When acupuncture appeared on the western scene in the beginning of the seventies, we had to face many problems: the exaggerated enthusiasm of some, the staunch skepticism of others, the gullibility of many of those who, without any medical training whatsoever, fell on the first Chinese they met who said he was an acupuncturist and, of course, of the fifth generation, asking very high tuition fees for a very basic and often insufficient teaching.

Those who, like me at that time, had received a proper training, whether in the Far East or in their own country, and in the latter the contents of the education were sometimes far from what the authentic Chinese practitioners used to teach, had to fight against the fantasies and inventions of many westerners, because actually you did not have to prove what you said. It was enough to declare that it was in the "sacred books", which terminated the discussion or the argument, whether ‘it' was really or not in these books.

So we had to teach acupuncture within associations, or even in private, like the Chinese masters did, and those who wanted to know how to learn acupuncture had sometimes difficulties to find proper courses of Chinese acupuncture. But on the whole the situation did not degenerate too much and there was, in nearly every country, a decent education.

The state of affairs changed when Internet became the principal means of communication. But even up to now it was not used very much for acupuncture education because it could not offer the "practical" side of the teaching. However, still now, in many associations, the teaching is much more theoretical than practical, which is not dramatic for a physician who knows anatomy and physiology, but yes for those who, without any medical knowledge, embarked on this adventure. So learning acupuncture online did not become such an aberration, provided one could, if necessary, provide  offer the possibility of a practical training.