Earth Dragon, Qi and Kung Fu

[woliveri]

Earth Dragon,
I'm interested in your qi gong practice in your school and how it integrates in your kung fu practice. To me, kung fu practice seems counter productive to qi gong development. Especially for healing. Could you comment on this? Does your qi gong teacher practice kung fu? Does she make recomendations regarding kung fu and qi gong? Does she think it's counter productive to practice kung fu while seeking advancement in qi gong.

thank you

[isol8d]

I know of a teacher in Orlando who teaches Kung Fu, Chi Kung, Tai Chi and TCM. He has a little school and is pretty selective whom he teaches. He taught a friend of mine some Qi Gong (chi kung) to help with some problems they were having, and even offered to teach her Kung Fu & the rest. He seems to think that Chi Kung is a positive way to maintain health while practicing Kung Fu. I've seen his name mentioned on here once or twice, and he's generally respected from what I understand.

I learned the Chi Kung, umm, form? that he taught my friend, I need to practice it everyday, but always seem to find something else to do.

[woliveri]

isol8d, do you happen to know the name of the qi gong form you learned?

[EARTH DRAGON]

Thanks for you interest. Actually its just the opposite, every true kung fu system has 2 sides and many parts of each side to make it a whole.
This includes the hard and soft sides as in martial and medical.
Some examples of martial would be kungfu,Tai chi, iron palm, chin na fa, shuia chiao, weapons etc.etc
Some examples of medical qigong, herbology, tui na, bone setting, accupuncture, etc.etc

So you see one cannot exsist without the other, Just like yin & yang. The problem is it takes so long to learn just certain aspects of an entire system teachers of todays world concentrate only on a small part of their system. Mostly due to lack of time and sometimes due to lack of knowledge either in their own training or their teachers. I could not imagine not training one without he other, they must be balaced and intergrated.

In ancient china kung fu shr fu's were always trained to be doctors first, learning the fighting aspect of their system always came last, this for many reasons but mostly due to the amount of time it takes to become profcient in the medical training.

So I would suggest if you have the opportunity to start qigong practice right away. When you can use your cultivated chi from qigong training and incorporate it into your martial techniques they take on a whole new life.

As my teacher always says kung fu practice without chi flow is like an empty egg all you have is the shell, external with no substance.

As for myself I went outside my system for qigong, partially becuse I found that 8 step praying mantis had limited medical qigong, but mostly while living in chinatown SF i was lunck enough to make freinds with a world famous qigong master yen chu feng from bejing. We becmae good freinds and taught each other our language and I used to drive her to patients and watch everyday as she healed people and then asked her to teach me.... that was 6 years ago and she now lives with me and my wife in buffalo NY.
Her art is called jin gon tzu li gong it's her family art and it is a extremly powerful qigong that uses techniques to shoot your chi into your patient inorder to rebalance thier chi stagnet or unblanced flow. It can cure almost everyhting diasese that exsist including, cancer, systic frybrosis, aids, defomaties, pancreatic aisrertus, sickle cell anemeia, brusitus, rhemithoid arthritis and many many more.
I hope this helps you understand the importance or a well rounded system and the neccessity of both sides of the coin. Please let me know what you think I would be happy to answer any question that arises. your freind E.D

[woliveri]

When you can use your cultivated chi from qigong training and incorporate it into your martial techniques they take on a whole new life.

Ok, this is what I'm talking about. Cultivation vs Use. A couple of questions.

1. Based on TCM, from your viewpoint, how is qi cultivated?
a. Is qi cultivated from internal or from external?
2. Does not practicing external MA use qi?
3. Doesn't healing also use qi?

If 2 and 3 are true then the cultivation must be greater than expending. Otherwise depletion will occur.


Please comment.

[woliveri]

One other question. You mentioned you had to go outside your school for another qi gong for whatever reason. Does your qi gong teacher (Master Yen Chu Feng) practice kung fu or any external chinese martial art?

[EARTH DRAGON]

I will try to answer your questions without getting to deep or off topic for I tend to be long winded at times.

1.chi is cultivated through breathing, mediation, visualization, excersise and food.

1a. chi can be cultivated from both. You start by cultivating the chi in your body. Higher levels are taken from around your body i.e wei chi, and highest levels are taken from the cosmos.

2.confused by your question???

3. yes of coarse healing uses chi, as does the knowledge of where to shoot the chi or unlock points in the body. we use 365 points when we do a treament. not all the time for instance if your hand needs treament then obviously there is no need to unlock leg or back points. However techniques and physical stimulation are also used not only chi but ever one is different.

True you cannot give more treaments without recharging sort to speak, when I do a lot of pateints I feel drained, but we have various excersises that we do to build our level back up that I perform ever night for the past 6 years, this keeps my health and immune system at its peak.

My qigong teacher does play tai chi for roughly 35 years and yoga for 20 but no martial or external, however I asked her one time about using her skills for hurting or defending herself and she replied NO! we dont do that! I never defend I am too strong, and I said well what if it happened, she said she could shoot chi and take out their left side just by stimulating the arm greater yang meridian which causes paralization and cerebral brachymetropia.
I dont know if you are having a hard time grasping this but please check out the picture on my website under photos/masters and look at the picture of me shoving a 9"needle through my leg without pain or bleeding which we demonstrated at a cancer hospital and they said it was medically impoosible yet they witnessed it with thier own eyes but could not explian it....

I hope this explians some of your interest in qigong please let me know thanks E.D

[woliveri]

Ok, let me tell you where I'm at so you'll better understand the root of my questions.

