The Five Systems of the Balance Method
Choosing the Channel Before the Point
Dr Tan's Balance Method works in three steps. Diagnose the sick meridians. Balance them using the five systems. Select points by imaging and mirroring. Dr Eileen Han calls it "Acupuncture 1, 2, 3".
This guide is about step two. Once you know which channel runs through the area of complaint, each system gives you a different channel, usually on a limb away from the problem, that can balance it. Dr Richard Tan drew the systems from the Ba Gua relationships and the Chinese clock, and organised them into a working method. Five systems means five treatment options for the same sick meridian, before imaging and mirroring adds more.
Step three has its own guide.
The Five Systems
Our Module 1 material names the five in this order.
System 1, Chinese Meridian Name-Sharing (同名经). Each of the six channels has a hand branch and a foot branch that share a name. Taiyang joins the Small Intestine and Bladder, Yangming the Large Intestine and Stomach, Shaoyang the San Jiao and Gallbladder, Taiyin the Lung and Spleen, Shaoyin the Heart and Kidney, and Jueyin the Pericardium and Liver. Dr Han teaches the six channels by where they sit on the body. "Shaoyang is on the side. Shaoyang never at the back," she tells her classes. "Taiyang is everything in the back." In one case on our files, neck pain sat on the Bladder channel, and she balanced it through its name-sharing partner, the Small Intestine.
System 2, Branching Meridian (别经, Bie Jing). This links a yin channel with a yang channel at the same level of the open, close and pivot model, crossing between hand and foot. The Lung and the Bladder are one such pair. Dr Han explains this pairing by length. The Bladder channel has 67 points and the Lung only 11, so one stretch of the Lung balances roughly six stretches of the Bladder. A long string is weakest at its middle, she adds, and the middle of the Bladder channel is the lower back.
System 3, Interior–Exterior Pairs (表里). Each yin organ has a yang partner: Lung and Large Intestine, Spleen and Stomach, Heart and Small Intestine, Kidney and Bladder, Pericardium and San Jiao, Liver and Gallbladder. Every Acupuncturist learns these early. Here they become another route to a balancing channel.
System 4, Chinese Clock Opposites. The Chinese clock gives each channel a two-hour period, running Lung, Large Intestine, Stomach, Spleen, Heart, Small Intestine, Bladder, Kidney, Pericardium, San Jiao, Gallbladder and Liver. A channel's opposite is the one twelve hours away. The Lung, in the early morning, sits opposite the Bladder in the late afternoon. Our Module 1 material and Dr Han's chart give this system the Chinese term 同时 ("same time"). Elsewhere, clock opposites are usually written 对冲 or 子午.
System 5, Chinese Clock Neighbours (相邻). A channel's neighbours are the periods either side of it on the clock.
Three clock opposites are the same pairs as Branching: Lung and Bladder, Stomach and Pericardium, Heart and Gallbladder. The other three differ. That overlap is one reason the systems are easy to confuse at first.
Under all of them sits the Ba Gua, where every yang position is balanced by a yin one. "Every single position, they balance each other," Dr Han says, and she drills the Ba Gua in class until it is second nature.
Five Systems, or Six?
If you trained elsewhere, you may have learned "six systems", or the same relationships under different numbers. Charts, course notes and books do not all count or order the systems the same way.
The five above are the systems as our Module 1 material names them. In the room, Dr Han also teaches a sixth relationship, in which a channel balances itself, and she numbers it System 6. Other differences come from order, so that one set of notes calls a relationship "System 3" and another calls it "System 4".
None of this changes the channel theory underneath. A name-sharing pair is a name-sharing pair whatever number it carries. When you compare notes with a colleague, name the relationship as well as the number.
Choosing Between Systems on a Live Patient
Dr Han's systems chart is a reference sheet for one question: which channels can balance this sick meridian? Pick a channel on the outer circle, and every line from it is a system you could use. On paper, almost any channel has several routes. In clinic, the patient decides.
Some reasons are practical. A patient whose clothing leaves only the hands and feet free can be treated there. A patient in a wheelchair can be treated through the upper body. A right-handed patient can be treated on the left, leaving their right hand free.
Others are clinical. A complaint may cross two channels, so you look for a system that reaches both. The system also affects which side you needle. In class, Dr Han places Systems 1, 3 and 5 on the opposite side, and allows 2, 4 and 6 on either side. And if the first route changes little, you move to another system while the patient is still on the table.
Knowing which system to reach for, and when to change, is the judgement that takes longest to build. Dr Han's advice is repetition: treat the same kind of patient the same way, again and again, and the experience accumulates.
Where to Learn the Five Systems
Module 1, Dr Tan's Core Essentials, runs in Brisbane on 16–18 April 2027. Over the first two days you work through the systems, the Ba Gua behind them and when to use each, with treatment adapted mid-session in every demonstration. There are 12 or more live patient demonstrations, about 35 Acupuncturists, and 19.5 CPD points. No prior Balance Method training is needed.
Dr Han teaches it. She spent 20 years at Dr Tan's side, 15 of them helping run his clinic, and treats 50–70 patients a day using the Balance Method only.
Once the systems are familiar, Dr Tan's fixed structures make more sense. Our guide to the Magical Points explains how they build on these relationships, and how the Balance Method compares with Tung and TCM point selection sets the method beside approaches you may already use.