The organ Kidney forms a Biao Li pairing with the bowel Bladder. Both belong to the Water element.

Within this pairing, Kidney can be understood as the more Yin aspect, since it stores the essence or Jing, while the Bladder reflects the more Yang aspect, the Ming Men, because it transforms and excretes urine. The imbalance of one can affect the other.

As Kidney and Bladder form this Zang Fu unit, a weakness of Kidney-Yang will be reflected in weakness in the Bladder. For this reason one of the symptoms of Kidney-Yang deficiency is abundant and clear urine.

• Tonifying the Bladder is an indirect way of tonifying Kidney-Yang, the functions of Kidney. It is for this reason that points such as BL-60 or BL-67 are avoided during pregnancy: they increase Kidney-Yang in a Yin phase (gestation), promote labor and help the fetus to turn.
• Some back pain (Bladder channel) from fullness of cold or Yin improve more by dispersing points of its paired Yin Kidney.

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