LI-16 (Ju Gu) Great Bone

What does LI-16 Ju Gu do?

Ju Gu LI-16 is the highest point of the Large Intestine channel on the shoulder, sitting in the hollow between the outer end of the collarbone and the ridge of the shoulder blade, and it is a Meeting Point of the Large Intestine channel of Hand Yang Ming with the Yang Motility (Yang Qiao) Vessel. Sacred Lotus sources & references record that classification directly, and record its actions as activating the channel, alleviating pain and benefiting the shoulder joint, and as regulating qi and blood and dissipating phlegm nodules. It is, first and last, a shoulder point — but a shoulder point standing at a channel crossing.

• Benefits the shoulder joint and alleviates pain — the defining action and the reason the point is used at all. Where LI-15 addresses the ball of the shoulder joint itself, LI-16 addresses the yoke above and behind it: the junction of collarbone and shoulder blade, and the muscle lying in the hollow of the shoulder blade behind that junction. Pain across the top of the shoulder, an arm that will not lift, and stiffness running from the neck out to the point of the shoulder are its territory.
• Activates the channel and frees the arm — the channel action. The Large Intestine channel runs from the index finger up the outer arm to the shoulder and on to the face, and LI-16 is the last point on it before it crosses to the neck. Pain, numbness and weakness anywhere along that run are recorded uses.
• Regulates qi and blood — the recorded action behind its use for the stubborn, long-standing shoulder complaints in which the tradition holds that qi and blood have stopped moving through the region.
• Dissipates phlegm nodules — the recorded action underlying its classical use for scrofula, the chains of hard nodules in the neck and above the collarbone described in the older texts. It shares this action with LI-15 below it and with the neck points of the region.
• Opens the Yang Motility Vessel at the shoulder — the Meeting-Point action rather than a separate function. The Yang Qiao runs up the outer side of the body from the outer ankle to the eye and is described as governing the lateral aspect of the body, the raising of the limbs and the muscle tone of the outer surface. A shoulder point that also meets that vessel is a point regarded as reaching beyond its own channel — which is the classical justification for using LI-16 in one-sided weakness and in an arm that cannot be raised, rather than only in local shoulder pain.

Where does LI-16 sit among the Yang Qiao crossing points?

Sacred Lotus sources & references were queried for the whole set of points recorded as crossing the Yang Motility Vessel, and it is a short and revealing list: Shen Mai BL-62 (its Confluent point), Fu Yang BL-59 (its Xi-Cleft point), Pu Can BL-61, Ju Liao GB-29, Feng Chi GB-20, Nao Shu SI-10, Cheng Qi ST-01, Ju Liao ST-03, Di Cang ST-04, Tou Wei ST-08, Jing Ming BL-01, and on the Large Intestine channel Jian Yu LI-15 and Ju Gu LI-16. Read in order they trace the vessel's described course: outer ankle, hip, shoulder, neck, face, eye. LI-15 and LI-16 are the only two points of the Large Intestine channel in the set, and they are consecutive — which is what a channel crossing a vessel at the shoulder looks like on the surface of the body.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing action record, rebuilt here as a proper list; channel, Meeting Point classification, and the complete set of Yang Motility crossing points queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 117); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 143); cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is LI-16 Ju Gu used for?

Ju Gu LI-16 is used for the shoulder and the arm, and for very little else. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are pain and motor impairment of the upper extremities, and pain in the shoulder and back. The wider reference literature adds the neck, the classical nodule indications of the region, and a small number of chest and bleeding entries recorded in the older texts. These describe traditional use, not proven treatment, and this point carries the safety considerations recorded under needling.

• Pain across the top of the shoulder
• Inability to raise the arm, and restricted shoulder movement
• Pain and motor impairment of the upper limb
• Numbness and weakness of the arm
• Pain in the upper back and between the shoulder blades
• Stiffness and pain of the neck
• Post-stroke shoulder pain and one-sided weakness of the upper limb
• Scrofula — the chains of hard nodules in the neck and above the collarbone described in the classics
• Goitre and swellings of the neck region
• Pain and fullness of the chest, and cough recorded in the older texts
• Coughing or vomiting of blood, recorded classically
• Convulsions and epilepsy, recorded classically

How to read the last few. The chest, bleeding and convulsion entries come from the classical record rather than from modern practice, and they are recorded here for completeness rather than because they are used. What the point is actually reached for today is the shoulder — and specifically the top and back of the shoulder rather than the joint itself, which belongs to LI-15 immediately below it.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record, reformatted here as a list); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 117); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 143); cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is LI-16 Ju Gu, and how is it found?

