A facial pulse beats here; keep the touch light.
大迎 Daying
“Great Welcome” · ST5
Foot Yangming · 5 of 45
Where. Puff out the cheek: in the groove in front of the jaw angle, where a pulse beats on the jawbone.
For. Toothache, a puffy cheek, a stiff jaw.
Press. Gentle pressure just beside the pulse, about a minute each side.
Caution. A facial pulse beats here; keep the touch light.
大迎，一名髓孔，在曲頷前一寸三分骨陷者中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Daying Sits on the Jaw
The dataset places Daying just in front of the angle of the mandible — the bony corner of the lower jaw below the earlobe — on the anterior border of the masseter muscle’s attachment, at the spot where the facial artery pulses. It adds a practical finding aid: puff the cheeks out and a small groove appears just in front of the mandibular angle, and that groove marks the point. Two landmarks carry most of the weight here. The angle of the mandible is the jaw’s own turning point, easy to trace by following the jawline backward from the chin until the bone swings upward. The masseter is the strong chewing muscle layered over the back of the jaw, the slab that gathers firm when you bite down.
Under the fingertips the terrain is a conversation between hard and soft. The jaw’s lower border runs firm and unmistakable; where the masseter’s front edge meets it, muscle yields to a narrow hollow of softer tissue, and through that hollow passes the facial artery, whose light beat the dataset writes into the location itself. Feeling a pulse here is normal and expected — it is part of the point’s address — but it shapes how self-care should proceed: contact stays light enough that the beat remains a gentle companion rather than something pressed upon. The tissue of the face is thin and richly supplied, and everything about this point rewards restraint.
Daying does not stand alone. Higher up the same muscle, about one finger-breadth above and in front of the jaw angle, sits Jiache (ST6), found in the depression over the muscle’s bulge while chewing; nearer the mouth, lateral to the corner of the lips and directly below the pupil, lies Dicang (ST4). Together these neighbours form the stomach channel’s working cluster for cheek and jaw, and Daying holds its lowest, most forward corner — the meeting of muscle edge and bone where the channel crosses the jaw. All of these are paired points: what you locate on one side, you will locate again, patiently, on the other.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Begin seated, shoulders easy and teeth unclenched, so the jaw muscles have a chance to soften. Trace your jawline backward with an index finger until you reach the corner where the bone turns upward below the earlobe — that turn is the angle of the mandible. Now find the masseter by contrast: clench your teeth gently and feel the muscle sheet at the back of the cheek gather into a firm slab; release, and feel it soften again. The point hides along the front edge of that slab, right beside the jaw corner. Rest your fingertip just in front of the angle, against the muscle’s leading border.
Two confirmations settle it. First, puff your cheeks out gently: watch and feel for the small groove that appears just in front of the mandibular angle — the dataset offers exactly this gesture as the finding sign, and your fingertip should land in or beside it. Second, soften your touch until it is barely there: many people notice a faint, steady beat under the pad, the facial artery announcing the address in person. A mild, dull awareness at the true spot, and noticeably less sensation a finger-width away, rounds out the picture. If your finger finds only smooth bone, slide forward off the corner onto the muscle border and search again.
Common misses are predictable. Sliding up onto the belly of the masseter takes you toward Jiache territory, higher on the muscle; drifting forward into the soft centre of the cheek leaves the jaw behind altogether; pressing firmly flattens the very pulse meant to confirm the spot. Because the point is paired, symmetry matters: work through the whole search once on one side, then repeat it unhurried on the other, comparing what the two sides report. When in doubt, return to the jaw corner and begin the sequence again from the top.
Reading the Name: Great Welcome
The characters are generous. Da 大 means great or large; ying 迎 means to welcome, to greet, to go out and meet someone arriving. Together the name reads as the Great Welcome, and it belongs to a small family of welcoming points scattered across the channel maps: Renying, the Welcome of the Person, waits on the neck further down the stomach channel, while Yingxiang, Fragrant Welcome, greets travellers beside the wings of the nose on the large intestine channel. Names like these mark places where the tradition imagined arrivals being received.
Why greet here, of all places? Commentators have long connected the name with the point’s role as a meeting ground. The stomach channel’s course carries it sweeping across the face and down past the cheek, and at this precise corner the facial artery runs close to the surface, its beat plainly felt. Channel qi descending across the cheek and a vessel beating just beneath the skin arrive together at this threshold — an image of something important being met and received. The welcome, in this reading, is the body greeting its own circulation, and the spot is honoured precisely because traffic passes through it.
Pinyin renders the name Dàyíng. The da carries the fourth tone — a sharp, decisive fall, the voice dropping from a height — while ying rises on the second tone, lifting through the syllable like a greeting offered on the upswing. The hanzi pair 大迎 is compact enough to memorise at a glance. As with gates, valleys, and courtyards elsewhere on the maps, the metaphor here does real work: it tells you the tradition treats this spot as a place of exchange and reception, not a quiet backwater. The name is itself a small set of instructions for how to think about the point.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded actions read plainly: deviation of the corner of the mouth, swelling of the cheek, toothache, and lockjaw. Framed as tradition rather than promise, each has an old logic. Deviation of the mouth corner is how classical records describe facial asymmetry — a mouth pulled or slackened toward one side — a presentation classical medicine grouped among “wind” complaints, its old shorthand for troubles that arrive suddenly and wander over the body’s surface. Swelling of the cheek covered puffiness, distension, and inflammatory fullness across the cheek. Toothache needs little translation, though the old records filed it among channel complaints of the face and jaw rather than dental medicine. Lockjaw described jaws clenched or restricted, opening with difficulty.
