Q2 Calendar and Registration

Q2: Holding the Center

The Spleen Quarter  ·  Late Spring through Summer  ·  June – September 2026

The quarter where blood production becomes the work, the luteal phase becomes the test, and the architecture of the year reveals itself. Three months on the metabolic and immune foundation of fertility — and the framework that names what has been holding it up all along.

Earth before fire.

In Q1 we worked with the Liver. We built the Ying-Wei framework as the clinical correlate for reproductive immunology, we mapped the Extraordinary Vessels to cyclical intelligence, and we worked the stress-cycle interface through the Gui Zhi Tang and Xiao Yao San families. That quarter cleared the path.

Q2 is where the medicine starts feeding the body.

The Spleen does not get the attention it deserves in modern fertility practice. We are trained to think about hormones, the ovary, the endometrium, the HPO axis. But endometrial quality is built in the gut before it is ever built in the uterus. Cycle stability depends on blood production. Implantation depends on a luteal phase the Spleen actually has the substrate to hold.

The patients who do not respond to our most elegant Liver work — the ones with thin lining despite estrogen support, the ones whose cycles keep destabilizing, the ones whose PMOS is metabolic rather than purely endocrine — are almost always patients whose Spleen pathology has gone unaddressed.

The endometrium is built in the gut before it is built in the uterus.

Q2 is the quarter that takes that seriously.

The quarter at a glance

Core Track: 12 CEU  ·  Complete Track: 16 CEU (adds the quarterly Herbal module)

Live attendance preferred for Grand Rounds; asynchronous CEU credit is always available for Core Lectures and Grand Rounds.

Inside the Spleen quarter.

Q2 moves from building, to holding, to naming the architecture — and closes with the herbal strategy that makes the building sustainable.

MONTH 4  ·  EARTH BEFORE FIRE

Core Lecture: Sunday, June 28  ·  9:00–11:00 AM Pacific  |  Grand Rounds: Monday, June 29  ·  4:00–6:00 PM Pacific

4 CEU

Core Lecture. The Spleen as the metabolic and immune foundation of reproductive health. Classical functions — transportation and transformation, blood production, holding blood in the vessels, raising the clear — correlated with the gut-immune axis, intestinal permeability, and metabolic endotoxemia. PMOS phenotyping through a TCM lens: insulin-resistant, inflammatory, adrenal, post-pill. Foundational formulas: Si Jun Zi Tang, Liu Jun Zi Tang, Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang.

Grand Rounds. Two de-identified cases where conventional and acupuncture treatment failed — and the metabolic or immune factors that explain why. Lab interpretation in context: fasting insulin, HOMA-IR, hsCRP, AMH. Recognizing lean PMOS and normal-weight insulin resistance. Referral criteria for metabolic workup and how to write the letter.

MONTH 5  ·  YIN, BLOOD & THE ART OF HOLDING

Core Lecture: Sunday, July 12  ·  9:00–11:00 AM Pacific  |  Grand Rounds: Monday, July 20  ·  4:00–6:00 PM Pacific

4 CEU

Core Lecture. Luteal phase physiology as a TCM and biomedical event. Progesterone signaling, endometrial maintenance, the Spleen's holding function. Why modern fertility practice often treats the luteal phase as the ovary's responsibility rather than the Spleen's — and what that misses. Yin and Blood as the substrate of the hold. Recognizing luteal insufficiency patterns and their constitutional roots.

Grand Rounds. Recurrent loss and the anxiety states that destabilize the luteal hold. Thyroid nuance in the luteal phase and early pregnancy. Progesterone timing — when support helps, when it masks, how to sequence. Holding without gripping as both a clinical and a therapeutic-posture principle.