Ju Gu sits on the top of the shoulder in the V-shaped hollow where the outer end of the collarbone meets the ridge of bone running across the back of the shoulder blade. Sacred Lotus sources & references place it in the depression between the acromial extremity of the clavicle and the scapular spine, and our second location reference adds that it lies medial to the acromion process — the bony point at the very top of the shoulder. In our own words: run a finger outward along the collarbone until it ends at the shoulder, then feel just behind that ending for a soft notch between two ridges of bone. That notch is the point.

It is one of the easier points on the body to find, because it is defined by two bones meeting rather than by a proportional measurement, and the notch between them can be felt on almost anyone. That is also the reason for the name, discussed under the notes.

Which points is LI-16 combined with?

• With Jian Yu LI-15 — the point immediately below it on the same channel, in the hollow at the front and top of the shoulder joint, and the other Large Intestine point that crosses the Yang Motility Vessel. LI-15 addresses the joint; LI-16 addresses the yoke above and behind it. They are needled together so routinely for the shoulder that most prescriptions name both, and the LI-15 record names LI-16 from the other side.
• With Jian Jing GB-21 — on the crest of the trapezius midway between the neck and the point of the shoulder, a short distance medial to LI-16. It is the standard partner for pain across the top of the shoulder, and it carries a pneumothorax caution and a pregnancy caution that LI-16 does not, for reasons set out under needling.
• With Tian Zong SI-11, Bing Feng SI-12 and Jian Liao SJ-14 — the ring of points around the shoulder blade and the back of the shoulder. Bing Feng SI-12, held here, sits in the middle of the hollow above the ridge of the shoulder blade, directly behind LI-16 and over the same muscle.
• With Qu Chi LI-11 and He Gu LI-04 — the distal points of its own channel at the elbow and the hand, added so that the treatment reaches along the whole channel rather than only where it hurts.
• In a trial of trapezius origin-and-insertion points. Sixty patients with neck-type cervical spondylosis were randomised to needling at the points corresponding to the origins and insertions of the trapezius muscle — Tian Zhu BL-10, Feng Chi GB-20, Qu Yuan SI-13, Ju Gu LI-16 and tender ashi points — or to needling the paravertebral Jia Ji points of the neck, five times a week for two weeks. Pain-rating index and total McGill scores fell further in the trapezius-point arm, P < 0.01, though the visual analogue and present-pain-intensity scores did not differ significantly (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2012;32(3):211–4, PMID 22471131). Thirty patients per arm, no sham, single centre — a small study, and LI-16 is one of four named points in the protocol rather than the variable under test.
• In post-stroke shoulder prescriptions. A clinical analysis of shoulder pain after hemiplegia set out point prescriptions built around the shoulder girdle rather than the joint alone, naming Ju Gu LI-16 in both of them — with Jian Jing GB-21, Jian Zhong Shu SI-15, Tian Zong SI-11, Jian Liao SJ-14 and Ji Quan HT-01 in flaccid hemiplegia, and with Jian Yu LI-15, Tian Zong SI-11, Jian Liao SJ-14, Xiao Luo SJ-12, Shang Lian LI-09 and Wen Liu LI-07 in spastic hemiplegia (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2006;26(9):669–71, PMID 17036491). This is a reasoned clinical account, not a trial, and it is cited for the point selection rather than for any outcome.
• In a Japanese multi-point injection protocol. Nine patients with idiopathic katakori — the neck-and-shoulder stiffness syndrome recognised in Japan — received simultaneous injections of local anaesthetic at five points: BL-10, GB-21, LI-16, SI-14 and a point on the Bladder channel of the upper back. Pain scores fell significantly, with or without palpable trigger points. The same paper carries the cadaveric half described under needling (Terayama H et al., PLoS One 2015;10(6):e0129006, PMID 26046784, PMC4457803). Nine patients, no control arm, and injections rather than filiform needling — but LI-16 is one of only five named points.

How does LI-16 differ from LI-15?

