Talk:Qigong/Archive 1

message: Thanks, I hadn't seen those. 
BTW, kudos to you and Roadrunner, the page is much easier to read.
Fire Star 23:25, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Dr. Phillips Stevens writes "Many of today's complementary or alternative systems of healing involve magical beliefs, manifesting ways of thinking based in principles of cosmology and causality that are timeless and absolutely universal. So similar are some of these principles among all human populations that some cognitive scientists have suggested that they are innate to the human species, and this suggestion is being strengthened by current scientific research....Some of the principles of magical beliefs described above are evident in currently popular belief systems. A clear example is homeopathy...The fundamental principle of its founder, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), similia similibus curentur ("let likes cure likes"), is an explicit expression of a magical principle."
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209.188.84.111 has put in a few edits promoting "Yan Xin Qigong," presumably a style he or she approves of. It is a relatively popular style, so I can see leaving references to it in, but this was borderline advertising. I put a greeting on 209.188.84.111's talk page with links to manuals of style, how to edit a page, etc. and reverted a few of the clumsier changes.
Fire Star 21:30, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Controversial Content and Merging the Criticism of Qi gong Article with the Present Article

message: Qigong is very complex, it is not only breathing, it's controlling the body, mind, getting in touch with your soul and (finally ?) enlightment. I'm sure it's not a complete list.
In which way does acupuncture, presopuncture or any other practice of TCM help somebody achieve this ?
--Vcozma 20:57, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is qigong a branch of TCM ? 

message: First examine what you must accept to believe that Qi Gong has medicinal powers. Users believe that if they stand in groups and perform slow motion martial arts katas in unison they gain the power to alter their reality. Some long-term users believe they possess superhuman or supernatural powers. 
The psychiatric effects of Qi Gong are real but the explanation of what is happening is incorrect. Qi is a construction of the human mind and exists only as human thought. (Kundalini Yoga has an even more elaborate belief system to explain the effects of the Awakening of Kundalini. In Qi Gong this is called 'opening the third eye.' It's the same simple phenomenon.)
When the katas are performed users are creating the "special circumstances" which were discovered to cause mental breaks for knowledge workers in the 1960's. The cubicle solved the problem in business offices. 
Yogis and Qi Gong Masters agree that the psychotic episodes happen when too many sessions are performed in a compact time frame. But those same experts claim that mysterious universal life forces are at work. 
Short-term intense exposure produces a 'first psychotic episode.' But when exposure to Subliminal Distraction is low level but persistent, permanent psychotic altered mental states are created. 
Example: Martial arts acolytes believe they can project qi from their fingertips and strike opponents knocking them down without touching them. 
Eyes-open concentration to meditate copies or replaces the slight dissociation necessary to perform knowledge work in a business office. Subliminally detected movement from others nearby substitutes for office staff walking close enough beside a concentrating worker to cause an attempt to create a peripheral vision reflex. 
The effect can be explained as Subliminal Accidental Operant Conditioning.
Visual Subliminal Distraction is not recognized in the United States. But it is stated as the reason Cubicle Level Protection is needed for at-risk knowledge workers in other countries, Australia. 
Qi Gong users are told to think of achieving general good health rather than a specific cure while they perform the exercise. When their brain misunderstands the repeating subliminal stimulation as reinforcement for those thoughts they are conditioned to believe they received a benefit. They may well get a real benefit. The effect of this phenomenon is unknown in the field of psychology.
There is no specific medical benefit from katas with names like White Crane, or Jade Dragon. The benefit is created though operant conditioning acting against the user's beliefs and contemporaneous thought. The only difference is the number of threat movement detection incidents a kata will produce due the nature of the movements in peripheral vision. 
Mental breaks caused by the phenomenon can be observed on Russian space missions, Soyuz 21/ Salut 5; the psychotic episodes caused by est; mental breaks on scientific expeditions (Belgian Polar Expedition 1898); and in many Culture Bound Syndromes (Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, Latah, Amok, iich’aa, Going Postal).
The physiology that allows exposure to the phenomenon can be demonstrated with a simple psychology experiment.
http://visionandpsychosis.net/a_demonstration_you_can_do.htm
Links to the current state of the art are on these pages. The ‘conflict to physiology’ is not mentioned on linked pages. No one in psychology is aware of the engineering and design discovery from the 1960’s. 
Designers and engineers who build 'Systems Furniture,' Cubicles are the only people who work with this problem. They do not connect their "nuisance design problem" with any other outcome or disorder. 
http://visionandpsychosis.net/Astronauts_Insanity.htm
http://visionandpsychosis.net/Culture_Bound_Syndromes.htm
http://visionandpsychosis.net/QiGong_Psychotic_Reaction_Diversion.htm
http://visionandpsychosis.net/EST_Werner_Erhard.htm
L K Tucker 68.19.34.74 03:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Qi Gong Explained 

