April 24, 2023
Last year, in honor of World Tai Chi & Qigong Day, YMAA Staff Writer Gene Ching wrote Is it Tai Chi or Taiji? For this year, he continues in that same spirit with an exploration of Chinese translation and romanization with Qigong.
April 3, 2023
The 18 Luohan relies on the Microcosmic Orbit as a well-trodden path to get your energy flowing.
March 20, 2023
The physical body is like a machine and Qì is like electricity. Only when the machine is in good condition and the power supply is sufficient will the machine be able to perform at peak potential.
February 27, 2023
Remind your clients, that it is impossible to know when the natural results will arise and that patience and perseverance, in cultivation of wellbeing, is the recognized best practice for catalyzing the intended good result.”
February 20, 2023
One of my favorite teachers, Master Zhu Hui from Tian Tai Mountain in eastern China told me, “A person who makes wise use of the Three Intentional Corrections a few times a day will resolve their pains, cure their diseases, and achieve longevity.”
With a preventive approach, we find a way to live well by following the ancient wisdom of “Going with the Flow.” Everything has two sides: the Yin, and the Yang. Going with the flow, we realize the Yin changes to Yang, and the Yang changes to the Yin. Everything turns out to be better eventually.
"The Dao De Jing is also referred to as the Lao Zi. It has been interpreted mostly by scholars instead of qigong practitioners. However, it is evident that the entire book was written based on Lao Zi’s, (476–221 BCE), personal qigong experience, especially spiritual cultivation. In order to acquire the real essence of the Dao De Jing, we must interpret it from a qigong point of view. Only then we will see the origin of Lao Zi’s thinking." - Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming
Often Qìgōng practitioners are confused by the differences between Buddhist and Daoist Qìgōng. Both share the same fundamental theory and similar practices….The main emphasis of Buddhist Qìgōng is on becoming a Buddha, while Daoist Qìgōng focuses on longevity, enlightenment, and spiritual immortality.
I met David (Verdesi) in Moscow to meet Chinese qi gong healers that could send a current of energy through your body that was so strong it felt like you were holding both ends of a car battery.
With the COVID-19 virus pandemic, understanding the immune system has become an important topic of healthcare and self-care. The immune system is an intelligent matrix of biological structures and processes that protects your body against pathogens like bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi.
YoQi is heavily influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Marisa takes care to describe the various exercises in terms of the TCM view of organs and acupressure points. In Qigong Flow for Immune System Boost, Marisa does not adopt an Ayurvedic perspective. Like yoga, Ayurvedic medicine originates from India and the two disciplines are intricately connected. There are parallels between TCM and Ayurveda. Both systems describe a vital life energy that flows through the body. In TCM, it is qi that flows through meridians or channels (jingluo in Chinese). Ayurveda calls this energy prana and the channels nadi. However, as tempting as it may be to correlate these two venerated medical systems, they are not the same. It would not be wise to mix them too much.
Needle Through Brick is a documentary that poses these questions by taking an intimate look at some surviving traditional Kung Fu and Tai Chi masters of Malaysian Borneo, particularly Sarawak and Sibu. There’s a large Chinese population here, a diaspora of masters who fled the Japanese occupation and the communists. Needle Through Brick presents insightful interviews of Borneo’s unique elder masters as the precious disciplines that they have dedicated their lives to face extinction.
To Chinese, this most important celebration of the year is known as "Spring Festival" (春節; pinyin: Chūnjié). It is a time of family reunion. Family members gather at each other's homes for visits and shared meals, most significantly a feast (年夜飯; pinyin: niányèfàn) on New Year's Eve (除夕; pinyin: Chúxī). In Chinese societies, people may take weeks off from work to prepare for and celebrate this holiday. With about 3 billion passenger trips over the 40-day travel season, it is described as the world's largest annual human migration.