They are consecutive points, they share a channel and they share a Yang Motility crossing — and they are used for different parts of the shoulder. LI-15 sits in the hollow at the front and top of the shoulder joint, over the head of the humerus, and is the point of the whole repertoire most consistently chosen for the joint itself: a shoulder that will not abduct, pain on lifting the arm, frozen shoulder. LI-16 sits further back and further in, in the notch where the collarbone meets the shoulder blade, over the muscle that fills the hollow above the ridge of the blade. Its emphasis is the yoke of the shoulder and the run across to the neck. In practice both are usually needled; when only one is, the distinction is whether the complaint is in the joint or across the top.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location; Meeting Point classification; the LI-04, LI-07, LI-09, LI-11, LI-15, BL-10, GB-20, GB-21, SI-11, SI-12, SI-13, SI-15, SJ-12, SJ-14 and HT-01 records queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 117); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 143); PMID 22471131; PMID 17036491; PMID 26046784 (PMC4457803) — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is LI-16 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 117): On the upper aspect of the shoulder, in the depression medial to the acromion process and between the lateral extremity of the clavicle and the scapular spine.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 143): In the upper aspect of the shoulder, in the depression between the acromial extremity of' the clavicle and the scapular spine.

How is LI-16 Ju Gu needled, and what is the pneumothorax risk?

Stated plainly: LI-16 sits at the top of the shoulder in the region above the collarbone, and the apex of the lung lies beneath that region. Pneumothorax — a punctured lung — is the hazard the reference literature attaches to the supraclavicular territory as a whole. Sacred Lotus sources & references record perpendicular insertion of 0.5 to 0.7 inch at LI-16, with moxibustion applicable, and that bounded figure is the substance of the record. Everything below is recorded as neutral reference data describing what the textbooks and the published anatomical studies state. It is not instruction, this page does not teach technique, and needling is carried out only by a qualified, licensed practitioner.

The angle and depth the texts record

• Sacred Lotus sources & references record perpendicular insertion of 0.5 to 0.7 inch, with moxibustion applicable.
• Deadman & Al-Khafaji (p. 117) and Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 143) record a comparable range at the same site, and the reference literature for this region consistently records the needle being directed downward and backward into the hollow above the shoulder blade rather than downward and forward toward the space above the collarbone. The distinction is the whole of the anatomy: backward, the needle travels into muscle with the shoulder blade behind it; forward and inward, it travels toward the supraclavicular space where the lung apex lies.
• Moxibustion is recorded as applicable and carries no depth consideration at all.
• For comparison within our own records: the 0.5–0.7 inch at LI-16 sits between the 0.3–0.5 inch our records give for Que Pen ST-12 in the hollow above the collarbone and for Jian Jing GB-21 on the crest of the shoulder, and the 0.8–1.5 inch given for Jian Yu LI-15 out over the shoulder joint. That ordering is not arbitrary — it tracks how much bone lies behind each point.

The measured anatomy — and exactly which point each study measured

This is where precision matters most, because the shoulder girdle has been measured several times and the figures are easy to misattribute.

