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Does that make sense?

《灵枢》says “气至则有效” meaning that only if qi arrives is the acupuncture treatment effective. Because arrival of qi is the basis upon which the acupuncturist can work with the qi, tonifying or reducing it 《针灸大成》says “针若得气速，则病易痊而效易速也；若气来迟，则病难痊而有不治之优。” This means that how quick your qi arrives will determine how quick you’ll recover. So, if several attempts at facilitating the arrival of qi bring no results, it may be a bad sign regarding the patient’s recovery.

It’s always safe to make sure that qi arrives, because this ensure that you can progress to using the needle as a medium for regulating the qi mechanism, which is what acupuncture treatment has classically been about.

However, it makes less sense to me to say that a patient who is less sensitive to the arrival of qi is in bad health or is further away from recovery. This theory ties “经气衰弱” to the state of health.

One way to think through this is to think of 经气 as the state of your peripheral nervous system. Some people have stronger sense reactions in response to certain kinds of nervous stimulation. So, if a person’s somatic sense nerves ‘catch’ qi faster, he may be put in the category of good health according to what has been quoted above. This, to me, may apply to people with musculo-skeletal ailments such as stroke, where nervous sensation is a prognosis of recovery. But otherwise, in people who are in the pink of health but have less sensitive somatic sense nerves, this theory is not particularly useful.

Of course, the discussion above is only using one modality to critique another. If there are other thoughts on this, especially if you have had related experiences, please leave your comments.