In this short conversation Toby and Ji Ling Lin discuss some of the basics of Saam acupuncture. How it uses a combination of the yin and yang, the five phases, and the six confirmations. Additionally they touch on the way the system combines yin and yang organs in a novel way, that actually makes a lot of sense when you see the dynamic complementary relationships that are involved. 

Toby is offering a live in person class this June on Introduction to Saam Acupuncture: The Acupuncture of Wandering Monks. 


Toby Daly, L.Ac, Ph.D

Toby began studying Chinese medicine in 1997 with Sunim Doam, a Korean monk trained in the Saam tradition. He earned his master's degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2002 upon completion of training at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in San Francisco and Chengdu University in China.

During his four years of training in San Francisco, he interned with the prominent acupuncturist Dr. Angela Wu and learned to apply the lofty theories he was studying in school into the pragmatic setting of a busy clinic. Afterward he completed a PhD in Classical Chinese Medicine under the guidance of 88th generation Daoist priest Jeffery Yuen.

Toby developed the Chinese Nutritional Strategies app to provide digital access to the wealth of Chinese dietary wisdom and the Chinese Medical Characters app to enable direct access to foundational Chinese medical terms and concepts. In 2023 he published his first book, An Introduction to Chinese Medicine a Patient's Guide to Traditional East Asian medicine.

For the past four years he’s been teaching the Saam method as it was taught to him by his teacher.