• One study does name LI-16, and it is an anatomical one. A combined clinical and cadaveric investigation from a Japanese university injected India ink at five named points in three cadavers and dissected the puncture sites layer by layer, alongside a nine-patient clinical series. At LI-16 the ink was found lying over the fascia of the supraspinatus muscle — the muscle that fills the hollow above the ridge of the shoulder blade — the same finding as at GB-21; at SI-14 and at the Bladder-channel point examined the ink lay over the rhomboid fascia, and at BL-10 over the deep suboccipital muscle fascia. The authors concluded that the injectate acted in the plane between muscle and muscle fascia and on the peripheral nerves there (Terayama H et al., PLoS One 2015;10(6):e0129006, PMID 26046784, PMC4457803). State the limits precisely: three cadavers, an injected liquid rather than a filiform needle, and no depth measurement in millimetres is reported. What it does establish, at this point rather than at a neighbour, is the tissue plane the point sits over — the supraspinatus and its fascia, with the supraspinous fossa of the shoulder blade forming a bony floor behind them.
• Honest limit, stated plainly. No imaging, ultrasound or cadaveric study measuring a safe needling depth at LI-16 could be located. Points around it have been measured; this one has not, and no figure taken elsewhere is attached to it here. Sacred Lotus sources & references reached the same conclusion for LI-15 immediately below it, and this record is kept consistent with that one.
• The GB-21 ultrasound figures are GB-21's. Ultrasonography in 101 adults measured the vertical distance from skin to the pleural line at Jian Jing GB-21, on the crest of the trapezius: a mean of 17.4 mm in men and 14.6 mm in women, increasing with weight, height and body-mass index, with the stated purpose of preventing pneumothorax at that point (Lin S-K et al., J Acupunct Meridian Stud 2018;11(6):355–360, PMID 29936338). A second ultrasound study of 52 healthy volunteers measured the same distance at GB-21 under different postures and phases of breathing, finding it greater lying prone than sitting and greater in overweight subjects, but with within-subject variation exceeding between-group variation — and concluded that applying a depth on the basis of sex or body-mass index alone is unsafe (Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2018;2018:2308102, PMID 29507586, PMC5817322). Both sets of figures describe GB-21, not LI-16. They are cited for the measured scale of the shoulder-girdle region and for the second study's lesson about individual variation, not as numbers for this point.
• The pleural-dome dissection did not name LI-16. A dissection study of 46 adult bodies mapped the dome of the pleura against the commonly used points around it, naming Tian Tu REN-22, Qi She ST-11, Jian Jing GB-21, Ding Chuan and Da Zhu BL-11. The dome's projection varied widely between individuals, extending beyond the medial third of the clavicle in almost 60 per cent of bodies; the authors concluded that when a point is located and angled as the standard describes the pleura is not reached, but that exceeding the recorded depth breaches the pleural membrane (Chen Y et al., Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2006;26(5):346–8, PMID 16739850). LI-16 is not in that list. The finding is relevant to the region — the pleural dome reaching past the inner third of the collarbone in six bodies out of ten is the anatomy of this whole territory — but no measurement from it belongs to this point.
• The paediatric upper-back CT study did not measure LI-16 either. A retrospective study measured skin-to-pleura distance from chest CT at 23 named upper-back acupoints in 319 patients aged 4 to 18 at a single Taiwanese hospital, weight being the strongest determinant at all 23 (Ma YC et al., BMC Complement Altern Med 2016;16:85, PMID 26922245, PMC4769822). Its full text names those 23 points in Tables 2 to 6: DU-09 to DU-14, BL-11 to BL-17, BL-41 to BL-46, SI-14, SI-15, GB-21 and SP-21. LI-16 is not among them, although its close neighbours GB-21, SI-14 and SI-15 are. No figure from it is quoted for this point.
• Nor did the companion paediatric chest study. The same group measured the depths from skin to the major organs at 28 chest acupoints in patients aged 4 to 18, covering the upper Kidney-channel run and LU-01, LU-02 and ST-13 (Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2015;2015:126028, PMID 26457105, PMC4592721). LI-16 is not in that point list.
• No agreed safe depth exists for any point in any case. Two systematic reviews of the safe-depth literature — 33 studies in the first, 47 in the second, measured by MRI, CT, ultrasound and cadaveric dissection — both concluded that depths measured for the same point differ greatly between subject groups and measuring methods, and that "safe depth" has never been standardised (J Altern Complement Med 2011;17(3):199–206, PMID 21417806; Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2013;2013:740508, PMID 23935678). Neither reports a figure for this point.

What lies beneath, in plain terms — and what that means for this point

Directly under the skin at LI-16 lie the upper fibres of trapezius, and beneath those the supraspinatus muscle filling the hollow above the ridge of the shoulder blade, which is what the cadaveric ink study found the injectate lying over. Behind the supraspinatus is the supraspinous fossa of the scapula — a bony floor. Medially and in front, however, the tissue opens into the supraclavicular fossa, where there is no bone at all between the surface and the dome of the pleura, and where the subclavian vessels and the trunks of the brachial plexus travel out toward the arm. That asymmetry is the single most useful anatomical fact about this point: behind and outward there is bone; forward and inward there is not. It is why the reference literature records the needle being directed into the hollow of the shoulder blade, and why the recorded depth is bounded.

Set against its neighbours, honestly. LI-16 is not as exposed as Que Pen ST-12, which sits in the supraclavicular fossa itself with nothing bony beneath it; nor is it as sheltered as Jian Yu LI-15, which sits out over the head of the humerus where the pleural dome does not reach. It is in between, and closest in situation to Jian Jing GB-21, which is the point in this region where a pneumothorax caution is recorded most emphatically and where the measurements have actually been made. Neither overstating the risk nor understating it serves a reader: the accurate statement is that LI-16 belongs to the shoulder-girdle band in which pneumothorax is the documented regional hazard, that a bony floor lies behind the point but not in front of it, and that no measurement has been published for the point itself.