It is my understanding that the first part of training qi gong, i.e. developing from inner, is based on food and breathing. As you can see from the character qi is divided into 2 parts. 1. mi (uncooked rice) below and qi (air, steam) above. This is an important concept. I see it, in relation to the body, as lungs (qi) and spleen (mi) which in combination create qi. That is, we eat and breath and get qi (simplified explaination). External exercise (including external martial arts) depleats or uses qi as we exercise. We then eat and rest and get back our qi. This is a cycle of 1:1 ratio (in general) as I see it. This is why I think it's counter productive to practice external martial arts if someone wanted to be a true qi gong master and especially to treat patients. That is, to truely get to an advanced level and get qi from the external or cosmos as you mentioned, since an external MA will be on the 1:1 ratio, his/her channels cannot be opened to handle more and more qi, accumulate and store qi. I've practiced various qi gong exercises (standing, moving, sitting and forced) over the last 10 years or so and have had great difficulty due to a blockage and a weak spleen from birth (I'm currently getting Chinese herbal treatments which have helped but the road is long). I've had conversations with a senior Taiji student who dissagrees with my model of qi gong understanding (lungs/spleen scenario) which I take him to mean qi can just be gotten from external sources if the initial channels are openned.

Please offer any comments.

[spiralstair]

External exercise(including kung fu) builds the general state of health over time. If it was truly a 1:1 ratio then one would observe no change in a person's general condition since everything stays equal.
Sincere and longterm correct practice will cause an obvious improvement in the ability to work in the anaerobic(without oxygen) and aerobic(with oxygen)realms.
The practitioner's ability to process nutrients(uncooked rice side of qi) will improve along with their assimilation of oxygen into red blood cells(the air side).
Most important for long term qi development is the vibration(shock) that martial movement produces in the practitioner's body, stimulating the skeletal system to strengthen and the bone marrow to become more dense.
All of the above will produce a stronger 'potential' qi emitter, especially through time if the practitioner does the more difficult 'internal' work involving mind and emotion.
The final benefit to a martial practice for one already involved in healing is its usefulness as a means of discharging 'negitive' qi picked up in the 'exchange' with the patient. Those healers who disregard the discharging negitivity side to their practice do so at their own, and future client's, risk.

[woliveri]

spiralstair,
I understand your comments on the 1:1 ratio and can agree. However, I have never met an external MA Master who reached the level of a Qi Gong or Taiji Master in their Qi development. I still believe the practice of external martial arts is counter productive to being a qi gong master. Even Earth Dragon's Qi Gong teacher does not practice external Martial Arts at all and according to him has reached a high level. I would be interested in her comments regarding the practice of external ma and qi gong.

[EARTH DRAGON]

My comment would have been very close to spiralstairs but he expalined it far better than I could have so I will let you use his post to understand how I feel.

As far as the external internal thing, again I feel like everyone specializes in one certain aspect of their art and focuses most of their time on that one part. That could be why many masters are famous for one thing or another. Our Lifespan is not long enough to become profeicent in both internal or external so we must choose which one to excel in, unfortunaly most internal practioners dont realize this until a level of maturity has been gained. Simply becuse the facination in youth of the external.

I use this as a loose example but it seems to fit. A lawyer cannot practice all parts of the law so they choose one area to specialize in but that doenst mean that they cannot do well in catagories outside their field. And still must have knowldge of all or both.

As times are far different then in ancient china it is hard to find 12 hours in a day for practice in modern times, so the level of todays masters has not reached that of yesteryear. I don't think that anyone has the time to sufficiently put the required time in to truley reach master level in either art. Does this mean to only practice one?... perhapes but remember Damo came to shaolin to teach the monks the (shii soei ching) and the (yi gin ching) inorder to become strong when he found them weak from meditiation. He taught them to have a strong body (external) as well as strong mind (internal) in order to live by ying&yang if you have too much of one without the other your imbalanced, going against the direct opposite of the basics of eastern beliefes... so ask yourself a question............ does practicing one without the other cause imbalace in oursleves??????????????

[isol8d]

My friend didn't recall the name off the top of her head, but I just went over the movements, and their are 18 overall. 18 Lohan or something like that would be my guess. I'll try to get more specific information when I am at home.

[woliveri]

isol8d,
The exercise you are speaking of is called Taiji Qi Gong in 18 Forms. I believe the first two movements are:
1. raise arms in front of the body vertically and lower them
2. raise arms in front of the body to horizontal then expand sideways then the reverse back down.

Correct?

[woliveri]

I don't think that anyone has the time to sufficiently put the required time in to truley reach master level in either art.

This is incorrect. I know at least one American who is quite high level if not Master level at his young age (45+ or so). I think it's entirely possible.


does practicing one without the other cause imbalace in oursleves??????????????

I don't believe so. Take two exercises such as Da Mo Yi Jin Ching and Wuji Qi Gong. Both internal exercises which complement each other.

[EARTH DRAGON]

I guess it depends on how you classify mastery. To me it means that one has perfected everyaspect, knows everthing about their art and cannot learn further. The reason I disagree with this in modern times is the neccssity to work and have a family which takes away from learning time. Hermits that spent much of the day praticing could each that level in 45 years not todays man. I am not saying that he is not exceptional in what he does, but a lot of times we label master as a rank not as level.

If you find that arts can complement each other then why do you not agree that internal and external can?

Do you practice qigong for selfproficeintcy or for medical practice?