The What and How of Qigong
Qigong
pronounced Chee-guong (气功)
Literally means 'life energy cultivation'. It is a holistic system of coordinated body posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used for the purposes of holistic wellbeing for mind and body, spirituality, and martial arts training. With roots in Traditional Chinese medicine, philosophy, and martial arts, qigong is traditionally viewed as a practice to cultivate and balance Qi (chi), translated as "life energy".
Qigong practice typically involves moving meditation, coordinating slow flowing movement, deep rhythmic breathing, and calm meditative state of mind.
HISTORY AND ORIGINS
Contemporary qigong blends diverse and sometimes disparate traditions, in particular, the practice of "internal alchemy" the ancient meditative practices of "circulating qi" (Xing qi 行氣) and "standing meditation" and the slow gymnastic breathing exercise of "guiding and pulling". Traditionally, knowledge about qigong was passed from adept master to student in elite unbroken lineages, typically with secretive and esoteric traditions of training and oral transmission, and with an emphasis on meditative practice by scholars and gymnastic or dynamic practice by the working masses.
The popularity of qigong grew rapidly from 1976 through the 1990s, with estimates of between 60 and 200 million practitioners throughout China and beyond.
Today, the practice of qigong spread is worldwide. Millions of people around the world practice qigong for different health benefits including for recreation, exercise, relaxation, preventive medicine, self-healing, alternative medicine, self-cultivation, meditation, spirituality, and material arts training.
Many believe the cultivation of Qi in addition to the practice of Qigong can be found in everyday rituals and habits such as drinking teas, in particular flowers teas because it is believed that when a plant flowers it is at the peak of its life and the flower is the fruit of this highest level energy Qi. So surrounding ourselves with fresh flowers and sipping on flower teas can improve our happiness level, healing, and increase Qi.
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1 comment
Thank you for explaining that there are millions of people who practice qigong. I’ve been thinking about trying something like this for a while now to work on mindfulness more actively than with just meditation. It’s good to know how widespread it is and makes me more intrigued to try it out. https://alignedfit.com/qi-gong/
