More about qi

Qi (ki in Japan, prana in India) can be seen as the animating force in all life and the universe. At the cellular level, we could say that the ‘energy’ that animates our bodies comes from adenosine-triphosphate (ATP), the molecule created when glucose breaks down in the body. The energy contained in glucose is not used directly by our bodies, but is captured into the terminal phosphate bonds of the nucleic acid molecule ATP. Those phosphate bonds are unstable and easily broken, like a coiled spring of potential energy. As ATP breaks down in reaction with water, our cells use enzymes to transfer its free phosphate groups to other molecules, which power them up to do the activity that keeps us alive:

Without ATP, molecules cannot be made or degraded, cells cannot transport substances across their membrane boundaries, muscles cannot shorten to tug on other structures, and all life processes cease. [1]

Yet the word ‘breath’ comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning that which is not of the material body. The translation of qi as both energy and breath implies that the life force has a physiological and a spiritual or consciousness component. It also implies that the physiological itself has consciousness.

As universal energy, there are three overarching kinds of qi[2]:

Heaven qi, Tian qi:
This is the qi of the sky or universe, and its influence on the earth through sunlight, moonlight, and tides.

Earth qi, Di qi:
The energy of all earthly life and manifestation, which is influenced by Heaven qi.

Human qi, Ren qi:
Our own human energy which is influenced by both Heaven and Earth qi. Within this, we each have our own individual qi ‘field’.

All qi seeks to balance itself, just as earth’s ecosystems do, and Qigong helps this balancing process.

There are considered to be seven additional major types of qi, coming from different sources:

Breath or air – zong qi

Food – gu qi

A combination of the above – ying qi (‘nutritive’ qi)

Original, inherited from parents – yuan qi

Internal – nei (inside the body)

External – wai (emanating from the body to the outside)

Protective – wei

Qigong practise is considered to produce and regulate the flow of wei qi, through the effects of relaxed and efficient breathing. Wei qi is said to flow just underneath the surface of the skin, allowing healing energies to penetrate the body but protecting it from harmful ones, including pathogens.

The premise of qigong is that qi is responsive, and we can develop our ability to guide it. This is expressed in the Chinese saying ‘use the wisdom-mind (yi) to lead the qi’. It is considered that our primary reservoir of qi is located within the body in the area between the navel and the pubic bone: the Dan tian (elixir field). There are three such fields in the body: lower, middle and upper, each having a different character of qi, but when “the dan tian” is unspecified it refers to the lower field. Qigong progressively leads us through these fields or centres of energy.

As Bruce Frantzis puts it,

Feeling the energy of your body makes it possible for you to understand the energy of your thoughts and emotions, and this leads to comprehending the energy of the spirit. From here is possible to fully understand the energy of meditation or emptiness’[3]

Kenneth Cohen[4] writes that the lower dan tian

is like the root of the tree of life. If a tree’s roots are in good soil, then it will grow. If we neglect the roots and only prune the branches, the tree will die. Or if we try to build a temple too quick or too high – working with the upper dan tian before the lower – then the temple will topple over. This is why Qigong emphasises the primacy of rooted standing, breathing, and body awareness.’

And perhaps it is also why the saying goes ‘yi shou dan tian’: ‘the wisdom-mind is kept at the (lower) dan tian’, a fundamental instruction for all martial artists and Qigong practitioners.

My teachers stressed the importance of allowing unforced and open breath, which brings a clearing of the mind, as a way to stimulate a clear qi flow through all the body’s meridians. When we do qigong correctly, this begins to happen naturally. With experience, a practitioner of qigong can use the mind-intent yi to release blockages in this flow.

The roots of Qigong and Tai Chi are in Daoism, which holds that human beings contain “three treasures”:

The Three Treasures

Jing: sperm/ovary energy, or ‘essence’, associated with the lower dan tian,

Qi: energy, including thoughts and emotions, associated with the middle dan tian

Shen: spirit, and spiritual power, associated with the upper dan tian and cultivated through meditation.

