Chi Kung
Chi Kung, pronounced 'Chee Gung', and often spelled 'Qi Gong', is an exercise system from Taoist China that combines stillness, or gentle movement, with calm regular breathing. Although there are many different styles of chi kung, the movements themselves are usually easy to learn. The challenge comes from coordinating these with the correct way of breathing. When this is achieved, the body's natural vitality (Chi) is circulated far more efficiently than would normally be the case. With daily practice, therefore, chi kung can strengthen the overall state of health and increase resistance to illness.
Chi, is the life force energy that sustains the body. Chi kung, which means "energy development," is the practice of learning to become aware of and increase the energy in the body. Tai Chi is the most popular form of chi kung in the West. However, there are many forms of chi kung taught for general health and wellness. There is also therapeutic chi kung.
On the physical level, chi kung is about conscious movement. The mind is kept present in the body. One becomes aware of balance and connectedness, first within the body, and then how the body relates to it's immediate environment. The movements of chi kung exercises are a way to repattern your body to be most the energy efficient: using the structure of the connective tissues with relaxed muscles. It is all about patterns of energy.
Regular practice leads to physiological homeostasis - a state of energy balance within the body. Effects include reduced muscle tension, lowered blood pressure and increased blood flow to the muscles and extremities. The slow, continuous, circular movements exercise muscle fibers and joints in all directions, improving postural balance and flexibility. As the movements are not physically strenuous, chi kung is ideal for anyone who wants to gently build strength, endurance, flexibility, balance and coordination.
At another level, chi kung can be used therapeutically: specifically targeting a certain issue/ailment and healing it directly, either through the energy/chi of the practitioner to the patient or by the patient himself.
Chi kung raises the energy in the body. When there is an excess of energy in the body, then that energy can be passed into another. It is a common therapy in Chinese medicine. It is also similar to many Western modalities such as the Christian Laying on of Hands, Therapeutic Touch, Reflexology, etc.
Here is an example of using therapeutic chi kung to neutralize imbalances in a client due to trauma: The practitioner mentally scans each point on the client and muscle tests while holding in mind the association of the point with any trauma. Having found a point that gives a weak response, the practitioner uses a chi kung therapeutic technique to neutralize the detected association.
Below are two examples of therapeutic Chi Kung that you can perform for yourself. Technique 1 uses the breath to expand and develop internal energy and eliminate blockages in its path to the lower abdomen. Technique 2 uses the mind to build on the achievements of Technique 1 in concentrating and directing energy. The two techniques overlap, and eventually they merge.
There are many types of chi kung—particular sets of movements and associated mental practices ("forms") to generate, consolidate, augment, and control energy. The two given below are basic forms, but this does not limit their potential.
Technique 1
Lie down on your back and relax.
Inhale slowly through your nose.
When you exhale, imagine pushing the energy from your lungs into the lower abdomen or tan tien (dan tien, tanden), about four fingers below the navel.
If you’re in good condition, you may feel something right away. If not, with practice you soon will. You may feel a tingling sensation in your abdomen or lower back, or heat, or a pleasantly springy feeling in the abdomen, as though pushing on a shock absorber, and also that you could continue inhaling indefinitely.
You may also feel the spine relaxing and small movements taking place in the bones and muscles. The physical body is releasing tension and bringing itself into conformity with the energy pattern on which it was created, including optimal weight, health, and position of body structures relative to each other. This is a gradual process, but each time you’ll be able to do more with less effort.
You may notice a tendency at first to bulge out your stomach upon inhaling, since most of us are accustomed to breathing into the stomach area—if that far—rather than into the tan tien. Try to avoid this, although not to the extent of rigidly tensing the abdominal muscles, since tension blocks the flow of energy.
In the beginning, you can hold in the abdominal muscles somewhat if necessary, until they become coordinated with the breathing process. Inhale slowly enough to avoid having to tense them excessively, and continually direct the energy down through the middle of the body to the lower abdomen with the mind, as though both compressing it into a cylinder perhaps 3 inches in diameter running the length of the trunk and simultaneously pushing it down the cylinder.
It may also help at first to put your hands over the abdomen and press in lightly while breathing. The important thing is to keep pushing the energy down with the breath and the mind—into the lower abdomen and eventually into the pelvis, legs, and feet—since its tendency is to rise and disperse.
When you’re doing the technique correctly it feels very pleasant, and you won’t want to stop. Eventually, however, you’ll know you’ve had enough—you'll be unable to continue, because the muscles controlling the process will be tired and you’ll feel you've absorbed as much energy as you can. Attempting to continue may result in a headache.
The path of the energy at first will be unpredictable. If you have a current health problem in the abdominal area, or an old injury or scar, you may feel heat, tingling, or a slight ache or pressure around it as the energy flow is reestablished. Energy goes where it’s most needed—to your weakest point. As that improves, it still goes to your weakest point, which may be somewhere else. Therefore, it may not always go where you expect it.
