Qi Gong - the Chinese Yoga

The popularity of Indian Yoga in the west never ceases to amaze me. It seems like everyone and their mother goes to a Yoga class sometimes. But what also amazes me is that hardly anyone has heard of Yoga's Chinese relative Qi Gong. Like Yoga, Qi Gong is largely based on the combination of breath control with stretching exercises. It is a set of physical exercises combined with concentration training which is considered to be a primarily holistic and spiritual discipline. And like Yoga the art of Qi Gong (or Chi Kung), meaning energy cultivation, is reputed to be able to dramatically extend the lifespan of advanced practitioners, as well as increasing a persons levels of health, vitality and psychological wellbeing. In its early stages one of the main purposes of Qi Gong is to strengthen the connection between mind and body. Once again in common with Yoga Qi Gong exercise routines can be tailored to specific purposes and in China this process is often used to heal specific ailments. Qi Gong can be used to cultivate the internal energy called Qi, or Chi, or at a higher level it can be used to cultivate 'shen', which is literally translated as mind but refers to mind in the Buddhist sense of pure mind which is actually closer to our concept of spirit than to eberyday consciousness. The main manner in which Qi Gong differs from Yoga is that it contains much more movement, with an amphasis and focus on harmony of movement rather than the still poses which predominate in Yoga. The cultivation and direction of internal qi/chi energy ithrough Qi Gong exercises is often used in Chinese martial arts to add power to strikes and throws, to enable the practitioner to withstand powerful attacks without injury, and other more esoteric purposes. In fact, the history of this Chinese Yoga is inextricably linked to the history of Kung Fu, the Chinese martial art.