itself — weakness, sprain, and the old joint complaints grouped under rheumatic arthritis. This is local-point logic, the simplest in the tradition: a point placed amid the working terrain of the foot was reached for when that terrain faltered, whether through fatigue and wasting, through a twisted step, or through the stubborn joint aching the old records filed together. Joint pain of the kind these entries describe has many possible origins today, and anything persistent, hot, or sharply swollen belongs with a clinician rather than with a pressure routine.
The second cluster travels far from the foot: deviation of the mouth and eye, and epilepsy and mania. The channel map explains the reach. Because the stomach channel’s course begins beside the nose and crosses the face, classical practice worked along the route when facial harmony failed — and a point of rank on the route entered such discussions. The epilepsy and mania entries reflect a different classical habit: older writers filed disturbances of consciousness and marked agitation under broad patterns of qi and blood rebelling upward, and points on the abundant yangming routes figured in those patterns. Both entries demand plain modern honesty. Sudden drooping of the face or weakness of the limbs, and any seizure or striking change in awareness, are emergencies for medical professionals — immediately, never as material for self-care experiments.
The third cluster returns to the point’s own family: stomachache and abdominal distension, the complaints closest to the organ whose channel hosts this station. As the yuan-source point, Chongyang was classically understood as the pool where the stomach channel’s qi gathers near the surface, so discomforts read as the stomach system’s qi failing to move smoothly led practice back to this address. That is the internal logic of the tradition, reported faithfully rather than proven; it explains the portfolio without endorsing it. All of the above are 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. Where modern research has touched acupressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence tied to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly and the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
Settle in with the located foot supported and uncovered, and choose your instrument deliberately: the pad of a thumb or index finger, never a knuckle, elbow, or tool. Rest the pad just beside the artery’s beat — in the soft ground of the groove rather than squarely atop the pulse — and begin with bare contact for a few slow breaths. Add small, slow circles, letting the skin travel gently over the tissue beneath. Pressure should register as a mild, spreading dullness or warmth, agreeable and unremarkable, the way a comfortable massage registers; it should never throb in time with the heartbeat beneath. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per foot, once or twice daily, matched to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out, then the same care given to the other foot.
Quality outranks intensity, as everywhere in home practice. Warm your hands first — chilled fingers make tissue guard — and keep nails trimmed short so the pad, not the edge, meets the skin. No devices belong here: rollers, pointed implements, and massage guns concentrate force in ways fingertips were never meant to, and the top of the foot offers almost no cushion to absorb them. People who keep the routine usually anchor it somewhere already in the day — after washing the feet in the evening, while the kettle heats, before sleep — because regularity, not heroics, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. Two quiet minutes daily serve better than a bruising session monthly.
Hold the exercise as a pause of attention rather than a repair job. Across weeks you might notice the feet feeling less tired at day’s end, the area less tender to ordinary touch, or nothing changing except that you spend a couple of minutes attending to the parts of yourself that carry you everywhere. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — firmer pressure, longer sessions, pressing directly and hard on the beat in the hope that insistence converts into benefit. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness, or set the practice down for the day; the foot will still be there tomorrow, and so will the option of asking a practitioner instead.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point earns its caution more plainly than most, and the reason sits right in its address. The licensed dataset warns practitioners to avoid the dorsal artery of the foot when needling — because the vessel crosses the very territory the point occupies, and a large superficial artery is the last structure any precise technique wants to meet. Professional training manages that risk with exact knowledge and controlled technique. Home practice manages it differently and more simply: by keeping pressure light, staying off any felt pulse, and working beside the beat rather than upon it. If you cannot locate the pulse one day, that is not an obstacle — press nowhere firmly regardless. The rule reduces to a single sentence: nothing sharp, nothing heavy, nothing hammering on a vessel.