message: The article states: 
"After years of debate, the Chinese government decided to officially manage qigong through government regulation in 1996 and has also listed qigong as part of their National Health Plan." 
First, this needs a citation. Second, I have heard of this, but i couldn't turn up any information just browsing online. Specifically, I've encountered various traditions of Qigong that claim they're style or form was accepted by the government as some sort of nationally-endorsed qigong, implying that their style is one of the most commonly practiced in China (e.g. Soaring Crane Qi Gong). Obviously, this is a pretty grandiose claim for any martial arts school to make, but if the practice is being nationally regulated that would imp[ly that there is some standardization of the practice. 
Any information on this standardization/regulation of qi gong in China would be greatly appreciated, both on a personal level as well as a beneficial addition to the article. Shaggorama 22:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regulation in china 

message: As of April, 2006, the article claims that "Qi means breath...gong means work...Qigong is then 'breath work'...." This is a misreading of 气功(simple form) 氣功(full form) as though instead it were 气工(simple form) 氣工(full form). The same mistake is occasionally found in Chinese. The character 功(gōng) of 气功(simple form) 氣功(full form) is a combination 工(gōng "work") and 力(lì "strength") and means "achievement" or "skill" as in 成功(chénggōng "succeed") and 功力(gōnglì "craftsmanship"). A better English equivalent would be "breathing skills," although there are citations such as 常用体育词汇中英文对照 that call it "breathing exercises." Before spiraling onward with interpretation of 气(simple form) 氣(full form, Qì) as "spirit" it would be helpful to note common associations in 嗳气(simple form) 噯氣 (full form, ǎiqì "belch") and 放气(simple form) 放氣(full form, fàngqì "pass gas").
Craig Bolon 15:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What you say makes sense, and I support including the above info in the article. --Fire Star 01:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: About translation of "qigong" from Chinese to English

message: Isn't Qigong the same as chi kung? And isn't chi kung a part of Tai Chi?
* Yes. Yes and no: it is an essential part of genuine Tai Chi Chuan training, but it can be (and is) practiced as a stand-alone Art. Boris SDC 11:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chi Kung 

message: There are a few questionable links at the end of the article.  Most notably, the links in the final section ("Qi Gong Routines and Further Reading") do not conform to correct style, are misleading, and are clearly an example of commercial self-promotion.  Second, the link to CSICOP doesn't seem relevant since the link points to the main CSICOP website, and not material related to qigong.  I am deleting the aforementioned commercial links and replacing the general CSICOP link with a link to search results for the word Qigong at that site.
Soft helion 23:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Links

