SI-12 (Bing Feng) Grasping the Wind

What does SI-12 Bing Feng do?

SI-12 has one recorded action — it expels wind and benefits the shoulder and scapula — and it is a meeting point of four channels. That combination is the whole of the point: a local shoulder point where four yang channels cross, giving it a reach the Small Intestine channel alone would not have.

• Expels wind and benefits the shoulder and scapula — the single action our own record holds, and none is invented beyond it

The four channels that meet here, per our own classification record: the Small Intestine, Large Intestine, San Jiao and Gall Bladder channels. All four are yang channels that traverse the shoulder and the side of the neck, and a point where they cross is classically used when the problem is regional rather than confined to one channel — which is exactly how shoulder restriction usually presents.

“Wind” in the name and in the action. Classically, wind is the pathogen associated with conditions that arrive suddenly, move about, and affect the upper body and the surface — which is how acute shoulder and neck stiffness was understood. The name “Grasping the Wind” is usually read as the point seizing and holding that pathogen so it can be dispersed. The reader should take this as the classical rationale, not as a mechanism.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, category and action records — the four-channel meeting classification taken verbatim from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is SI-12 Bing Feng used for?

SI-12 is used for pain in the shoulder blade and for restricted, aching or numb arms. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full — it is short, entirely local, and does not stray into organ conditions.

• Pain in the scapular region
• Numbness and aching of the upper limb
• Restricted movement of the shoulder and arm

That the list stays local is worth noting. Several Small Intestine channel points carry indications reaching well beyond their own region — SI-03 Hou Xi opens the Du Mai and treats the whole spine, SI-01 Shao Ze is used for insufficient lactation. SI-12 does not. It is a regional point and our record treats it as one.

How it is combined. With SI-11 Tian Zong directly below it in the infraspinous fossa — the two are the principal scapular pair. With SI-9 Jian Zhen, SI-10 Nao Shu and LI-15 Jian Yu for the shoulder joint itself. With GB-21 Jian Jing on the top of the shoulder, which is a meeting point of three of the same four channels. All are held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; neighbouring shoulder points and GB-21's classification queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SI-12 Bing Feng located?

SI-12 is in the centre of the hollow above the spine of the shoulder blade — the suprascapular fossa — directly above SI-11 Tian Zong, in a depression that appears when the arm is raised. Raising the arm is part of the location method, not an incidental detail: the hollow is far easier to find with the shoulder abducted.

• Centre of the suprascapular fossa, above the scapular spine
• Directly above SI-11 Tian Zong, which lies in the infraspinous fossa below the same ridge
• The depression appears when the arm is raised — the recorded locating method

Above and below one ridge. The spine of the scapula divides the back of the shoulder blade into two fossae, and this library holds a point in each: SI-12 above, SI-11 below. They are a natural pair for that reason, and telling them apart is a matter of which side of the bony ridge the finger falls on — unusually, a genuinely palpable distinction rather than a counted one.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location record, retained unchanged; SI-11's position queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 242): In the centre of the suprascapular fossa, directly above Tianzong SI-11, in a depression formed when the arm is raised.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 171): In the centre of the suprascapular fossa, directly above Tianzong (SI-11). When the arm is lifted, the point at in the site of the depression.

How is SI-12 Bing Feng needled?

The standard texts record perpendicular insertion to roughly 0.5–0.7 inch, with moxibustion applicable. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents, not instruction for a reader.

• Angle and depth as recorded: perpendicular, 0.5–0.7 inch.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the supraspinatus muscle fills the fossa, with the body of the scapula forming its floor. The suprascapular nerve and vessels pass through the suprascapular notch at the medial end of the fossa, and the trapezius overlies the whole region.

Hazard, stated proportionately. This is a comparatively low-hazard point: the scapula lies beneath it, so the fossa has a bony floor, and the recorded depth is shallow. Our record for SI-11 Tian Zong, on the other side of the same ridge, makes the same observation for the same reason. That contrasts sharply with the points a short distance away over the lung apex — GB-21, ST-12 and LU-01 — where there is no bone between the needle and the pleura, and where this library documents measured depths and real case literature.

What is not claimed. No study measuring a safe depth at SI-12 could be located. The paediatric chest-CT study in this library measures 23 named points including SI-14 and SI-15 on this channel — but not SI-12, and its figures are not borrowed here. No case report naming SI-12 as the site of an injury was located, and none is asserted.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description; the CT study's point list from PMID 26922245 / PMC4769822.

What does the name Bing Feng mean, and is there research on SI-12?

“Bing Feng” is rendered Grasping the Wind. The classical reading pairs the hollow of the suprascapular fossa — a place where something can be caught and held — with wind as the pathogen of sudden, moving, upper-body complaints. The name is descriptive of the point’s intended function rather than of its position, which is the opposite of its channel neighbours SI-02 and SI-03, whose names are purely positional.

Research: no trial isolates SI-12, and there is very little literature naming it at all. Where it appears it is one point in a shoulder or neck protocol. As throughout this library, a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

Its neighbour is better studied, and that matters. SI-11 Tian Zong has genuine point-specific research in myofascial shoulder pain — and our record for it reports the negative half of that evidence too: a study measured pressure-pain threshold at SI-11 and found the sensitisation correlation at SJ-14, LI-15 and SI-09, not at SI-11. Evidence about SI-11 is not evidence about SI-12, and the two sit a few centimetres apart on opposite sides of one bony ridge.

A note on searching for it. This library has repeatedly found point-code searches returning material about entirely different subjects, and at least one published abstract prints Tianzong — SI-11 — under the code “ST 11”, which belongs to a different point on a different channel. Any claim attached to SI-12 should be checked against what a study actually measured.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name, classification and channel records; SI-11's research findings queried from our own data).