Get Healthy With Chinese Qigong

Chapter one: Introduction:

Chi Kung is an ancient Chinese method of using simple stances and, or, movement combined with specific breathing techniques to help the body to regain a natural internal balance. Modern medicine now recognises the need for this internal balance in such things as our immune system and the balance between internal organs. However, the Chinese took the idea of internal balance to far greater areas of healing by discovering that each organ in the body had to either have a negative or positive polarity with reference to each other. They also discovered that certain pairs of organs were inextricably linked in what they called yin and yang pairs. So if for instance the Heart was affected, they would look for an imbalance between the Heart and the Small Intestine as that is a balanced pair. When the balance between those two organs was restored, the patient was well on the way to recovery. They didn’t stop there however; they would then diagnose what other parts of the body were out of balance and also restore that area.

Losing Weight and keeping fit:

In order for the physical body to also be in perfect balance and thereby maintaining an ideal weight for each body type, internal balance is essential. The mind, spirit and body are inextricably linked. So what one does, has a direct effect upon the other. People who are obese are also out of balance in mind and the levels of yin and yang Qi (energy) in the body. So when we get the mind into balance so too does the body wish to be balanced. In this way losing weight comes naturally. All of the correct hormones are produced in harmony and balance to cause the body to lose weight (or gain weight if necessary). The essential hormone HGH (Human Growth Hormone) is produced in a greater quantity naturally, which is one of the best weight loss hormones in the body. And you do not have to take unnatural synthetic HGH which can have a deleterious effect upon the body and mind!

15 minutes every morning and evening will help you to lose weight and get fit and most importantly, healthy. There is a difference between being fit and being healthy. It is much better to be fit and healthy though. Even supreme athletes can die of heart attacks because they were fit but not healthy. So this is also a very important part of Chinese Qigong. It causes your body and mind to be fit AND healthy.

The main area of losing weight is what your mind is doing. So if your mind is out of balance so too will your body be out of balance. The first area that Qigong attacks in weight loss (balance), is to balance out the mind and the hormones that affect the mind. In this way you have a much better chance of losing weight and keeping it off as your mind is not continually fooling you into believing that you are hungry, or that you have to eat for comfort or emotional reasons.

Emotional:

This is another big area where Qigong is able to help. Ever organ in the body controls a different emotion. When I was a child my Mother would always say that I had a ‘shitty’ liver if I was ever angry etc. But she did not know how correct she was. The liver/Gallbladder is the balanced pair of organs that controls depressed/anger while the Kidneys control fear. The Lungs with its balanced pair, the Colon, control grief/anguish while the balanced pair of Spleen/Stomach control worry and sympathy. The balanced pair of Heart/Spleen control the emotion of joy.

Excessive joy is a disease of an unbalanced Heart. Depression is a disease of the unbalanced Liver. Obsession is a disease of an unbalanced Spleen. Anguish is a disease of an unbalanced Lungs while ‘fear’ is a disease of an unbalanced Kidneys. See Chart below.

So many patients have come to our clinic with one of these emotional problems. They cannot see that their problem is emotional because their mind is out of balance. However, once we begin them on a regime of Qigong and diet, they begin to see things clearer and do not know why they did not see it before! Once the mind is healed, it is always easy to heal the body and to keep it healthy.

Qigong comes in many different ways of exercise with breathing methods. Each is designed to either have an over-all effect upon one’s mental and physical state or to attack a specific organ or group of organs. Once diagnosed, the treatment is simple. Qigong exercises along with a simple diet.

However, it is also possible to treat oneself using Qigong methods. For this we have the more general Qigong exercises, ones that do not require any great physical ability or intervention by a ‘Qigong Doctor’. It is these Qigong methods that I will be presenting in this book.

Our body is divided up into areas of yin and yang (balance). So the upper parts of the body are relatively Yin (negative, female, dark, cold), while the lower parts are relatively Yang. (Positive, male, light, warm). The left side of the male body is Yin, while the right is relatively Yang while the reverse is true for women. That is not to say that the negative is at all bad as one would assume in the West, as both Yin and Yang have equal value in Chinese Medicine and must be in a constant state of balance in order for the body to be healthy.

We can have an out of balance state that is not too great, thus giving us a slight headache for instance, something that will usually right itself given enough time for the body to re-balance naturally. Or we can have a greatly out of balance state where we have some dire disease that requires a doctor=s attention or even surgery etc.

