I am an acupuncturist who has a passion for video and capturing history while it still lives.  I would describe myself as an Acupuncture Practitioner, Historian and Promoter.

Recall for a moment, the practitioners who, with forty or fifty years of clinical experience and a massive amount of  theory have just departed this realm, leaving very little legacy for those who were unlucky not to know them. They are now gone, for ever.  My passion is steering me to capture practitioners with knowledge, skills, experience and passion about what they do while they are still with us. Record them doing what they do best, so we can improve our skills and get people well quickly and efficiently and put smiles back on faces.  Because we too can change peoples’ lives.

I want to share these and other gifted individuals with the world through the medium of DVD.

I realised early on in practice that some practitioners could “cut it” and do really well in practice. Their practice numbers just seemed to grow and success just seemed to come to them. All of us got trained in the same the same class room by the same lecturers. Was it their knowledge, business acumen, personality, the gift of the gab, compassion, relating skills, great needle technique? Maybe it was a combination of all of these.   I thought if I could capture the “essence” of a good and successful practitioner on DVD, then we mere mortals could watch and absorb their mannerisms, treatment skills, nuances of conversation and mimic what they were doing, because they had “got it right”.  That is how children learn, by copying their parents.

In 1990 I had the pleasure of attending a one day seminar presented by David Legge, a respected acupuncturist and osteopath, the author of ‘Close to the Bone’ here in Brisbane Australia.

The Australian Acupuncture Association organised to have this seminar videotaped. I thought this was a good idea because I had colleagues in other States in Australia who were unable to attend and realised they could buy a duplicated video of this event and learn from David.  It was so good I bought a copy myself.

Two years later, having bought a video camera and some sound equipment I started videoing seminars put on by the Association which then actively promoted the videos I produced on its’ behalf.  This fitted in with the Associations’ ongoing practitioner education program.

Over the ensuing fifteen years I have produced many well received video recordings for the Association which are in demand by the in excess of 1900 members across Australia and the world.       

Alan Janssen invited Masakazu Ikeda sensei and Edward Obaidey to Australia in 2000 and he and I produced a video set of his three day seminar (From Syndrome to Treatment).  This and the next seminar (Exploring the Shang Han Lun) have been runaway best sellers. 

I had the pleasure of videoing Kiiko Matsumoto and David Euler in 2001 invited to Australia by Peter Delaney and John Thomson, this too was well received (Introduction to Constitutional Treatments and Gynaecology).

I decided to lecture in Australia and New Zealand on the Treatment of Sciatica and followed up with Neck and Shoulder Pain and Layers of Life which combined and added to my earlier presentations.

In 2004 I invited Greg Bantick from Dan Bensky’s Acupuncture College in Seattle to come and lecture in Melbourne Sydney and Brisbane.  We had a great time and made really excellent DVDs of his lecture tour.

In 2006 I converted all my video tapes to DVD in both PAL and NTSC format.  This took eight months! Video tape was a thing of the past.

Last year (2007) it was my pleasure to lecture on my favourite topics, neck and shoulder problems and low back problems at the Northern College of Acupuncture in York, UK.  During this sabbatical I visited Denmark to video Per Andersen, (Snoring and Ear acupuncture) and Shmuel Halevi in Israel (Acute Conditions including Cystitis treated with Acupuncture and recorded a second DVD, Chopsticks Acupuncture which supports his book on the same subject).

I am fulfilling my goal but there are a lot of very good practitioners in the world whom I would love to meet and capture for the world community of TCM to benefit from.  As I say elsewhere, if you have got something special to offer the world which you have developed and that works well in a clinical environment, I extend to you my invitation to contact me.  Let’s share and develop the oldest and best natural medical system in the world.

Phil Macqueen