Qigong means “energy skill,” and it is a gradual process of becoming familiar with the subtle energy circulating within your body on a cellular level, and how it is changing every day, every hour, second by second. This energy, or qi, is bioelectricity; you are a living bioelectromagnetic field. With continued practice and observation, a qigong practitioner becomes more sensitive and aware of how the body’s energy is fluctuating on a daily basis and why. Repeated qigong practice leads one to gradually feel healthier, and ultimately reach a point of feeling that it is “difficult to get sick.”
Learning is a big part of healing, especially in the healing of emotions. We know our emotions influence our physical body. The brain's emotional center needs to be refreshed, nourished, stimulated, and balanced. When you start to learn things you are not familiar with, you start to shift your focus onto new knowledge, new approaches, and a new life. This sort of internal transformation can improve your situation in life. It is as if you are shifting negative energy to positive energy. The more positive energy you have, the better the chance you can be healed.
Physically, winter qigong practices focus on the organs of the water element: the kidneys and the urinary bladder. In the Five Elements Phases of Traditional Chines Medicine, winter expresses the water element. In your body, the water element particularly affects your kidneys, urinary bladder, fluids, spinal cord, bone marrow and brain.
Traditionally, taiji ball qigong training was a very important training for many external and internal styles. The reason it is so effective is because taiji ball qigong, using wood (internal styles) or rock (external styles) balls in the hands, helps focus the training in round movements. Consequently, this training is able to increase the endurance, strength, mobility, and flexibility of the practitioner's physical body, especially the torso.
Qigong Flow for Happy Kidneys is a complete routine designed to balance and nourish the kidneys and urinary bladder. In traditional Chinese medicine, the kidneys resonate with the water element and the spirt of willpower. Happy kidneys are the key to energetic stamina, sexual potency, and longevity. They not only regulate the body fluids and filter the blood, but they are also considered the energy batteries of our body. The kidneys store yuan qi, the precious gift of innate qi inherited from our parents.
Qigong is a meditation in motion that balances the energy aspect of your being for healing, health, and vitality. The YOQI style of qigong, called Qigong Flow, is the art of energy cultivation through one continuous stream of body-based awareness that alternates between stillness and movement, yin and yang.
Autumn is the time of year when nature is letting go. Leaves are falling, earth is tilling and going inward preparing for winter. So it's a good time to support our own energy and fortify the immune system. Spiritually, it's a special time to ask ourselves who we are and release anything that is preventing us from expressing our authentic selves.
One of the greatest contributions of Traditional Chinese Medicine is the understanding that the state of our health is linked to the state of our emotions. We intuitively know that stress, anger, worry, grief, and fear have a direct effect on our body and our perception of life. For example, fear-based emotions stimulate the release of one set of chemicals while love-based emotions release a different set of chemicals. To achieve harmony and wellbeing, a fundamental aspect of qigong training is to transform negative emotions into positive virtues.
Marisa discovered Qigong as a student at Zhejiang University, China in 1999 through a local taiji chuan master. Since she has studied with many of the world’s top Qigong masters, some well-known and others off the grid. Marisa formally trained and is certified to teach with blessings from masters of two lineages of Qigong: Universal Healing Tao with Master Mantak Chia and Master Robert Peng.
Energetically, summer is also a powerful time for transforming energy. The element of summer is fire. In our body, fire connects to the heart fire that resonates the human force of unconditional love and acceptance. Therefore, many qigong practices for summer come from spiritual qigong traditions that focus on internal alchemy; the process of transforming and refining our vibration to its highest potential.
Physically, spring qigong practices focus on the organs of the wood element: the liver and the gall bladder. The liver is the chief organ responsible for processing toxins in the body. One of the liver's main jobs is to store the blood and filter toxic wastes from the bloodstream. Another task is to produce many of the alkaline enzymes upon which immune response and other vital functions depend.
The cost of treating chronic illnesses in the United States accounts for 75 percent of the health-care budget. For the year 2009, when $2.5 trillion was spent on medical care overall, almost $1.9 trillion was allocated to the treatment of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, and cancer; 70 percent of all deaths in America were attributable to these chronic illnesses.