The History of TCM Qigong

Most people think of TCM Qigong as sets of movements and clinical protocols for treating ill clients, but how did this come to be? Today I will share a short history of Qigong and how modern TCM Qigong came into being as well as new phenomenon in China related to clinical research and study of classical documents. In the subscription section I share a traditional piece of writing from the book Shang Qing Dao Lin She Sheng Lun, a TCM Yang Sheng document which combines Daoist and Medical ideas. Make sure to subscribe to see that and all my other great articles!!!

Understanding TCM Qigong: How it came to be.

In old times Qigong was not called Qigong, actually Qigong is a fairly modern name which came into popular use in the late 19^th century and became standard in the 1950s after the Chinese government standardized the practice for use in public health promotion.

In the old days Qigong went by many names according to the function of each practice.

These practices included:

• 导引 Dao Yin: leading and stretching, a type of therapeutic movement practice meant for opening the sinews to relieve tension,

• 闭气 Bi Qi: holding the breath, used for developing the oxygen capacity of the body, and developing the “Lower Dantian,”

• 吐纳 Tu Na: Spitting and Grasping, a method of drawing in the breath through the nose and letting out out by the mouth,

• 服气 Fu Qi: Eating the Breath, a method of specialized breathing used to fill the abdomen,

• 存想 Cun Xiang: visualization, many methods to develop Qi in specific parts of the body or become aware of the energy field outside the body,

• 行气 Xing Qi: moving the Qi, a method to move Qi around the body and treat illness.

• And other methods.

In the old days these methods were called 法 Fa and were considered as practices that people could do to make them more healthy which could also result in spiritual benefits.

They developed in Chinese Medicine, Daoism, and Buddhism all at the same time and each category has influenced the other.

Because I am an acupuncturist and have a family background in Chinese Medicine I will choose to talk about these methods instead of some religious ones (even though my grandfather always followed Daoism and did teach me a little meditation when I was young).

In Chinese Medicine our Qigong is about:

1: Treating illness:

Dao Yin especially is used to treat physical illness from shoulder pain to post stroke recovery and everything between. This is not the same as a daily routine of Qigong that you should do to protect your health, it consists of targeted individual practices designed to help specific illnesses.

This kind of Qigong is called 气功治疗发 Qi Gong Zhi Liao Fa/Qigong Treatment Method and can include stretching, posture holding, breath work, and mind work to:

• strengthen and tone the body,

• release tension,

• move and break blockages in the energy system,

• return circulation and improve energetic function,

• help improve the posture of bones, sinews and muscles,

• calm and improve nervous system function,

• and more.

2: Daily Health Preservation Qigong:

保健气功 Bao Jian Qigong/Health Preservation Qigong is designed to practice every day to improve strength, flexibility, circulation, vitality and emotional well-being, it usually consists of routines such as the Eight Silk Brocades, Five Animal Frolics, Sinew Changing Classic etc...

This practice is for people who are healthy or have mild chronic conditions which are well taken care of by a daily practice regimen.

So now we understand the two different approaches to TCM Qigong, let's talk about how this came to be...

In the old times the Qigong practices were categorized into something called 养生 Yang Sheng/Nourishing Health, a set of arts which can contain everything from diet to sleeping habits, stretching to toilet use and much more.

Yang Sheng is a big category and is so general that no one every really standardized it beyond a few Chinese Medicine texts which suggest many small arts people can use to be more healthy.

In modern times China changed very much from a largely rural to mostly urban country and during the difficult century between our first interactions with the West our best thinkers discussed, wrote and acted extensively to make China a country capable of competing against other modern powers (remember in that time of history colonialism was still very popular and Chinese people had to fight very hard to keep their status as an independent country).

Modern thinkers realized that in order for China to function well, our people must practice systematic modern science according to the scientific method.

Traditional Chinese science and philosophy is very powerful, but it is an indigenous worldview which works very well to explain the world to East Asian people, but maybe not as well in tasks like surviving in an international market economy or engaging in development of machine based technologies, biomedicine etc...