message: The dispute over at Falun Gong has spilled over to this article now. Falun gong is notable, they use overtly Buddhist and Taoist terminology, and their founder also claims (or claimed) to teach a style of qigong. Removing info they seem to feel is embarassing is part of a larger pattern of FLG editors have been engaged in across the spectrum of their articles. For now, I have reverted their removal. See http://www.faluncanada.net/library/english/sydney/xini_e.html for confirmation. --Fire Star 火星 15:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: FLG doesn't use 5 qigong exercises? Li doesn't say they are a "Buddha school" in Zhuan Falun and many lectures and interviews? Whether I'm nice or not (which you shouldn't speculate on, see WP:NPA) this stuff is all through Li's books and lectures and FLG is certainly notable enough to be mentioned in this article, as they advertise themselves as better than any other qigong. Why isn't a transcript of one of Li's lectures a valid source (from a sympathetic website no less) for a Wikipedia article mentioning what he teaches? Would you rather I put in Rick Ross and James Randi? I'm willing to discuss the wording, but the info stays in. --Fire Star 火星 23:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FLG editors removing material from this article 

message: What does "resp" mean in
P0M 03:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please help fix the English 

message: First, the view that humans and nature are inseparable is not restricted to qigong, nor is it solely in the province of Daoist thought. 天人合一 is an idea that goes back to Han dynasty (?) Confucianism. 
Second, the part about "cultivating virtue" is messed up.  If you are talking about Confucianism, then Mencius said something about the idea around 350 B.C., but what he said was that qi is augmented by the consistent practice of acts that exercise one's four ethical drives, 仁,義,禮,智 (empathy with conspecifics, sense of duty, i.e., pulling your own weight, sense of propriety i.e. the ability to ritualize problematic social situations to avoid trouble, and the wisdom to see who is right and who is wrong in third-party social situations).  If you are talking about Daoism, the 德 (virtue) is generally explained by its homonym 得 (acquire, i.e., get something from the Dao).  That Dao De Jing doesn't really talk about "cultivating virtue" in any way that would be consistent with what people in the West would understand by that idea.  For the Daoists it is true that, "cultivating virtue" is primarily ridding oneself of the blinders of one's social conditioning, getting back to the "Uncarved Block" or getting back to totally unbiased perception of what is there. But I think one has to read between the lines in that text. Telling the reader to "see the Tao Te Ching" is not going to be helpful. At the very least the reader needs chapter and verse.  
The part about acquiring virtue (in the above sense) being "a process made possible with the energy made available to the qigong students after they sincerely choose and implement what they are taught as positive lifestyle choices" is highly misleading to say the least.  Any mention of "positive lifestyle choices" has been so totally dominated by the religious right that most people will read it to mean something like being a good Confucian, not steping on door frames, wearing the right kind of hat, obeying etiquette rules, etc., etc. I really can't guess what the writer was driving at, so it is hard to know how to fix this part.  My understanding is that the way to get back to the uncarved block is through deep relaxation, laying aside subjective motivations, laying aside fear of feeling or believing the "wrong" thing, etc. To this end, qigong practice might be of benefit but only in that it involves learning the mechanics of deep relaxation. The parts of qigong that are directed to better physical mobilization of one's energies are largely irrelevant. 
What does the writer mean by "specific qigong techniques for ameliorating the effects of previous choices seen as less virtuous"?  What are the things that keep people from the uncarved block? They are essentially what we call prejudices--or at the very least preconceptions.  If this is what the writer has in mind then the article ought to come out and say it. As it is it sounds like it is an assertion that one ought to feel some (purely self interested?) remorse for previous activities done contrary to the Dao, and then go about cleaning the results of these bad or counterproductive deeds up.  Practically speaking, what is the student really supposed to do? From what is written I haven't the foggiest notion.  Are there specific qigong techniques for ameliorating previous racist rants, previous lynchings, previous assaults on fellow villagers for praying the wrong way to the god of the hearth?  The only thing I can think of that would make sense to me would be just using the basic tool of deep relaxation (meditation) to get rid of one's hangups and prejudices, then to see the world in a less distorted (deluded, maya) way, and then to do what is needed to get done what one previously tried to do in a dysfunctional way.  
What does karma have to do with traditional qigong? Cause and effect has a great deal to do with qigong. But if you are a Daoist you don't doubt the reality of the universe you find yourself in. You doubt that you are seeing what is really there and you suspect that you are messing up by reacting to what you think is going on instead of what is really happening. "Kill the witch!" instead of "Get that psychotic person some medication!"  "Karma mending" makes sense if you believe that the Universe you experience is the causal result of previous intentional acts (karma). If "you"  have done bad karma in the past then "you" in the present are experiencing a situation in the world that is appropriate to the bad karma "you" did. What is qigong going to do about the situation? Nothing except as qigong is yet another meditative technique for allowing you to "see through" the apparent reality of this world to whatever is really there. The idea of karma does not explain what is in need of "ameliorization." It just asserts that you are in a bad way in the present because of bad karma (bad intentional acts) done in the past.  
Is the assertion that there are specific qigong techniques to use to "undo" past karma, past intentional acts? To assert that would be to claim that there are specific qigong techniques to undo past hurtful lies told, past false witness given... People that got executed because somebody lied are not going to come back to life because of the performance of some qigong exercises. P0M 04:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A multiply fuzzy passage. 