Around that central rule, further limits guard the rest of the map. Skip the point over broken skin, blisters, fungal infections, or inflamed areas, and wherever the foot is swollen, hot, or acutely painful — including an actively flared, hot, swollen joint, which needs assessment rather than pressure. Pause entirely after any recent foot or ankle injury, fracture, or surgery until ordinary activity is cleared, and during feverish illness. Ask a qualified practitioner before adding any foot-pressure practice if you live with reduced sensation or impaired circulation in the feet — circumstances that affect many people, including those managing diabetes — since feet that cannot report discomfort accurately need professional supervision first. Pregnant readers should likewise consult a qualified practitioner before adding new point work. During any session, sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and do not try again that day.
And the wider rule stands over everything. This page is educational; acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical attention — not a longer pressing session — for sudden facial drooping or limb weakness, trouble speaking, any first or unusual seizure or loss of awareness, severe or persistent abdominal pain, or a foot injury that will not settle. Those are alarms, not indications. For everything less dramatic that persists beyond a couple of weeks, a licensed practitioner — medical or East Asian medical, as suits the complaint — is the right next step. Chongyang’s surge is worth visiting gently; medicine is the road for anything that frightens you.
Chongyang sits at the highest point of the top of the foot, between the big toe’s lifting tendon and the cords fanning to the other toes — beside the beat of the dorsal artery. Tradition reached here for weak or sprained feet, aching joints, facial deviation, and digestive discomfort. This guide walks through finding it by touch, pressing it gently, and keeping clear of the artery.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Keep clear of the dorsalis pedis artery when needling.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Chongyang without knowing anything about cun?
- Let the tendons draw the map. Lift your toes and watch the single stout cord rise toward the big toe while thinner cords fan toward the other four; settle a fingertip in the valley between them, and walk upward until the top of the foot reaches its highest crest. That groove at the peak of the arch — where a light fingertip may feel the artery’s soft beat — is the location the dataset describes. Cun measurements simply encode the same landmarks proportionally.
- Is pressing Chongyang myself actually safe?
- For healthy adults, gentle fingertip pressure held beside — not on — the artery’s beat is generally reasonable self-care, because it engages skin and superficial tissue far short of anything a vessel would mind. The recorded danger concerns precise professional techniques meeting a large artery; home practice avoids that category entirely by keeping pressure light and off any felt pulse. Respect the stop signals: sharp pain, throbbing, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately.
- What did classical practice use Chongyang for?
- The traditional record lists weakness of the foot, sprain of the foot, rheumatic-style joint complaints, deviation of the mouth and eye, epilepsy and mania, stomachache, and abdominal distension. Its rank as the stomach channel’s yuan-source point — the pool where that channel’s qi gathers — explains much of the breadth. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does a point on the foot speak to the face and the digestion?
- Classical channel theory draws the stomach pathway starting beside the nose and descending the whole front of the body — face, throat, chest, abdomen — before stepping onto the thigh and running down to the dorsum of the foot and onward toward the second toe. One continuous route therefore links the foot to the face, and its host organ ties the route to digestion; a point of rank along the way was drawn into discussions at either end. That is the traditional geometry, offered as context rather than physiology.
- Who should leave Chongyang alone completely?
- Skip the point over broken or inflamed skin, through any hot, swollen, or acutely painful foot or joint flare, and after recent foot or ankle injury or surgery until cleared. Anyone with reduced sensation or impaired circulation in the feet — including many people living with diabetes — and anyone pregnant should consult a qualified practitioner before adding foot pressure of any kind. Families practising alongside young children should seek individual guidance beforehand.
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, yuan-source theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for ST42 Chongyang — 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/st42/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st42/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st42/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST42",
"name": {
"en": "Chongyang",
"gloss": "Surging Yang",
"zh-Hant": "衝陽",
"zh-Hans": "冲阳"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 42,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "At the highest point of the top of the foot, where you feel a pulse between the tendons."
},
"for": [
"A weak or sprained foot",
"stomach ache"
],
"press": {
"text": "Light pressure just beside the pulse, about a minute each foot.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"It sits on the foot pulse; keep the touch light."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st42",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}