From: yyg8104@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Yong-Qing Yang)
Subject: What I think about Qi Gong and Yan Xin
Summary: Qi Gong and Yan Xin
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 04:51:42 GMT
Keywords: Qi Gong Yan Xin



It seems there are a lot of postings about Yan Xin's Qi Gong in the last a few 
days. When I saw the announcement about the lecture by Mr Yan in UIUC last
week, I did say to myself " Not again, man!". But I am surprised today to find
the discusion about him is on the way once more!

Here, as a person who belives in and practises Qi Gong for nearly 10 years, I
want to share my view about Qi Gong and my impression about Mr Yan:

There are many types of Qi Gong according to different definitions. But I think
basically there are two types of them in principle: external and internal, which
can be also called Hard and Soft Qi Gong respectively. One does not have to be
very young to be able to learn Qi Gong, but starting at an early age will
surely affect the degree one can master them. Hard Qi Gong can be learnt in a
relatively short time period ( there were reports that it took three months for
some security policemen to be able to break bricks with their hands ), while
it takes a longer time to achive a certain degree for the soft type. Of course,
all I am talking here is under the assumption that we are discussing amateur
Qi Gong learning and from now on I will refer Qi Gong to internal type only.
Many types of Qi Gong require intensive concentration in the practising and
quiet environment/surrondings, though there are also some types which really
do not require much concentration at all, like Xiao Zhou Tian. Many people think
that Qi Gong is something it exists if you believe in it and it does not exist
if you don't. The effect of Qi Gong does exist no matter one believes in it
or not. In fact, if you happen to practise Tai Ji Quan, you will be surprised
to find that many theories of Qi Gong have the same roots with Tai Ji. This
reflects a fact that Qi Gong is not really something mysterious. Some of its
effects can be explained scientificly. And it should also be reminded that
Qi Gong is also based on Chinese traditional medicine theories for many of
its effects. Let me give an example : Chinese traditional medicine emphasizes
on the Yin Yang Wu Xin theory and it is too often that a diagnosis is made 
after the considerations are taken for ALL systems in the body. When one suffers
from some hearing problems, while the Western medicine will concentrate on the 
hearing system(s) only, a Chinese medicine doctor will very likely take a look
at the condition of the Yin Yang balance of the patient, or specificly his/her
kidneys. So sometimes, it seems that modern medicine can't satisfactorily
explain Qi Gong effects while some expalinations can be easily obtained if one 
uses the Chinese medicine theory. But generally there is no conflict if one uses
the modern Western medicine to explain the effects of Qi Gong; just remember
that the word " heart " sometimes means different things in Western and Chinese
traditional medicine ( one means the physical heart and the other means what
the modern medicine called nervous system ). Besides the intensive concentra-
tion, the key of Qi Gong practising is the mental guidance of the movement of
Qi along the paths in the body. The fact that the mental guidance is important 
is due to the fact that many, if not all, systems in the body are very much 
under the influence of the nervous system. For instance, though you have not 
done any physical work and have slept a lot for a few days, you must feel very 
exhausted after you are suddenly exposed to a visually terrible scene which 
makes you sweating. This reflects the fact that the tension in the nervous 
system has its effects on your other systems. Now what is Qi? According to
one definition, Qi is the basis of everything in the universe (as quarks and
electrons in particle physics). And the Qi in Qi Gong is related to the so-
called Real Qi. Real Qi is divided into two kinds: Original Qi associated with
the birth and the one after the birth, which is obtained from the foods, air 
etc. One's well being is in good condition only when the passages of Qi are 
smooth and illness results from the obstacles along the passages of Qi. Thus
Qi Gong is just a certian kind of method/measure/practice to maintain the 
smoothness of these passages. This in turn will improve or maintain one's well 
being. This should not be surprising since the practice of Qi Gong will enhance
the functioning of ones nervous system and that will lead to the many effects 
observed of Qi Gong practising.  Now you can tell that I am talking about the 
Qi Gong practised for the purpose of fitness or illness prevention. As for the
claim that some people can use Qi Gong to treat others, I really had no 
experience personally. 

Another thing I want to point out is, as I also said earlier, that effect of 
Qi Gong is real and it's not something that is only there when you believe in 
it beforehand. In fact I really was skeptical about Qi Gong when I started 
learning it. I am just such a person who likes to learn new things ( BTW, 
I will start a kinesiology course for tennis training in the coming March ;-) ).
So I got the faith in it AFTER learning it. And the instructor who taught me 
Qi Gong  really didn't make anything mysterious about Qi Gong and the 
explainations about the theory were satisfactory to me then ( I had an 
experience of Chinese traditional medicine study for about 14 months when I 
was about 15, but can't recall much now except a few basic concepts ). So I 
am always surprised when many people try to make the theory of Qi Gong sound 
very mysterious. Of course there are still a lot of things and phenomena 
associated with Qi Gong that are not explained by the modern science.
But I always try to be open-mined about things which are not fully understood
yet. For instance, the theory of Jing Luo (pinyin ?) in acupuncture is not 
really fully understood yet. I once read a report that some Japanese researchers
made some experiments, in which they measured the resistance of a human body,
and found out that the so-called Jing Luo is nearly always the path along which
the resistance of the body is the minimum. But there were also other explaina-
tions about Jing Luo. When there is no single theory which everyone can accept,
I think keeping an open mind is really necessary. It's just too easy to 
ridicule others for believing things which you don't have any faith in, but
you would not sound very convincing to others either.


Now after stating what I think of Qi Gong, it comes to my impression about 
Mr Yan. I heard his name a few years ago from the newspaper when I was in 
Europe. At that time, I just thought he must be a master of Qi Gong since he 
can treat others with his power. As I said above, I had no experience with 
people who claim to be able to treat others with Qi Gong.  Due to my personal 
Qi Gong experience, I thought then what he claimed must be the situation that 
he plays a master role in group Qi Gong practising and inducing others to 
achive a certain state. This is something analogic to the migration of swan: 
they fly together in such a pattern that individuals will take less effort 
due to others' presence.  In Qi Gong practising, a so-called Qi field can be 
established when many people are practising together and this can, in some 
degree, affect the performance of a certain individual. That's what I had in 
mind when I heard about Mr Yan. You see, I am an open-minded person :-) 
Then two years ago I came to the US and a few months later, there was an 
announcement that Master Yan was going to give a series of lectures of Qi Gong. 
Though I gave my name to one of the persons in charge of the lectures, somehow 
I was not notified of the begining of the class, which cost $700 something for 
one person for two or three weeks according to what I heard afterwards. Then 
there was another announcement that Mr Yan would give a public lecture of his 
Qi Gong with $10 admission fee ( free for the people who registered for his 
class ). I hate the fact that I missed the begining of the class, but decided to
go to this public lecture and ask if it was still possible to join the class 
after missing the begining. Then it turned out to be a scam as far as I could 
see. What he was talking about were all the claims what he could do and he told
the audience that the lecture was transmitted by satellite to Qing Hua Univ. 
in Beijing and forwarded to millions nationwide in China. I major in nuclear 
engineering and it was a shock to hear him claiming he could change the decay 
constants of isotopes. Though I followed his instructions in the begining of 
the lecture, but after feeling nothing with more than 10 minutes gone, I stoped
doing what he asked us to do during the lecture and concentrated on his speech 
only afterwards. The more I heard, the more I felt I was cheated. Qi Gong should
not violate the energy conservation. Energy should be conserved. If he can send 
energy out to millinons around the globe, then the power of his emission must 
be enormous since 1/r2 law will demand this for a meaningful energy flux at
some distance from the souce, even not as far away as from China ( not to 
mention the solid angle of one person toward the energy emission source). Even
the energy is transmitted through satellite, which makes the energy flux a
delta function in terms of the direction of the transmission, but since it is 
going to be forwarded to millions of people nationwide in China ( forget the
people, including myself, present that day listening to him live ), it still 
requires an energy emission source which is beyond my imagination ( insert your
figures here if you do bother to make the calculations ).  He also implied that
people would  start to laugh/cry sometime later in the lecture. Sure enough, 
one girl in the front row started crying and a few other girls started 
doing some movements, which may looked very impressive to other people, but to 
me, I only needed a few words to describe the pattern of the movements they 
were showing. This finally completely convinced me that this guy was not what 
he claimed to be, since a master should not give any hint in the begining as 
what would happen to lure the audience to do what s/he wanted them to show. And
if really some effects take place, there is just no way that only one single
pattern is displayed/shared by many people. Though I had some questions for 
Mr Yan, there was just no chance the audience could ask anything as he kept 
talking all the time (this impressed me though). I thought maybe he would have 
a question session at the end, but he just left IMMEADIATELY after his 
last word. C'mon, if you really wanted to promote something and charged people
for your promotion speech, I strongly think the audience deserve the right to
ask a few, if not many, questions which were not clear to them. After the 
lecture I did look for the satellite tramsmission equipment which was supposed 
to transmit the signals to Beijing, but found none there. I noticed a few
people came in in wheelchairs and left in the same way they entered the hall.
This didn't surprise me, because Mr Yan was mainly busy talking that his
Qi Gong is often done during social contact like dinner somewhere. He said
it cost $150 for one person in New York City to get a ticket to meet him in 
a dinner, during which he would cure their problems. Since UIUC is a small
place, the ticket only cost $80 for a dinner with him ( the dinner was on the
following day after that lecture ). There were some other claims from Master
Yan, which I think I would not spend time writing here. So in one word, he
said he could do a lot of things but failed to demonstrate a single one of them.
He was not what he claimed to be as far as I could tell. I don't mean to offend
those who really believe in Mr Yan, but I just tell what I felt about him.
In some postings, some people asked " how come these Ph.D's can be cheated
by Mr Yan " or questions like that. Well, I have to admit that I was one of
those who felt being cheated. But, if you read this far, you can see I was
just an honest Qi Gong lover who tried to be open-minded about other people
and had been taken advantage of by this Mr Yan. Consider the fact that I only
lost $10 admission fee and quickly made my own judgement about this "master"
after attending his lecture( thank God I do have a brian which can make some
decisions), I don't think it's fair you guys can make joke of my experience 
with Mr Yan. To be frank, I don't like people who make living by cheating
others ( if you don't feel cheated, that's fine. but I do feel that way ).

Ok, it's getting too long now and I think I have to stop here. Thank you for
reading and I hope this note is an informative contribution to the discussion
about Qi Gong and Mr Yan. I didn't post anything last time when the discussion
about Qi Gong and Mr Yan was on this group ( this is only my second posting
to this group with my very first one being posted more than one year ago when 
the Qin-Shan nuclear power plant in China went into operation). I felt I
should post this note this time since I was surprised to see the same thing is
coming back again. I don't worry about those who already had experience with 
Mr Yan, since if they believe in him, they will happily carry on with him and 
if they don't believe in him, as I don't now, they will not repeat the same 
mistake. Last week, when Mr Yan gave a lecture again in UIUC ( this time it was
free ), I didn't bother to spend any gas to drive there( though it was only two
miles away ). I thought there would not be any new discussions about Qi Gong 
and Mr Yan after last time. But, well, here we go again. The purpose of
my post is to let the new comers ( either new students or new net readers )
to share the experience. And of course, you make your mind up on your own after
reading all these postings including mine. 

Good luck everyone (including Mr Yan ) and I wish you all have a wonderful
year in 1993!


Yong-Qing Yang
Dept. of Nucl. Engi.
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urnana, Illinois, USA

P.S. My favourite type of Qi Gong is He-Xiang-Zhuang

P.P.S. If there are mistakes in my pinyin in the post, bear with me.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china,soc.culture.indian