message: Shamanic?  Early? Both of these terms are imprecise to the point of being meaningless.
The practices described in this passage are those of spirit possession, not of shamanism.  
Why "early shamanic aspects"? Is the shamanism "early"? Or is it that early on qigong had "shamanic aspects"? 
Religious Daoism got involved with lots of spirit possession kinds of things I guess, but that was something that is not even reported in the Dao De Jing or the Zhuang Zi as far as I can remember.  We don't have a very clear record of the spiritual practices that might be called shamanic in early China because the earliest informative material is in the Chu Ci (Songs of the South). That stuff is (1) late (i.e., 350 BC when we should like 1000 BC), (2) already contaminated by Confucianism, and (3) a literary product based on the native religious practices presumably still going on in southern China at the time the book was written/collected.  Even so, what the Chu Ci reveals is something very much like the shamanism that Eliade describes so well in his long book on the subject. It involves nothing like "spirit possession."  That stuff comes later, apparently.  
The true "early shamanic aspects" of Chinese culture are completely benign as far as I can see. In fact, daoism seems to have evolved out of this early shamanism by adapting its religious techniques to the tasks of "de-programming" people infected with the cultural "virus" of Confucianism. It's the later stuff that should be regarded as problematical (unless you believe that there were gods in China busy taking people over to voice their demands, and that these gods were for some reason so parochial that they never bothered to bestow their attentions on people of other parts of the world, and that they were good gods).  
Is there a "scientific" term for the kind of "being ridden" that is reported on "voodoo"?  Is there a value neutral term for "spirit possession"?  Ordinarily people in our culture send for the exorcist as soon as phenomena of this kind are reported. Anyway, the article needs some term other than "shamanism". American Indian shamans are some of the least likely people to require government suppression of anybody I know. P0M 04:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A serious misnomer 

message: The ending says:
I suspect that this passage is intended to deal with a movement that has gained great notoriety in recent years. I believe that this article shouls say up-front that it is a treatment of the history and development of traditional qigong. 
I removed the second sentence because it only repeats, as an odd final word, something that is peripheral to the subject at hand.  I sugges that the entire quoted section be deleted. P0M 04:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avoid a pointless fight 

