Balanced Living Magazine - November - December 2003: Chi Kung

Follow the tree of Chinese healing disciplines to its roots and you'll find an ancient practice called chi kung. Also called qigong, this broad practice of working with one's life force is thousands of years old and the great–grandparent to Chinese acupuncture, t'ai chi, kung fu and other disciplines. Chi kung promises health and long life, and like all mysterious practices of personal power and longevity, it is rapidly becoming the next big thing on both the holistic and chic-American scenes.
“Chi kung is about to hit like a tidal wave,” says Jim MacRitchie, Dipl.Ac., Lic.Ac., co-director of The Body Energy Center in Boulder and author of Chi Kung, Energy For Life (Harper Collins 2002). “It's not just some strange thing that Chinese guys in silk pajamas do in the corner. The media is catching on, and so is the American public.”
The media is catching on, indeed. Chi kung recently landed on the front page of the Wall Street Journal (May 13, 2003) as the latest craze in L. A. spas and the secret weapon behind Tiger Woods' swing. And though L. A. may have a Spandex version with all the glam and vanity once reserved only for aerobics and kickboxing, the real deal is working its way into the lives of traditional Chinese practitioners and their patients and students across the country.
To define this mysterious practice, start with the name: “chi” means life energy, “kung” means to cultivate. Thus, chi kung roughly translates to “cultivating life energy.” Low-impact movements such as Horse Stance and Flying Goose are a good introduction, but to completely understand the practice and its more than 7,000 postures and thousands of techniques, a lifetime is required. The practice in total involves endless combinations of movements, exercises, meditations and energetic intentions.
And don't think of chi kung as a secret t'ai chi for Navy Seals. As MacRitchie says, it's not a noun, it's a verb. “Chi kung is not a description of one thing,” he says. “It's a vast combination of techniques of movement, meditation and other practices that work with the body's energy system. It's a way of life. To try to put it into a box is like saying there's one right way to play music or to dance.”
Chi kung is rooted in Taoism, the philosophy of being in alignment with the natural order of things. It is divided into internal and external practices. Internal chi kung is the personal practice of working with one's life energy; external chi kung is more of a clinical application, practiced in hospitals in China, where masters use acupuncture and energetic treatments to heal others.
The predominant practice is internal chi kung, which, according to MacRitchie's book, is like a tool box with a perfectly forged set of tools for eight life applications: fitness and sports, martial arts, health and healing, sexuality, longevity, extraordinary human abilities such as fine-tuned awareness and perception, spiritual development and immortality – the practice of preparing the energy body, or spirit, to continue when the physical body dies. The main idea is that these eight categories are rough subdivisions of the overall life force and can be cultivated individually and collectively through the practice of chi kung.
Clinical chi kung is available from trained practitioners. Treatment is subjective and may range from prescribed acupuncture to dietary changes and exercise to meditation, depending on individual needs as well as practitioner techniques and training. There's no one “brand.” In fact, in China, even today, clinical chi kung is the subject of controversy, with only a government-sanctioned brand of chi kung prevailing publicly. The rest has been declared illegal and is practiced underground.
In the West, trained practitioners are good starting points for private instruction. But because no Western certification system exists for chi kung, choosing the right teacher can be tricky. It would be difficult to find a master if you're just starting out on the path to chi kung. According to the tradition, true masters never reveal themselves. But that doesn't mean you can't find an excellent teacher and learn enough about the practice to make a difference in your life. As MacRitchie says, “The simple way to know if you have a good teacher is if you are getting results.”
Once you find your path and teacher, chi kung does promise results in the areas of health and longevity. Scientific studies on chi kung at the Shanghai Institute are finding that the practice can help lower blood pressure, improve heart function, reduce the risk of stroke and premature mortality, and improve sexual function and overall well being. In fact, Eastern findings are so compelling that they have piqued the curiosity of the Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine at the National Institutes of Health which, last year, allocated $500,000 to study the health benefits of chi kung.

Resources, local and beyond
If you are intrigued and want to learn more, would like chi kung to be part of your holistic treatment regimen, or you're ready to engage in a personal internal practice, try the following resources:

National Qigong (Chi Kung) Association USA; www.nqa.org
Qi Gong Association of America, www.qi.org
Institute For Self Healing (Hudson, OH) 330-342-0838
Caitllin & Enzo Pendolino 440-526-1251
Five Elements Healing Arts 440-835-5715

First printed in Nexus, Colorado's Holistic Journal, September/October 2003. Reprinted with permission. www.nexuspub.com.

Photo: Ellie Drew, director of the Institute for Conscious Change in Tucon AZ with her mother, Ardie Schmidt age 71, and grandmother, Eloise Wohlford age 92. Photo by Donald Mead. www.consciouschange.org.