What the adverse-event literature documents

Pneumothorax is the second most frequently reported serious adverse event in acupuncture. A systematic review of the Chinese case-report literature from 1956 to 2010 identified 1,038 adverse-event cases across 167 articles, of which 307 were pneumothorax — behind only fainting — with 35 deaths across the whole series; the authors attributed the events chiefly to improper technique and judged most avoidable through standardised training (He W et al., J Altern Complement Med 2012;18(10):892–901, PMID 22967282). A companion review of 115 Chinese-language articles reporting 479 adverse events including 14 deaths reached the same conclusion about traumatic complications (Zhang J et al., Bull World Health Organ 2010;88(12):915–921C, PMID 21124716, PMC2995190). An emergency-department series from a tertiary hospital in Seoul over five years recorded 12 mechanical complications of thoraco-abdominal needling — ten pneumothoraces, eight requiring a chest drain — with a mean interval of 1.6 days between the treatment and arrival at the emergency department (Lee HJ et al., Pain Med 2017;18(12):2504–2508, PMID 28431130). Sudden chest pain, breathlessness or a persistent dry cough in the hours or days after needling over the shoulder girdle is a medical emergency requiring immediate assessment.

What will not be claimed here. None of those reviews identifies the individual points involved in its cases, and no published case report naming Ju Gu LI-16 as the point at which a pneumothorax or other injury occurred was located. No such claim is made.

Risk in proportion

A meta-analysis of prospective clinical studies estimated serious adverse events in acupuncture at approximately 1 per 10,000 patients and around 8 per million treatments, with about half of all recorded events being bleeding, pain or flare at the needle site, placing acupuncture among the safer treatments in medicine (Bäumler P et al., BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961, PMID 34489268). Both facts belong together: the overall rate is low, and the events that do occur cluster in the small band of points over the lung to which the shoulder girdle belongs.

Pregnancy. Sacred Lotus sources & references record no pregnancy contraindication at LI-16, and none is added. That caution attaches in this region to Jian Jing GB-21 — one of the historically forbidden points identified in the modern review literature alongside SP-06, LI-04, BL-60, BL-67, BL-32 and BL-33 (Med Acupunct 2019;31(6):346–360, PMID 31871522, PMC6918516) — and it should not be transferred to LI-16 simply because the two sit on the same shoulder. A review of the scientific evidence for those forbidden points found no objective evidence of harm across 15 clinical trials involving 823 women, a cohort of 5,885 pregnant women and animal work (Carr DJ, Acupunct Med 2015;33(5):413–9, PMID 26362792). Standard clean-needle practice applies.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling and location records; the LI-15, GB-21 and ST-12 records queried directly for comparison); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 117, surface and deep anatomy of the shoulder region); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 143); PMID 26046784 (PMC4457803 — the one study naming LI-16); PMID 29936338 and PMID 29507586 (PMC5817322) (both GB-21 measurements, cited here only to distinguish them from LI-16); PMID 16739850; PMID 26922245 (PMC4769822); PMID 26457105 (PMC4592721); PMID 21417806; PMID 23935678; PMID 22967282; PMID 21124716 (PMC2995190); PMID 28431130; PMID 34489268; PMID 31871522 (PMC6918516); PMID 26362792 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation.

What does the name Ju Gu mean?

Ju Gu means "Great Bone", and the great bone is the collarbone. Sacred Lotus sources & references translate the name exactly that way. In the anatomical vocabulary of the classical Chinese medical texts ju gu was a name for the clavicle itself, so the point's name is a plain statement of where it is: at the great bone. It is one of a small group of point names that work as anatomy rather than as imagery — compare Jian Yu LI-15 immediately below it, "Shoulder Bone", named on exactly the same pattern, and Ju Liao ST-03 and Ju Liao GB-29, "Great Bone Hole" and "Squatting Bone Hole", both held here, whose names describe hollows in bone.

Two consecutive points on the Large Intestine channel named "Shoulder Bone" and "Great Bone" is not a coincidence — it is a record of how this stretch of the body was described before there was a channel theory to describe it with. The naming is topographic, and it is one reason both points are unusually easy to locate.