MONTH 6  ·  THE AXIS-CONFLUENCE FRAMEWORK

Core Lecture: Sunday, August 16  ·  9:00–11:00 AM Pacific  |  Grand Rounds: Monday, August 24  ·  4:00–6:00 PM Pacific

4 CEU  ·  The conceptual centerpiece of the year

Core Lecture. The Yinstitute's central thesis. The six confluences and eight extraordinary vessels describe the same relational systems biomedicine has only recently named as physiological axes. Tai Yin (Lung–Spleen) as the gut-brain, respiratory-immune and metabolic interface — anchored in Ren Mai and Yin Qiao, accessed at LU 7 and KD 6. Jue Yin (Pericardium–Liver) as the limbic-vascular-reproductive axis — anchored in Yin Wei and Chong, accessed at PC 6 and SP 4. A clinical method pairing each confluence to its extraordinary vessel anchor and confluent point.

Grand Rounds. Applying the framework to de-identified cases: identify the axis, the confluence, the extraordinary vessel and the access point. Working cases that span more than one confluence. Translating the framework into a treatment plan with point selection, pattern reasoning, and the biomedical correlate to communicate with other providers.

Students leave with a structural vocabulary that reorganizes everything learned to date.

HERBAL CEU  ·  NOURISHING WITHOUT CLOGGING

Sunday, September 6  ·  9:00 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific

4 CEU  ·  Complete Track only

The central clinical problem of the Earth quarter: how to build Blood and Yin without generating dampness or stagnation. The Si Jun Zi Tang and Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang families receive dedicated treatment, with modifications for PMOS, metabolic inflammation, and post-pill recovery. Formula sequencing across the cycle and across the course of treatment — not single-formula thinking.

Who Q2 is for.

Q2 is built for licensed acupuncturists and herbalists who already work with fertility and women's health patients and want a clinically rigorous, biomedically literate framework for the Spleen-level pathology that derails treatment plans. You do not need to have taken Q1 — the quarter stands on its own, and the Ying-Wei framework gets re-introduced where it matters.

This is for you if:

• You have patients with thin lining, luteal insufficiency, or recurrent loss whose response to Liver-pattern treatment has been incomplete.
• You want to read fasting insulin, HOMA-IR, hsCRP and AMH in the context of TCM pattern differentiation — and write referral letters that get taken seriously.
• You want a structural framework that integrates the Extraordinary Vessels and the six confluences with biomedical physiological axes, not as analogy but as the same system named twice.
• You are willing to sit with the slow seasonal pacing — one Core Lecture and one Grand Rounds per month — because you have noticed that intensive weekend CEUs do not actually change your practice.

This may not be the fit if:

• You are looking for protocol-based learning. The Yinstitute teaches pattern reasoning and clinical method, not point recipes.
• You cannot make any of the live sessions and prefer never to watch recordings. The curriculum is built to be experienced — live attendance is preferred for Grand Rounds, asynchronous CEU is available, but the material rewards engagement.
• You are not yet seeing fertility or women's health patients regularly. The material assumes a working clinical practice.

Enroll in Q2.

Step into the Spleen quarter now, or pick up the Q1 archive as a recordings bundle. Core is lectures and Grand Rounds; Complete adds the quarterly Herbal CEU module.

Annual enrollment is not currently available. Quarterly enrollment is the way in for this cohort.

The Q2 through-line.

Q2 does not only teach Spleen content. It asks practitioners to practice as the Spleen practices: to hold the center, to nourish without forcing, to attend to the substrate before the symptom. The quarter moves from building (Month 4) to holding (Month 5) to naming the architecture (Month 6), closing with the herbal strategy that makes the building sustainable.

By the end of Q2, you carry a clinical method for identifying when Spleen-level pathology is the missing piece, a working understanding of luteal phase physiology as the Spleen's test, and — through the Axis-Confluence Framework — a structural vocabulary that reorganizes everything learned to date and prepares the ground for the Heart quarter ahead.

— Yin Learning for Yang Times —

CEU credit issued through Yo San University, our CEU partner. Yo San University is not affiliated with the development, content, or instruction of the Yinstitute curriculum.

CA Acupuncture Board (No. 0128)  ·  NCCAOM (No. 169556)  ·  ABORM (No. YO18)