Qi Gong

The term Qi Gong

Qi Gong is a collective term for a variety of practices and exercises. What they all have in common is that it's about "Qi", "Chi" or "Ki": the life energy. The way of dealing with this goes beyond everyday life: doing, striving and practicing becomes an art ("Gong", "Kung", "Gung").

Some exercises are obviously physical, others seem to only take place in the mind; there is often a concrete connection to the breath.

From this understanding, one can (or must?) also see Tai Chi Ch'uan as a type of Qi Gong. Likewise, many other practices that mindfully deal with life energy could also be described as Qi Gong, even if they have no direct connection to China. But that probably leads to more confusion than benefit. But it certainly makes sense for those interested to examine such practices for similarities or differences to Qi Gong.

My path with Qi Gong

I learned this as part of my Tai Chi training, a variant of Ba Duan Jin, the 8 brocade exercises. This is a widely used set of eight very ancient exercises that can be adapted for different practitioners and purposes. I have been able to get to know a few different interpretations at seminars. It would be a difficult task to say what is right, wrong, better or worse. When carrying out the exercises, it is important that you choose a variant in which you can physically carry out the exercises without any problems. There are, for example, standing and sitting versions. Given this basic requirement of feasibility, other variants are probably more like flavors of a meal - I can season with chilli, or stay mild and maybe even a little sweet. Often one or another aspect of Chinese medicine is brought to the foreground of the exercise or another dynamic is emphasized. Of course the effect varies, but it remains nourishing.
I also noticed that there are schools that differ in the order of the exercises. Here too it is difficult to say what is right and what is wrong. However, if you can assign a meridian to the exercises, you may be able to assess the energetic differences between the sequences. For example, there is the nourishing and controlling cycle in TCM. If the following exercise is part of the nourishing cycle, its energy is strengthened by the previous one, in the other case it is controlled.

I would like to offer Ba Duan Jin to participate in in my local area. because it's more fun together. This creates a regularity that makes it easy to do something good for yourself. At the bottom of the article I list current dates and locations whenever I can offer them.

In addition, I occasionally practiced different forms of silent Qi Gong, standing like a tree and some Sheng Zhen Gong. From the area of similar exercises, for example, the meridian stretching exercises from Shiatsu or my healing stone meditations should be mentioned. All of these forms and of course Tai Chi have had a strong influence on my understanding of chi and energy work.