by Bob Flaws

Maybe you already know this, but Blue Poppy Enterprises grew out of the Blue Poppy Qigong Assoc. started in Boulder in 1978. This was the first venue I know of in the U.S. teaching qigong outside of a martial arts context. Up till then, qigong was only taught in martial arts studios, dojos, and kwoons. So you learned qigong because you were learning tai ji or kung-fu. I first learned the Tai Ji Chi (Tai Ji Ruler) system of qigong from my friend Sifu Jerry Gardner who had learned it from Master B.P.han in NYC. Jerry ran a kung-fu dojo in Westminster, CO where he taught Wing Chun, Tai Ji, and Ba Gua. However, I wasn't interested in martial arts per se. As a massage therapist and acupuncture student at the time, I was looking for a system of energy development which would be useful to manual healers, and Jerry said he had just the thing. From that beginning, I then went on to learn other systems of qigong from Jerry, another friend, Lucjan Shila, and several Chinese teachers, always looking for and extracting those exercises which promoted health and healing.

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During the summers of 1979 and 1980, Lucjan and I ran two six-week intensives per summer for people interested in qigong but not particularly interested in martial arts. I mostly taught Tai Ji Ruler, a version of the Eight Pieces of Brocade, and a seated dao yin set. Lucjan mostly taight Tai Ji Quan and qigong exercises taken from Ba Gua, Xing Yi, and Tibetan White Crane. In addition, I ran daily 6 AM qigong classes and did weekend workshops for several years under the Blue Poppy name as well as at the Boulder School of Massage Therapy (now Boulder College of Massage Therapy). In fact, just for fun, you might want to see if you can find a number of early articles on qigong I published in Yoga Journal, Black Belt, and Inside Kung-fu.

Anyway, someone reminded me of all this on Facebook the other day and it got me thinking about qigong and the one-size-fits-all fallacy I wrote about on this blog a week or so ago. Similar to colon-cleansing and liver flushes, many people think of qigong as a panacea, sort of the "Qi gong -- it's good for what ails ya" mentality. However, in my experience, there are many different kinds of qigong: moving qigong (dong qi gong), still qigong (jing qi gong), inner qigong (nei [qi] gong), external qi gong (wai qi gong), martial arts qigong, Daoist qigong, and Buddhist qigong, just to name some of the main divisions, each with their own various substyles and lineages. So qigong is not one thing. It is a collection of many different practices which developed in China in many different areas, among many different ethnic and social groups, and at many different times for many different reasons. In fact, the term qigong is a relatively recent invention. Prior to the 20th century, most of what we now call qigong was called dao yin.

Because qigong is not a single thing, I believe it is important to be clear about one's motivation for doing qigong. Otherwise, one might pick the wrong kind of qigong for the purpose or purposes intended. From my experience, there are at least three main reasons for doing qigong: 1) spiritual development, 2) physical health and longevity, and 3) martial arts prowess; and not every style or system of qigong equally accomplishes each of these. Some styles may take a more spiritual approach, emphasizing enlightenment or at least mental quiescence and equipoise. Even within so-called spiritual styles of qigong, different of these may posit different spiritual outcomes or end states. For instance, the Buddhist idea of spiritual growth and attainment is not necessarily the same as the Daoist idea, and even within Buddhism itself, different sects posit different outcomes. (This alone is a huge area of discussion.)

Similarly, when it comes to promoting physical health and longevity, different people have different needs. For instance, young people may actually need strong, fast, powerful movements, while the elderly may be debilitated by these. In the same way, someone with a phlegm damp pattern of disharmony may need very different qigong from someone with a yin vacuity/vacuity heat pattern. In fact, qigong just right for the phlegm damp person may aggravate vacuity heat in the yin vacuous person. As for martial arts prowess and abilities, different styles of wu shu or kung-fu have their own integral styles of qigong. But, if you have zero interest in martial arts, then Xing Yi or Choy Le Fut qigong may not be the best choice.

All this means that, if you're going to do qigong, you need to be clear about the reasons for doing it. Once you're clear about your goals for practicing qigong, then you can consciously search for a style and teacher who can help you attain those specific goals. Like medicine, if the right qigong is powerful enough to lead to spiritual attainment, good health and longevity, and/or seemingly super-normal martial arts abilities, then the wrong qigong can potentially lead to spiritual problems, ill health, and other problems. In fact, in China, "qigong disease" is a well-known phenomenon, and I saw several cases when I was an intern at a Chinese medical hospital. Qigong disease is the result of the wrong person practicing the wrong qigong or practicing the "right" qigong in the wrong way. Qigong disease can consist of physical disease, such as hypertension, stroke, paralysis, heart palpitations, tics, and tremor or psychiatric disease, such as inability to concentrate, hyperactivity, hypersexuality, hallucinations, and insomnia. (You can read more about qigong disease in my book, Chinese Medical Psychiatry.) Therefore, just as one should seek out a good doctor if you're going to take medicine, one should seek out a well-trained, well-experienced qigong teacher who can diagnose what you need and thereby keep you healthy, happy, and well along the way. As the great American philosopher, Yogi Berra, said, "If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there."

Copyright Blue Poppy Press, 2009. All rights reserved.