Why does the Yang Motility crossing matter at LI-16?

Because it is what lifts LI-16 above being purely a local point. The Yang Motility Vessel, Yang Qiao Mai, is one of the eight extraordinary vessels. It is described as beginning at the outer ankle, running up the outer side of the leg and trunk, crossing the shoulder, ascending the side of the neck and face and ending at the inner corner of the eye, where it meets its yin counterpart. What the tradition assigns to it is the outer aspect of the body: the tone of the muscles on the lateral surface, the raising and lowering of the limbs, and — through its ending at the eye — the opening and closing of the eyes and the alternation of sleep and waking. Its Confluent point is Shen Mai BL-62 at the outer ankle, held here, and that is the point used to open the vessel.

A point that crosses this vessel is understood to reach the vessel as well as its own channel. For LI-16 the practical consequence is its use in one-sided presentations — an arm that cannot be raised, weakness of the outer surface of the limb, the shoulder in hemiplegia — rather than only in local shoulder pain. That is exactly the setting in which the post-stroke shoulder literature names it (PMID 17036491). It is the same rationale that governs LI-15 next door, and the two are the only Large Intestine points in the crossing set.

Is there research on LI-16 Ju Gu?

There is a little, and it is honest to call it a little. Three indexed items name the point, one of them anatomical and two of them small clinical studies in which LI-16 is one of several points in a protocol. No trial isolates LI-16, and no imaging study has measured a needling depth at it.

• Cadaveric anatomy naming LI-16. The Japanese ink-injection and dissection study described under needling, which found the injectate at LI-16 lying over the supraspinatus fascia in three cadavers, alongside a nine-patient clinical series in which multi-point injections including LI-16 significantly reduced katakori pain (PMID 26046784, PMC4457803). Small, and injections rather than needling — but it is point-named anatomy, which is rarer in this literature than it should be.
• A randomised trial in which LI-16 is one of four named points. Sixty patients with neck-type cervical spondylosis were randomised to needling the trapezius origin-and-insertion points — BL-10, GB-20, SI-13, LI-16 and ashi points — or to the paravertebral Jia Ji points of the neck. Pain-rating index and total McGill scores fell further in the trapezius-point arm, P < 0.01; visual analogue and present-pain-intensity scores did not differ (PMID 22471131). Thirty per arm, no sham, and the variable under test is a point-selection strategy rather than this point.
• A clinical reasoning paper naming LI-16 in post-stroke shoulder prescriptions for both flaccid and spastic hemiplegia (PMID 17036491). Not a trial; cited for the point selection.

What is missing should be said plainly: there is no sham-controlled randomised trial of LI-16 alone; no mechanistic study naming it; and no measurement of a safe needling depth at it, as set out under needling. Its standing rests on the classical record, on its position at an obvious bony landmark, and on its Yang Motility crossing.

How does LI-16 compare with the points around it?

Jian Yu LI-15 lies immediately below on the same channel and shares the Yang Motility crossing; it addresses the shoulder joint itself where LI-16 addresses the yoke above and behind it, and the two are the pair to learn together. Jian Jing GB-21 lies a short distance medially on the crest of the trapezius and is the point LI-16 most resembles anatomically — the cadaveric ink study found the injectate over the supraspinatus fascia at both — but GB-21 carries a pneumothorax caution recorded far more emphatically and a pregnancy caution that LI-16 does not, and it is the point in this region at which the measurements have actually been made. Que Pen ST-12 sits below and in front, in the supraclavicular fossa itself, with the lung apex directly beneath and no bone under it at all; it is the high-hazard point of this territory and LI-16 is not it. Bing Feng SI-12 sits directly behind LI-16 in the middle of the hollow above the ridge of the shoulder blade, over the same muscle, and is a Meeting Point of four channels. Jian Zhong Shu SI-15 and Tian Zong SI-11 complete the ring around the shoulder blade. All are held in this library. Every point across this shoulder band shares the regional considerations recorded under needling; what distinguishes them from one another is how much bone lies behind each one.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name and translation; Meeting Point classification; the complete Yang Motility crossing set and the LI-15, GB-21, GB-29, ST-03, ST-12, SI-11, SI-12, SI-15 and BL-62 records queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 117); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 143); PMID 26046784 (PMC4457803); PMID 22471131; PMID 17036491 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.