Anger Leaves Stagnation Knots in Your Body? — Doctor Luo Dalun’s True Encounter with a Folk Master Who Traced the Meridians and Found the Exact Angry Fit Behind Each Pain
Lately many friends have been sending Doctor Luo Dalun the same short video and asking: is that about you? Is it true? What really happened to you on the 11th floor of the CCTV building? The story the video tells is roughly true — but one key detail needs correcting: it did not happen at CCTV. It happened at the Dang Gui Chinese Medicine School (Dang Gui Zhong Yi Xue Tang). Since so many people are asking, Doctor Luo Dalun says, let me tell the whole story from memory, start to finish.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: These past days many friends have been sending me WeChat messages forwarding a short video — it looks like something a marketing account made, with a different narrator, but the content is all the same: what exactly happened to Doctor Luo Dalun on the 11th floor of CCTV? Lots of people ask me: is this really true? The gist of it is true. The location may be wrong in the video, but the story is real — I saw it with my own eyes.
An old master surnamed Su, already known by reputation
The protagonist of the story is an elderly master surnamed Su. In those days he had considerable influence in the circle of Chinese medicine enthusiasts, and Doctor Luo Dalun had heard of him well before they ever met. How did the two of them come to meet? There was a little “message-carrying” episode in between.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Once I was giving a lecture to Chinese medicine enthusiasts, and during the break a young woman came up and said: Teacher Luo, do you know Teacher Su? He says he admires you very much, and asked me to pass on a message. I am a rather slow person, so I just said thank you and let it go at that. Later the old master sent word again: could we find a chance to meet? I said sure — then I’ll go pay my respects to the old master.
Not the 11th floor of CCTV — the Dang Gui Chinese Medicine School
The meeting did not take place on the 11th floor of the CCTV building as the video claims, but in the office of the Dang Gui Chinese Medicine School — in a high-rise of a building complex near Guomao (China World Trade Center) in Beijing in those years. Several special witnesses were in the room that day: a producer and an editor from a TV program, who had come to discuss a cooperation with Doctor Luo Dalun.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The old master said, let me show you this skill. He said: in the Republican era there were still a few people who could do this. I don’t know about south of the Yangtze — but north of the Yangtze, as far as I know, I am the only one left practicing this skill. I said: perfect, then let me show you all some of our Chinese medicine kung fu.
Sliding the channels from a distance: pressing it hurt like a thumbtack
The old master used the female TV producer as his demonstration. His technique was very unusual: his fingers did not touch her body — he slid them back and forth along the channel of her arm, an inch or two away from the skin.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He slid like that, and then said: there will be a tender point here — when I press it, it will hurt badly. He pressed, and the female producer cried out. I asked him how much it hurt. He said: like pressing a thumbtack in. Very painful.
The most astonishing part: he even named the year and month of the angry fit at the airport
Finding tender points from a distance was already remarkable. But the next sentence left everyone dumbfounded — the old master said: this point corresponds to a great fit of anger you threw at a certain place connected with transportation, in a certain month of a certain year.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The female producer thought for a moment, then said: yes — I remember now. It was at the airport. I had a furious quarrel with someone and got absolutely livid — the flight was delayed, I don’t remember exactly what it was about, but I did fly into a rage. The old master said: this is the stagnation knot that fit of anger left behind — let me undo it for you. He kneaded the acupoint, pressed and worked on it, and slowly dissolved it. Then he pressed again: no more pain — not like the sharp pain at the beginning.
The old master turned to Doctor Luo Dalun and said something he never forgot: modern people are far too clogged up. In a truly complete examination from head to toe, you can dissolve more than a hundred tender points like this on a single person — these stagnation pains and congested aches of the body, one after another.
Breaking down the theory: why “no fit of anger goes to waste”
Marvelous as it was, it was the theory behind the old master’s skill that truly shaped Doctor Luo Dalun’s life. That theory can be summed up in eight characters: qi stagnation and blood stasis, gathering into knots (qi zhi xue yu, yu jie cheng dian).
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When a person gets angry and the qi becomes bound up, that is called qi stagnation and blood stasis. Qi is what pushes the blood along. When you get angry, the qi gets stuck and stops pushing the blood, and a knot forms. Wherever the channel runs, at whichever weak spot, whichever easily blocked place, or whichever channel happens to be on duty at that time — a blood stasis point tends to form right there. It has a time stamp; it can be traced. Every fit of anger you throw forms a stagnation knot somewhere in your body’s qi and blood. Blocked means not flowing, and the less it flows, the more the qi and blood gather and congeal. So I formed a deep-rooted conviction: not one fit of anger we throw ever goes to waste.
You think the anger is over — you’ve thought it through, let it go, it’s fine. But the knot has already formed. A person of fifty or sixty, battle-hardened by life, carries an enormous number of stagnation knots inside without the slightest idea, and so the qi and blood stop flowing smoothly, and all kinds of problems follow.
The order of treatment: correct the bones, smooth the sinews, press the points — then drink the decoction
The old master also taught a grand ordering principle for treating illness, and Doctor Luo Dalun found it extremely reasonable — it later became his own view as well.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The old master said: to truly treat a person, you should first correct the bones — wherever something is out of place, put it right; then smooth the sinews and press the points, opening up the stagnation knots and combing the sinews out. Only then does the qi and blood flow freely. When you are clogged up and drink a herbal decoction, the medicine cannot necessarily reach every part of the body — a large proportion is passed right out, and it cannot do its full work. Open the passages first, then drink the decoction, and the medicine can do its utmost.