The channel explains the portfolio. Of all the pathways, the stomach channel makes its highest appearance on the face: classical texts describe it emerging high on the face and sweeping down across the cheek and along the jaw — passing right where Daying waits — before turning down the front of the trunk and leg toward the second toe. A pathway that travels the face and jaw gathers their complaints: wherever the route ran closest to the surface, practice reached for local points, and Daying sits squarely on that stretch. This is channel thinking — approaching discomfort along the road the tradition understood the qi to travel — and it explains why face and jaw concerns dominate the point’s historic record.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered here for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing in this guide 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, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, spine tall but unforced, jaw loose, hands warm and clean. Choose the pad of your index or middle finger — never the tip, a knuckle, or any tool — and rest it on the spot. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, letting the skin warm to the touch, then add small, gentle circles, allowing the skin to glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against the jaw. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness, and light enough that the underlying beat, if you feel it, stays comfortable. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched to slow exhales; then swap hands and give the other side its turn.
Because the facial artery beats directly at this address, gentleness is not decoration here — it is the technique. Keep the pressure feather-light over the pulse itself; if the throbbing grows prominent or uncomfortable, ease off a shade rather than pressing through it. Keep the teeth apart and the jaw slack throughout, since a clenched jaw tenses the very muscle you are soothing. Tools, massage devices, and knuckles stay out of the picture; the face answers to finger pads alone. If you practise alongside the breath, let each circle ride a long exhale out — the rhythm matters more than the minutes.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Across weeks you may notice the area feeling less guarded, the jaw sitting easier, or simply that a minute or two of your day went to attending to your own face with care. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — harder, longer, or deeper in pursuit of a result. When curiosity pulls that way, return to lightness or stop for the day; the point will be there tomorrow.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed dataset records no specific cautions for this point, and it helps to say so plainly — while adding immediately what that does and does not mean. It does not mean force becomes welcome. The face is thin-skinned, richly supplied with vessels and nerves, and largely bone and muscle close to the surface; the same geography that lets you feel a pulse here asks for a light hand. Techniques that go beyond the surface at this site belong to trained professional hands; home self-care keeps to the surface and stays there.
Practical rules follow. Do not practise over broken, irritated, or inflamed skin, active acne flares, cold sores, or any wound in the area that has not healed. After recent dental work, jaw procedures, or facial surgery, wait until your clinician clears ordinary touch. Anyone living with a temporomandibular joint disorder, ongoing dental disease, or recurring facial pain should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice, and pregnant readers are best served by checking with a practitioner before beginning any new routine at all. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and do not try again that day.
And the wider rule stands over everything: sudden facial drooping, new weakness, trouble speaking, swallowing, or breathing, severe or rapidly worsening facial pain, or facial swelling accompanied by fever all call for urgent medical care straight away — never for a pressure routine, however gentle. Persistent symptoms of any kind belong with a licensed practitioner. This page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Perhaps the surest gift Daying offers most people is a kinder acquaintance with their own jaw, met with a welcome that stays gentle.
Daying, the Great Welcome, rests on the jaw just in front of the jawbone’s corner, where the chewing muscle ends and the facial artery’s beat can be felt under light fingertips. Classical practice reached for it when the mouth corner drifted, the cheek swelled, teeth ached, or the jaw locked. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Daying without knowing any measurements?
- Follow the jawline backward from the chin to the bony corner below the earlobe — the angle of the mandible. Clench your teeth once to feel the masseter gather, then relax; the point rests against the front edge of that muscle, just in front of the angle. Puff your cheeks gently and look for the small groove that appears before the angle: the dataset offers that groove as the finding sign, and your fingertip should land there. No rulers involved — only landmarks your own face supplies.
- Is it normal to feel a pulse under my fingers at ST5?
- Yes, and it is part of the point’s recorded address: the dataset locates Daying precisely where the facial artery pulses. Feeling that faint beat confirms your fingertip is in the right hollow. It also sets the rule for practice — keep contact light enough that the pulse stays a comfortable background, and if the throbbing ever feels prominent, ease off rather than press through. The pulse is a landmark to greet, not a target to lean on.
- What did classical practice use Daying for?
- The traditional record lists deviation of the corner of the mouth, swelling of the cheek, toothache, and lockjaw. Classical texts describe the stomach channel sweeping across the face and jaw on its way down the body, which is why face-and-jaw complaints dominate this point’s historic portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks documented for context and understanding — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- How is Daying different from its neighbour Jiache (ST6)?
- They share the same muscle but not the same address. Jiache sits higher — about one finger-breadth above and in front of the jaw angle, in the depression over the masseter’s bulge when you chew — while Daying hugs the muscle’s front border right beside the angle, where the facial artery pulses. Classical practice often discussed the pair together for complaints of the cheek and jaw, but each has its own hollow to find.
- Can pressing Daying correct a drooping corner of the mouth?
- No — and the distinction matters. A mouth corner that suddenly drifts or droops is a possible emergency sign and calls for immediate medical assessment, not self-care. Longstanding facial asymmetry belongs with qualified clinicians and practitioners who can assess causes properly. Self-acupressure at Daying is comfort-level daily practice, documented here for cultural understanding; it neither diagnoses nor treats, and it never substitutes for professional care.
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 ST5 Daying — location, point class, and action 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/st5/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/st5/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/st5/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "ST5",
"name": {
"en": "Daying",
"gloss": "Great Welcome",
"zh-Hant": "大迎",
"zh-Hans": "大迎"
},
"channel": {
"id": "ST",
"order": 5,
"of": 45
},
"location": {
"text": "Puff out the cheek: in the groove in front of the jaw angle, where a pulse beats on the jawbone."
},
"for": [
"toothache",
"a puffy cheek",
"a stiff jaw"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle pressure just beside the pulse, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"A facial pulse beats here; keep the touch light."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/st5",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}