It is of the utmost importance that we try to maintain this state of balance both externally and internally in order to have a healthy and long life.

Within every animal there are six balanced pairs of organs and their associated acupuncture meridians or channels. These meridians can be likened to arteries and veins; only meridians carry a life-force called AQi@ (Ch=i) (pronounced >chee=) or Electrical energy. If you move, you must use energy and this energy (Qi) must come from somewhere to cause that action to happen. It is this feature that the Chinese discovered, that enables us to use the movement therapies to great benefit.

The Chinese call the holding area for the Qi, the >Tantien=, an electrical space about 3 inches below the navel in humans and situated upon an acupuncture meridian called the >Jung Mei= (>Mei= being another name for meridian or channel) which is in the centre of the body running from head to sexual organs. This holding area is often also simply called the kidneys. And in Chinese medicine, the kidneys hold a special place of honour because it is the >Kidney Qi= that is the main source of energy in the body.

So the Chinese doctors found that in order for instance to simply lift a hand, Qi was required. And it came from this holding place immediately down to a point on the base of the foot called the >bubbling well= point or Kidney Point No. 1. (Photo No. ) This point is the main point in the body as far as energy is concerned. All energy must firstly go down to the KD 1 point in order to be routed all over the body to allow the various muscles to do any work. The Qi, then, had to move through a channel or meridian to get to the final muscle that had to do this specific work. So for instance if the >work= was to push something using a single palm and you just happen to have your left foot forward and pushing with your right palm, then the Qi would have to be routed through the >Heart= Meridian thus bathing the heart in life-giving Qi. This is also apparent in the Martial/Healing art of Tai Chi (Taijiquan) whereby we make use of this Qi flow directed by certain work. So the group of postures called ‘Brush Knee and Twist Step’ do exactly the above in that you are pushing something with one hand. However, as most things in China are based in some way upon the martial arts, they gave us a martial arts movement to affect this type of healing. So instead of closing a door, for instance, you are attacking someone with one palm while brushing away his initial attack.

The same theory applies to all of the 12 main internal organs and associated meridians.

So if some genius were to then find a way of moving in a certain pattern that would include every movement that would cause the Qi to be routed through ALL of the internal organs, then this would surely be a way to great health!

And this is what they did of course when they discovered firstly Qigong and then later, Tai Chi. In fact, Tai Chi is called a moving Qigong. (See my book published by Carlton Books, London on Basic Tai Chi.)

>Movement= does not have to be an exercise whereby we have to go somewhere or move something physically. It can also mean that we are standing still but using muscle power which of course requires energy. So if we were for instance simply standing still with our legs bend, this would still have the effect of routing the Qi all over the body for healing as the legs would be creating heat and thus needing energy.

They then took movement a step further and discovered that certain static postures where the patient would have to stand in a certain manner and hold certain hand and arm postures, would also cause this great Qi healing. They discovered that when we light a fire we require energy, and after the fire is lit, it produces its own energy. The static Qigong stances that they invented caused the body to >light a fire= in the Tantien area which caused the Qi to have to be routed to all parts of the body and the fuel for this fire was air or breathing in a certain way.

So now we have an exercise or >non-exercise= that almost anyone can perform in some way or another depending upon how ill they are. And it was discovered that this form of Chi Kung was also beneficial in stopping disease before it started by simply keeping the body in a constant state of balance. It treated the whole body and not just the immediate disease or ailment or part of the body that was affected.

Long before we in the West discovered the great healing benefits of exercise, the Chinese had taken the movement therapies to great heights by combining set patterns of movement with specific breathing methods.

For thousands of years, Chinese Doctors had been treating patients for all kinds of physical and mental ailments using an ancient healing method called Chi Kung. (Also spelled, Qigong, Ch=i Kung, and Ch=i Gung).

Chi Kung is based upon Traditional Chinese Medicine and many believe that Traditional Chinese Medicine is actually based upon Chi Kung. There is evidence to suggest that Chi Kung came first and because of the knowledge gained from this therapy, we gained the knowledge of acupuncture and the various energy (Qi) flows in the body.

Nowadays much scientific research has been done to substantiate the effectiveness of this healing art, mainly in China where they still lead the world in this type of therapy. I have included an article from a Chinese newspaper about some of this research.

Qigong

An Article from Science and Medicine Magazine in China.