This is also what Doctor Luo Dalun keeps stressing: emotional knots and chills you caught may look like things of the past, but they may already have created blood stasis, leaving the qi and blood less than free-flowing. Open up the blood stasis first, then regulate the body with Chinese medicine — the effect is far better.
The mystery of the Yellow Emperor’s Outer Canon: six medical canons in the Treatise on Literature of the Book of Han
Why did the marketing account use this story to sell books? Because the old master once said his learning came from a legendary classic — the Huang Di Wai Jing, the Yellow Emperor’s Outer Canon.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The old master said: my learning is the learning of the Yellow Emperor’s Outer Canon. The Han Shu Yi Wen Zhi (Treatise on Literature of the Book of Han) lists them in its catalogue: Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon), Huang Di Wai Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Outer Canon), Bai Shi Nei Jing (Mr. Bai’s Inner Canon), Bai Shi Wai Jing (Mr. Bai’s Outer Canon), Bian Que Nei Jing (Bian Que’s Inner Canon), and Bian Que Wai Jing (Bian Que’s Outer Canon) — six canons in all. We have seen the Inner Canon; no one has ever seen the Outer Canon. Because the Outer Canon was said to contain cultivation and practice arts that could not be written down — they could only be passed from master to disciple by word of mouth, generation after generation, and so they were extremely easy to lose.
Doctor Luo Dalun’s position is clear: keep an open mind. What the old master said is one school’s account; there is no solid documentary evidence to prove it. Still, history does record someone who claimed to transmit the Outer Canon — the late-Ming, early-Qing physician Chen Shiduo.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Chen Shiduo wrote books saying these contents were handed to me by the Celestial Master Qi Bo and other ancients — this is the Yellow Emperor’s Outer Canon — and he wrote out portions of it. But in every one of his books he attributed the teachings to ancient masters, even to Zhang Zhongjing and the Celestial Master Qi Bo, so the provenance is strange as well. What exactly was the Outer Canon like? With the Inner Canon alone, Chinese medicine is already immeasurably rich; if the Outer Canon’s contents really came to light, Chinese medicine might gain another whole territory. But what it actually was, we cannot know — let us keep an open mind and leave it for later generations to unearth and confirm.
Bonus tale: the female entrepreneur in a military greatcoat during the dog days of summer
The story does not end there. Doctor Luo Dalun later met another Chinese medicine practitioner, who told him of something he had witnessed with his own eyes — a perfect footnote to Master Su’s story.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: A female entrepreneur in the northeast was freezing all over. In the dog days of summer she wore a thick padded cotton coat with a military greatcoat over it, and no medicine helped. Through many connections she finally reached an old master. That Chinese medicine practitioner told me he saw it with his own eyes: the old master circled around the entrepreneur without a word, walking softly and lightly like a cat, then suddenly stuck his head around to her ear from behind and said: on such-and-such a day of such-and-such a month of such-and-such a year, you threw a monstrous fit of anger — and that one fit is the root of your illness. The entrepreneur broke out in a sweat on the spot — she remembered it: there was indeed something that had made her utterly furious. From that time on she had suffered this illness of freezing all over, colder and colder. Later the old master cured her.
Doctor Luo Dalun explains: this kind of all-over cold is called si ni (four-reversal cold) in Chinese medicine — the yang qi is trapped inside and cannot be transported out to the limbs, so the hands and feet turn icy; in severe cases the arms and trunk grow cold too. This diagnostic skill of “fixing a time coordinate and finding the clue linked to a fit of anger” struck him as utterly uncanny when he saw it — but it is indeed a crystallization of the wisdom of the ancients.
Doctor Luo Dalun’s closing words: dissolve the knot the moment you get angry
Finally, Doctor Luo Dalun condenses this experience into the most important reminder — the message he has repeated for years: emotions are closely tied to health, and every fit of anger you throw may leave one patch of blood stasis behind.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Sometimes the knot forms in organs connected with the liver channel and the liver and gallbladder; sometimes it forms in the channels of the limbs. Wherever it forms, it is not a good thing. So try not to get angry at all — put it down the moment it rises. And if you truly do get angry, immediately take something like Xiao Yao Wan (Free and Easy Powder) or Xue Fu Zhu Yu Wan (Blood Stasis-Expelling Pill) — soothing the liver while invigorating the blood — to dissolve the knot and keep it from settling in. In daily life, practice Ba Duan Jin (Eight-Section Brocade) and zhan zhuang (standing meditation), and keep moving, so the qi and blood of the whole body flow freely; then, when you do take Chinese medicine, the effect is greater.
What became of the old master? Doctor Luo Dalun never formally apprenticed to him — his work kept him too busy, and the old master had his own practice to maintain; the two never reconnected. The old master lives in seclusion, plainly and quietly. People send emails and call day after day trying to get him to treat them, and Doctor Luo Dalun urges everyone not to disturb him. When the right connection comes, the old master will find his own successor and pass the art on.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I tell this story because too many friends have asked about it. The message it carries — everyone must remember it: don’t get angry; stay cheerful as much as you can; keep the qi and blood flowing. I feel the old master came to point the way for me — just as I was stepping out into the world to teach people about health, he handed me this very principle.
Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s first-hand account.