Seeing the color or hue of certain areas of the face indicates the element that is the causative factor. In a fire red, in an earth yellow, in metal white, in a water blue and in a wood green. Feeling the patients skin for moisture and temperature and texture gives information as to where the body is imbalanced. But feeling does not only mean just physically. When the practitioner is with the patient they can get a feel or sense of what sort of person he or she is, a sense of their emotional makeup, a sense of whether their spirit is high or low and so on.
Feeling also means feeling the pulse.
Through touch, the classical practitioner differentiates twelve pulses on the radial artery, six on each wrist. From feeling these pulses, one is able to read the exact state of the Chi that is flowing through each of the twelve meridians. Although it is hard to accept that this is true, it is. The experience of feeling the pulses change after each acupuncture needle insertion soon verifies the validity of this diagnostic procedure. At the completion of the traditional diagnostic procedure, the practitioner has a knowledge of the energetic or elemental cause of the patient's illness or imbalance and is then prepared to insert the acupuncture needles into the appropriate acupuncture points to begin to rebalance the patient's energy.