Only seven classes are done so far and it has turned into a much more casual project than originally intended :)

“Heiner Fruehauf has contributed a great understanding of what distinguishes the Classical perspective from modern TCM. There seems to be arguments being made here and elsewhere suggesting that these princples are a gloss introduced by Westerners and that Chinese medicine is essentialy more technical and reductionist. Apologies if I have missunderstood.”

Andrew, you have understood exactly correctly. I believe Bob Flaws is one of those who takes this position, if I understand various blog posts that he has made on this topic he is saying that people have made too much of the conceptual difference between CCM and TCM. I recently discovered Herr Freuhauf’s writings and would have to disagree with Bob and agree with you.

As a recent graduate of a TCM Medical college, I gradually (in the last few years) became aware of major omissions in the coverage of classical Chinese medical theory and gaps in the theory that were taught which inspired me to search, on my own, for the missing pieces. That search lead directly to CCM and writings such as those by van Nghi. Most unfortunately, van Nghi’s writings seem to be under the control of an institute and a school thus blocking wider dissemination and it becomes necessary to do a hunt across the web and in different languages to acquire the hard to find texts and seminars of van Nghi and Dzung, his protoge’.

My search for a reasonable intro to Classical Chinese language led straight to Richard Goodman’s wonderful introductory books, which should be used as textbooks in every TCM college. I’m fairly certain that my college will be introducing such language training in the near future and I have urged them to adopt Goodman’s texts, though no decision has yet been made.

Thanks for asking and let me know if you have any other questions. If you were asking for an email confirmation when the book is available, I can do that as well.