Qi gong in short
Breathing for the treatment of the body: how such a basic gesture can do this? Of course everyone knows how stressful rhythms of life can make our breathing tense and shallow with obvious consequences on our body. Qi gong practice takes you back to the roots of your existence, re-educating your body to breathe properly in order to re-establish correct equilibrium.
What does Qi Gong mean?
Qi gong气功 (pronounced “chi kun” – erroneously written “chi kung”) is an ancient practice handed down through the centuries, considered the foundation for disease prevention and global body strengthening through a series of slow and harmonious postures that bring vigor and well-being to all organs. Qi gong literally means “work of Qi, or simply breathing”. Qi is the vital energy that gives us life and can be intended as “breathing” to better understand it. Through this “deep work of breathing”, as the words say, oxygenation and blood flow is given to all of the body in a more regular and directional way.
Origins of Qigong
Originally brought by Indian heritage to Shaolin temple, it has been used for more than 1500 years by monks as a way to make their body stronger and not limited to this. As a matter of fact, there are many different Qi gong routines: basic ones are used for health-based benefits, whereas advanced ones (Shaolin Hard-Qi gong) have extraordinary advantages in terms of making body stronger and less sensitive to physical pain.
Qi gong meets Martial Arts
As a consequence of these benefits, Shaolin monks decided to include this routine as their basic warm-down practice after each training; results were amazing: they felt less exhausted every day, their ability to cope with physical pain just doubled, they could prevent sickness and last but not least they could perform things that science still finds hard to explain, like standing upside-down on one finger (as seen performed by Shi Hai Dang, an aged Shaolin monk, now the only one able to perform this ancient one-finger meditation).
A fascinating, mysterious practice
Let’s face it: we live in a society where Science and Physics are given far too much credit for trying to give us explanations to all things surrounding us. After Galileo Galilei‘s scientific method was considered the only way for people all round the world to prove their theories (1611), today’s society still finds hard to accept in primis everything that doesn’t “pass the test”. Although Galileo‘s scientific method is certainly valid for countless events, we don’t have to forget that Life is beautiful for its mysterious side too, and that one of the typical features of humankind is to try to explain everything, going beyond the mere action of “being curious”. Therefore we should learn to just enjoy Life and its mysteries, keeping in mind that there are still many things in our body waiting for answers: Qi gong is the best way to discover this fascinating world.
