Regarding Cun Measurement

forum post

Regarding Cun Measurement

Published on 05-07-2014


"archived-user" has authored 334 other posts.

Hi guys, I have an extremely elementary question about the 'cun measurement'. I have an interest in acupressure and would like to locate acupuncture points on my body.

Now, I've tried to measure the cun standard with a ruler in centimeters. Here are the results:

1 cun (using the width of the distal inter-phalangeal joint of the thumb)= 2 cm

1 cun (using the distance between the distal and proximal inter-phalangeal joints of the middle finger) = 2 cm

1.5 cun (width of index and middle fingers, at the proximal inter-phalangeal joints) = 4 cm

2 cun (The distance from index finger's tip and the proximal interphalangeal joint) = 4.4 cm

2 cun (combined breadth of the index, middle and ring finger, at the level of the index finger`s end/tip) = 4.7 cm

3 cun (combined breadth of the 4 fingers held together, dorsal aspect, excluding thumb, at level of proximal interphalangeal joint of middle finger) = 7 cm

The results show that the cun and ruler measurements do not scale linearly. I am aware that there may be errors in my ruler measurement. However, the mismatch is a little too large and cannot be explained by measurement errors, in my opinion.

Can you please help me here. What am I overlooking?

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  • Comments / Discussions:

    comment by "ChadD" (acupuncturist)
    on May 2014

    Start by reading my page on cun measurement and understand that the cun measurement is a "relative" measuring tool, not a definitive measuring tool. Then follow the link at the bottom of that article to the general information page for the stomach meridian (as an example). There is a page like that for each meridian and under the heading "measurements needed" it contains various measuring tools and cun landmarks to use for each channel.

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