With the proliferation of modern scientific ideas, many people practicing traditional Chinese arts such as meditation, Buddhism, Medicine, the Martial Arts and Philosophy began to think that these ideas could benefit from modernization in the same way that government and agriculture did.

In those times there were many people who began to think about Qigong in relation to biomedical anatomy and physiology and even physics and materialist philosophy.

The time of the most development of these ideas on a philosophical and scientific level was during the Republic period from 1911-1949 when many important books about modern Qigong and Meditation were released by people like Zhao Bichen (also called Qian Feng Lao Ren), Jiang Weiqiao (a multi-talented meditation teacher who also studied physics, psychology and medicine) and others.

After the beginning of New China in 1949 the government began to be concerned about institution of public health legislation in order to make it so Chinese people could support themselves in the revolutionary environment.

It was in 1956 that the government began the first Qigong programs with the cooperation of Qigong master Liu Guizhen.

His story is that he was a low level political official who became very ill and was sent to his home village.

Everyone believed he would die, but it turned out his uncle was a great Buddhist Qigong master and he taught him family secret methods which he used to cure himself.

After he was healthy again he returned to Beijing and his government friends were impressed to see him in good health.

After finding out he had used Qigong to cure himself the government began to research and promote it.

Originally Qigong and Taiji Quan were promoted together as ways that people could stay healthy, but during the cultural revolution Liu Guizhen was criticized by the Red Guard and put in prison.

It was after the 1980s that Qigong saw its second blooming when the country opened up again.

At that time many Qigong masters such as Yang Meijun came out of the woodwork to promote their systems.

Most of the Qigong systems at that time were a combination of Daoist, Buddhist and Chinese Medicine methods put together as public health arts with some spiritual cultivation as well.

This was the time that two very important things happened:

1: Qigong was popularized outside of China:

much sharing of Qigong was advanced by the Chinese government and Qigong masters so the art began to spread to places like Taiwan, Japan and eventually the West.

2: Qigong became a standard research subject at Chinese Medical Universities:

Many Chinese Medicine universities began to research Qigong ad a viable means to treating patients with various health problems.

It was from this new popularity and research that Qigong began to gain credibility, become standardized and how its health benefits began to be better understood and proven to the world.

Because of this unique situation Qigong became very popular and there were many systems, but unfortunately because of the difficulties of the late 1980s and early 90s Qigong became taboo in China for a long time.

This means that at that time most people did not want to admit they practiced Qigong and so it became less popular while the Martial Arts became more popular.

Today Qigong in China is not a taboo subject anymore, but the government has moved responsibility of Qigong practice from the department of health to the department of sports, meaning that today there are only a few officially recognized Qigong routines and they are mostly done for physical athletic purposes rather than energy or spiritual cultivation.

Chinese Medicine still contains elements of Qigong, but there is a trend today of TCM experts choosing to go back to the ancient documents of TCM Yang Sheng to develop a stronger knowledge of the historical practice of treating illness with therapeutic movement and breath work.

From now on I will write articles mainly about these topics, review old texts and explain their meaning as well as providing context about many subtle details of Qigong not well understood outside of China.

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Now I would like to share with you some classic Qigong theory from Bao Puzi a doctor who was also a Daoist more than 1500 years ago.

This theory was very influential in the ancient Chinese understanding of the energy body and has close ties to the Yellow Emperor Internal Classic, the most important Chinese Medical Document.

“一人之身，一国之象也 。胸腹之犹 宫室也，四支之列 犹郊境也，骨 节之分 犹百官也，神 犹君也，血 犹臣也，气 犹民也，故能治民 则能固也。

The one human body is like the image of a country. The chest and abdomen are like the palace halls, the four limbs are like the outskirts, the bones and joints are like the hundred offices, the spirit is like the prince, the blood is like the advisors, the Qi is like the people, if you can govern the country it can be made stable.