by jafc on Sat Mar 21, 2009 4:41 pm
The IMA community needs more of this kind of talk. The tendency has always been to think of all this as mysterious & mystical when what is really going on is speaking in metaphors to aid understanding of real physical principles. The culture & language gap only worsens the problem. Once it is out like Ashe pointed out, it really opens a whole new world.
Just thursday, I had a real nice patient from Tennessee who described everything thing with animal metaphors. first his leg pain was like a squirrel was running up & down his leg, then it started biting then it changed into a bear had him in its jaws. It took several minutes & me actually witnessing his "bear attack" to get to a common language that I could put his complaints in my frame of reference. Squirrels = nerve pain. bear = deep muscle spasm & nerve pain together.
IMA language can be the same way. Either easy to dismiss as silly talk or easy to misunderstand the principle behind the metaphor (including the basics like when my sifu refers to the hand as basically everything from the elbow down)
JC