message: There are currently more than 3,300 different styles and schools of qigong.[citation needed] Qigong relies on the traditional Chinese belief that the body has something that might be described as an "energy field" generated and maintained by the natural respiration of the body, known as qi (this is analogous to Prana and Pranayama in Yoga). Qi means breath or gas in Chinese, and, by extension, the energy produced by breathing that keeps us alive; gong means work applied to a discipline or the resultant level of technique. Qigong is then "breath work" or the art of managing one's breathing in order to achieve and maintain good health, and (especially in the martial arts) to enhance the energy mobilization and stamina of the body in coordination with the physical process of respiration.
As someone who began martial arts training in early 1963 and in a style that put a fair amount of emphasis on what I would call qi rather than on well-marbled beef, the paragraph quoted above seems bound to mislead the general reader.  First of all, speaking of "natural respiration" suggests to the Western reader the ordinary ideas we grew up with, ideas that include a belief in the need to absorb oxygen by inhaling outside air.  Some of the things that I have read in Sond dynasty philosophical texts suggest that their view was that the body itself produces qi and then we exhale it as needed.  It is a Western idea that says the intake of oxygen is part of a process of metabolism that frees energy for the body's use. So, as is frequently the case, we who live on the opposite side of the world have everything upside down.  The easy acceptance of modern scientific ideas as ancient martial arts or qigong ideas is a minor gripe. It's the other part of this paragraph that makes me most dissatisfied.
Supposedly, qigong is "managing one's breathing in order to ... enhance the energy mobilization and stamina of the body in coordination with the physical process of respiration." Structurally the sentence is pretty weak so I'm not sure what is supposed to connect strongly with what. Le't pick it apart. The person who practices qigong is going to "manage" his/her breathing in order to enhance energy mobilization." Where is this "energy" and how does it get "mobilized?"  Is this energy just qi? How does one "mobilize qi?" Actually I think something like this "mobilization of energy" can happen in martial arts on a couple of levels. One level is the body's learned ability to turn longer-storage energy sources (glycogen) into instant-access energy sources (glucose) on an accelerated basis when a life-and-death situation in encountered. Most people do not have enough experience with intense challenges to get their bodies to learn how to do this kind of thing.  The other level involves the body's ability to make all muscle fibers actualing an arm, leg, or other body part contract at the same time. (Ordinarily humans do this only under extreme circumstances, e.g., a teenage boy may manifest enough strenth to life a golf cart off his father's unconscious body even though under ordinary circumstances he could not lift half that weight.)  So we're supposed to do this by managing breathing in coordination with the process of respiration? That's what the text says.  Then there is the part about stamina. Stamina is something that one can train for. How is breathing management supposed to enhance one's stamina other than by making energy available in a more timely way? 
The passage give the picture of someone doing breathing exercises and then having that work give a payoff in situations where energy and stamina are needed. 
Maybe part of the problem is that the first sentence is structurally unsound.  Maybe the first sentence is trying to say that one manages one's breathing so that it coordinates with (not the "physical process of respiration" but) efforts to move the body in ways that are equally carefully managed.  
One beginner's mistake that may affect long-time students is to forget to breath.  If one does not breath adequately one quickly runs out of breath. So one is always being instructed to coordinate one's breathing with one's actions. Besides keeping the body adequate supplied with oxygen in a fairly automatic way, breathing in coordination with body movements is desirable because a strong exhalation strengthens punches, kicks, etc.  But the coordination effort does not end with that accomplishment.  Inhaling changes the configuraiton of the chest and abdomen. It affects the ways that muscles attached to the rib cage will operate. It affects the mobilizaiton of the hips in kicking. So what we started looking at as "breath control" ends up being whole-body control, whole-body coordination, whole-body harmony, and, finally, mind-body harmony. Doing a movement with this degree of coordination is the polar opposite of mechanically breathing in some pre-established way, and so many things are going on in one's body that it would be very difficult to gain and maintain conscious awareness of all that is involved. (It would probably be counter-productive for one's fighting ability too.)  
The end result is that one is doing nothing that is working against oneself. The effects of large muscles and hasty actions can make a person his own set of physical restraints. 
I wish I could describe this idea better. Somebody must have written about it. Aikidoka perhaps? P0M 05:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:   A misleading paragraph 