With practice, you’ll perceive that the energy resolves itself into two paths—one down the spine into the coccyx and one down the centerline of the abdomen into the groin. You can develop both of these, trying to take each one down as far as it will go at each session. You’ll know you’re done when you feel a sudden sense of release—usually accompanied by a sudden muscular release as well—and, again, the perception that you’ve had enough, the inability to direct any more energy into that particular area.
Depending on your condition, you may feel very tired after these sessions, which indicates that your energy is being diverted into healing, leaving little for anything else. If you’re very weak or sick, this fatigue may last for several days; its duration will decrease as your condition improves. You won’t feel like practicing during such times and should not force yourself.
While practicing, you may at times feel energy flowing upward into the chest, arms, neck, and head, particularly if you have a health problem there. Energy can flow into the head but shouldn’t be pushed in vigorously, or a headache may result.
One of the first things likely to occur as a result of chi kung practice is a temporary change in bowel habits. You may experience diarrhea for several days—the system cleaning itself out as a result of unprecedented amounts of energy being brought into the lower abdomen—followed by constipation. Hunger or loss of appetite may also occur, as well as cravings for particular foods, and continued practice may produce other physical symptoms, such as weight loss or gain, unusual odors, or discharges. These symptoms indicate that your system is beginning to right itself; they should disappear within a short time, causing no concern.
Technique 2
This is an extension of Technique 1 and can be started within a few weeks of beginning the latter. It involves taking the energy you’ve begun to move with Technique 1 using chiefly physical means and moving it using only the mind. Eventually the two techniques merge, until the process becomes exclusively mental and intuitive. As with Technique 1, the procedure is extremely simple:
Lie down. In cool weather, you may want to cover yourself with a blanket.
Close your eyes and concentrate on a particular part of your body. If you have a localized illness or injury you’re trying to heal, you can concentrate there—wherever the pain is. If you have a generalized problem or no health problem, concentrate in the tan tien.
You’re directing energy to the area in which you’re concentrating, and it will go there, but at first, as with any new skill, some effort is required. You can visualize the area as being warm or hot—a blazing sun or a fire—or you can imagine words such as "energy," "strength," and "power" flowing into the area—whatever holds your attention.
After a while—perhaps as long as half or three-quarters of an hour at first—you’ll notice the area becoming slightly warm. You’ve used your mind to bring energy there, and each time you practice, it will happen faster and get warmer. You’ll know you’re done when you begin to feel tired. As with Technique 1, it will be an exertion at first, and you may want to sleep afterward.
You may be inclined to neglect Technique 2, because it requires more work at first, but resist this inclination and alternate the two techniques. Sometimes you’ll feel like the physical activity of Technique 1, and other times, when your body needs rest but your mind is active, you can do Technique 2. (Women should use caution in beginning these practices during pregnancy.)
After working with these energies for a while, you’ll find that merely placing the palms flat on the tan tien is sufficient to direct heat and energy there. Eventually there will be no need for Technique 1, or even for consciously practicing Technique 2—energy will flow where you direct it.
History of Chi Kung
Movement and exercise have always existed in the Chinese culture. The earliest reference we have to special 'dances' for warding off illness date from the period of the legendary Yellow Emperor, Huang Ti, who reigned perhaps as early as 2700 BC. And certainly by the 6th century BC scholars had already begun to classify various methods of exercise and breathing techniques for maintaining health - some of which may be depicted in jade carvings dating from this time. Later, during what is known by historians as the Warring States Period, 480-222 BC. we find the emergence of what are called Tao Yin (daoyin) disciplines, again special exercises for health that may, in part at least, have been derived from the much earlier era of the Yellow Emperor.
Tao Yin means 'guiding and inducing' - guiding and inducing the flow of chi around the body. At the same time, special breathing techniques combined with meditation were also being introduced by the Taoist philosophers. These techniques, they claimed, were effective not only in the treatment of certain illnesses but also in the prevention of disease. It is important to understand that in those times a philosopher was also someone who meditated and probably also practiced medicine. All these subjects were linked, making up what we would today term an 'holistic' approach.
From here on in, we start to find clear individual styles of chi kung emerging - such as the eighteen forms of health exercises attributed to the alchemist Ko Hung (active around 325 AD). And, towards the end of the Han Dynasty, we have the famous practitioner of oriental medicine Hua Tuo advocating special regimes of exercise, called Wu Chin Hsi, again specifically in order to boost resistance to disease. Hau Tuo taught his movements openly and they were widely disseminated, as were, much later, another set of well-known pieces from the Song dynasty (around the 12th century) called the Eight Brocades, which are thought to have been developed by an army officer to maintain the internal strength of his troops. At the same time, however, other systems were being developed in secrecy among certain families or clans, usually centred on the Imperial Court and often developed in tandem with the martial arts.
From this illustrious past, most of the styles of chi kung that we recognise today have developed and grown. The list of examples is endless. But suffice to say that the use of exercise for maintaining health and for circulating vital energy around the body is probably one of the earliest activities recorded in the history of human civilisation and has, moreover, been in continuous use for at least four and a half thousand years.