By Wu Xiaoming

Professor Feng Lida, deputy director of the Navy General Hospital in Beijing, believes that a Qigong doctor is different from a Qigong Master in that eh former needs a knowledge of Western Medicine science to help him treat patients more effectively.

Feng, 62, who has been researching the immunization effect of traditional Chinese deep breathing therapy from a Western medical point of view, will deliver a report on her findings at the first international symposium on the medical uses of Qigong, which opens today in Beijing.

Born into the family of a prominent general, Feng studied at the Medical School of Huaxi University in Cehngdu, the Department of Biology of the University of CA at Berkeley in the USA and the Leningrad Medical College in the Soviet Union, where she studied immunology and obtained an associate doctorate degree.

While in Leningrad, (now St Petersburg), she realized that existing treatment methods for diphtheria were ineffective because they did not improve the patient’s immunity. She then began to treat patients with acupuncture with good results. Feng began her research on Qigong’s immunizing effects in 1979, after hearing some patients say they were cured through Qigong.

In the summer of 1981, Feng and her assistants conducted experiments on the effect of Qigong on colon bacilli, the bacteria often used in medical experiments because of their strong resistence to treatment. They held a test tube containing bacilli and projected Qi, or vital energy on them for a minute. Microscopic photos showed that 44 to nearly 90 percent of the bacilli were destroyed – they swelled, broke or dissolved.

Similar experiments revealed that Qi also kills 66.7 to 98.9 per cent of treated dysentery bacilli and destroys flu bacteria.

Interestingly, Qigong can either destroy bacteria of help the proliferate, depending upon what kind of Qi a doctor directs on them.

Feng believes that after training by a Qigong doctor, a patient can activate the Qi within his or her body to help kill bacilli and cure an ailment.

A Qigong doctor’s concentration influences the effect, a report by Feng’s research group says, adding that bionic research and an instrument to measure the quantity and quality of Qi are needed to monitor Qi emissions.

Feng and her assistants have also conducted experiments on Qigong’s effect on cancer cells.

Western medical treatment including surgery, radioactive and chemical therapies, often lower the immunity of the human body while killing cancer cells.

Feng hopes to find new ways to treat cancer that avoid this problem.

In another series of experiments different doctors treated cervical cancer cells with Qigong for 20 minutes. Results showed that a third to two thirds of the treated cancer cells were killed. In experiments in which stomach cancer cells were treated with Qi for 60 minutes, a quarter were destroyed. Microscopic photos revealed that both the surface and nucleus of these cells were destroyed and that the chromosome structure of these cells had been altered.

Similar experiments were later conducted at other hospitals in Beijing and the results were similar. Feng said.

Chinese scientists have found that Qi emissions are in fact a radiation filed mixed with infrared radiation, magnetic radiation, electrostatic charge and corpuscular streams. And foreign scientists have discovered that there are many places on the human body where the emission of these energies is strongest, and these spots are located close to the acupuncture points of traditional Chinese Medicine.

From June to December 1987, more than 200 cancer patients were treated with Qigong at the Navy Hospital. Two-thirds of them enjoyed a greater appetite and less pain and some were in higher spirits.

IN June of last year, an 80-year old man who had been diagnosed as suffering from advanced cancer of the esophagus went to the hospital for treatment. He could eat a little, was emaciated and spoke feebly.

A month-long Qigong treatment improved his ability to sleep and eat. X-ray and other examinations also indicated that his condition greatly improved.

In October 1986, a young Japanese was discovered to have a brain tumor 5 centimeters in diameter. Japanese doctors predicted that he could live only for another year or two, that surgery was impossible and that radioactive therapy would not help. The young man almost lost his eyesight and the left corner of his mouth was twisted. Feng. Who was invited to Japan, treated him with Qigong in addition to Western and other traditional Chinese therapies. Before long, the young man’s eyes began to move and his sight started recovering. His mouth almost reassumed its former shape.

Feng believes that Qigong has enormous potential as an advanced branch of treatment. ;Our knowledge of the human body is still limited”, she said. :Qigong will help us”.

Foot Note: The above also depends greatly upon the state of mind that the patient is in when receiving the treatment. Many Western people have not responded to this kind of treatment simply because they believe that it will not work! It’s a shame that we in the west have come to this condition of only believing in Western medicine and only trying TCM when all else has failed and when obviously it is then too late!

I remember being called in to treat a very rich business tycoon in Sydney with Qigong therapy. When I arrived, he was almost dead and in an oxygen tent! He died one day after!