message: Suffered means the association with falun gong has had a negative effect. That is true. On a recent trip to China to study, two of my neighbors who are qigong practitioners were informed they were not allowed to practice Qigong outside several times. This is a direct suppression of anything resembling Falun Gong practices. Just saying Qigong has become associated with religous movements doesnt tell us how this association may have affected qigong's image as a whole in the PRC. VanTucky 18:01, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what you mean. That is too bad, because the times I've been to the mainland you could see lots of people doing qigong outside in the mornings. It would be nice if we could get a link to a PRC publication or press release since the crackdown condemning qigong generally, not just FLG. I wish there was a way I could nicely work in that Li Hongzhi manufactures exclusivity for his practise by condemning other styles of qigong in his books and lectures (which is what I thought the statement originally referred to), but I don't think it is possible for a Wikipedia editor to do so. We'd need a secondary source for that sort of thing. Cheers, --Fire Star 火星 22:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

text: There are three distinct types of Qigong: medical, martial, and religious. I didn't actually write that paragraph, and I'm not opposed to revising it. I think Falun Gong should only be mentioned as an example of religious qigong (attributing that characterization to its own leaders and members), and that I agree with the spirit of what you're saying (render unto Caesar and so forth). But an encyclopedic treatment of the fact that religious qigong is controversial and has at times been marginalized is certainly in order. On a more practical note, the links now used are not properly formatted references per WP:CITE. I'll try and fix those shortly, and check to ensure that they really support the statements. VanTucky Talk 00:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can give you some reliable refs for that delineation if you like, but it's not hard and fast. It really only becomes evident in examples: FLG being one that focuses pretty much exclusively on moral and religious cultivation, Iron Palm or Iron Shirt being almost exclusively focused on developing martial ability, and Eight Pieces of Brocade or the Yi Jin Jing on health concerns. The confusion arises because the practice of something like Iron Shirt qigong can end up improving general health, and nearly all health qigong practices being used occasionally in correlation with martial arts. VanTucky Talk 23:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

text: We don't want to criticise Li Hongzhi, we want to report what he has said and let others have the chance to decide what he is doing. Your slipping in Li's religious perspective "only the lowest level for healing and fitness" on the side is using a fabricated classification of qigong types that is from Li's religious writings. --Bradeos Graphon 21:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When you say "your" whom are you referring to? If you think that I'm using a falun gong classification in anything, you would be wrong. I personally don't read falun gong literature because its racist, homophobic quackery. Again, I'd be happy to provide very reliable references to non-falun gong qigong teachers/authors who make those distinctions. VanTucky Talk 23:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Sincere intentions are not something that require proof. On Wikipedia we assume good faith. What I think about falun gong has no bearing on what should or should not be included in an encyclopedia. I'm not going to go through all your points, but I will say that multiple reliable published sources refer to falun gong as a religious movement, and thus it is a correct characterization. VanTucky Talk 19:57, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  falun gong connection 

message: What computer and what browser are you (Ideogram) using? I've looked at the page with an IBM running Mozilla, and with a Mac using both Oasis and an antique copy of Netscape. I see no problem. If there is a problem, then you may be able to find some work-around so that it looks o.k. on your computer too.  
I think you may find that attachment to personalities in counter-productive in the Wikipedia environment. Attacking people in edit summaries is counter-productive. Using words with strong emotional connotations like "crap" is counter-productive. Your comments were removed as uncivil by another editor. Since eiher the system has failed to update itself properly, or somebody had reintroduced them, I will answer them while removing the flames. It would have been better if you had brought up the details of the formatting problem instead of indulging in invective. Let's deal with the formatting problem. P0M 15:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture formatting problem 

message: I have a few questions to you all. What is the difference between ch-gong systems that stem from either the Zen or Taoist traditions? I know in some cases there are even mixtures of both. Also, can anyone explain, once and for all what the difference between Chi-Gong and Tai-Chi is?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.80.43.11 (talk) 07:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  What about Chi-Gong in motion vs a much more still from of Chi-Gong?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.80.43.11 (talk) 05:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Types of Chi-Gong 

message: In the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.230.147.97 (talk) 23:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weasel words... 

message: Substituted at 21:57, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment