Joking aside, to a lot of people, Qi and internal martial arts are inseparable. Well…
I can share my own Qi experiences with you. My mom had an aneurism some 15 years ago and was in critical care for a good 3 weeks. The doctors actually wrote her off and tried to get us to sign organ donation forms. We refused to give up and stayed with her. Eventually she was responsive enough to get a brain surgery, after a long year of recovery, she has been living relatively independent since. During the recovery and while she is still restricted to bed, I got my mom to breath deep while drawing slow purposeful circles with her arms. Even with simple moves like that, she felt warmth through her back. We did these simple exercises and achieved the “improve blood circulation” effect. This is very similar to exercises taught by physiotherapist / trainers to seniors in the recovery centers that can create the same effect without resorting to myth. So do I believe in the necessity and benefits of a gentle form of exercise? Absolutely.
Quite a few years ago, at a martial arts seminar, a high ranking ‘master’ came and demonstrated how he can ‘push’ his students over from over 10 feet away. I was respectful and did not say anything. After the demos, he tried to teach some specific skills and picked me as his ‘victim’. He grabbed one of my arm and put the other on my hip and exerted force but he couldn’t move me. He tried again but he still can’t move me. Honestly, I wasn’t really resisting, I just stand relaxed but with intent and integrity of posture. He finally explained to the others that I have very strong ‘chi’ then switched topic and tried the technique on his student instead. During the whole ordeal, I never raised a finger nor did I insult or debate with him, I let him off the hook.
Qigong is a generic term for gentle exercises with the purpose of improving health. In fact, Qi (氣) on its own in Chinese means ‘breath’. It can be combined with other characters to mean different things like energy. It differs from other sports and exercises in that it is done slow and relaxed (which allows the blood to circulate better) and can be done by people of all ages and condition. What is nice with Qigong is that the ‘martial art’ aspect is removed and therefore in theory, the practitioners only do movements that respects those exercise principles.
So for the record, I do see Qi training as one of the possible alternatives to some part of our baseline training – we are doing it in class already. However, it is just not as ‘all encompassing’ and ‘invincible’ as some of its claims.
Exercise (think through it and email / facebook me):
– Without believing in myths, is there a definition of Qi that works for our purposes (i.e. in a fighting context) ?
– In the above writeup, I alluded to the fact that Qi might be a useful alternative to some people. Try to define the who and when.
(Photo was from the international Qigong tournament out in UBC)
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