The state of wu, which literally translates as ‘does not exist’[5], is often translated in the West as ‘emptiness’. It is similar to the relaxed, unforced state one can reach in meditation where there is a sense of wonderfully spacious, easeful clarity. In Daoism, it is here that the three treasures come into being and can be unified.[6] Qigong brings about this union in a state of relaxed, tranquil alertness; it is sometimes called being in ‘Qigong mode’.

What defines Qigong and Tai Chi is the deliberately regulated combination of mind-intent (engaging the wisdom-mind), movement, and breathing into one integral practice.

Mind-intent does not mean ‘conceptual thought’, but rather the awareness of what our body is experiencing. This kind of somatic awareness is manifold and involves several faculties:

the kinesthetic sensations of the whole body moving through space; the flow of breath and blood and other visceral sensations [interoception]; the experience of balance, orientation, and posture [proprioception]; and the felt sense of space.[7]

[1] Marieb, E. and Hoehn, K. (2010), ‘Human Anatomy & Physiology’, 8^th Edition, San Francisco, Pearson Education Inc., p56

[2] Yang, Jwing-Ming (1997), p2-3

[3] Frantzis, Bruce (2006), ‘Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body’, Berkeley, California, North Atlantic Books, p25.

[4] Cohen, K. (1997), ‘The Way of Qigong, The Art and Science of Energy Healing’ New York, Ballantine Books, Random House, pp35-36

[5] Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy online https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism, (first published Wed Feb 19, 2003; substantive revision Thu Jun 28, 2007), 9.4: Wei and Wu-wei, Deeming Action and Non-Deeming Action.

[6] Frantzis, Bruce (2006), p25.

[7] Payne, P. and Crane-Godreau, M., ‘Meditative Movement for Depression and Anxiety’, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2013; 4:71, PMC 3721087. Published online July 24 2013, doi 10:3389/fpsyt.2013.00071.

The Dan Tian – why it’s important

It is considered that our primary reservoir of qi is located within the body in the area between the navel and the pubic bone: the Dan tian (elixir field). There are three such fields in the body: lower, middle and upper, each having a different character of qi, but when “the dan tian” is unspecified it refers to the lower field. Over time, Qigong progressively leads us through these fields or centres of energy.

As Bruce Frantzis puts it,

Feeling the energy of your body makes it possible for you to understand the energy of your thoughts and emotions, and this leads to comprehending the energy of the spirit. From here is possible to fully understand the energy of meditation or emptiness’[1]

Kenneth Cohen[2] writes that the lower dan tian

is like the root of the tree of life. If a tree’s roots are in good soil, then it will grow. If we neglect the roots and only prune the branches, the tree will die. Or if we try to build a temple too quick or too high – working with the upper dan tian before the lower – then the temple will topple over. This is why Qigong emphasises the primacy of rooted standing, breathing, and body awareness.’

And perhaps it is also why the saying goes ‘yi shou dan tian’: ‘the wisdom-mind is kept at the (lower) dan tian’, a fundamental instruction for all martial artists and Qigong practitioners.

[1] Frantzis, Bruce (2006), ‘Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body’, Berkeley, California, North Atlantic Books, p25.

[2] Cohen, K. (1997), ‘The Way of Qigong, The Art and Science of Energy Healing’ New York, Ballantine Books, Random House, pp35-36

‘The Three Treasures’

The roots of Qigong and Tai Chi Chuan are in Daoism, an ancient belief system which holds that human beings contain “three treasures”:

The Three Treasures

Jing: sperm/ovary energy, or ‘essence’, associated with the lower dan tian,

Qi: energy, including thoughts and emotions, associated with the middle dan tian

Shen: spirit, and spiritual power, associated with the upper dan tian and cultivated through meditation.

The state of wu, which literally translates as ‘does not exist’[1], is often translated in the West as ‘emptiness’. It is similar to the relaxed, unforced state one can reach in meditation where there is a sense of wonderfully spacious, easeful clarity. In Daoism, it is here that the three treasures come into being and can be unified.[2] Qigong brings about this union in a state of relaxed, tranquil alertness; it is sometimes called being in ‘Qigong mode’.

[1] Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy online https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism, (first published Wed Feb 19, 2003; substantive revision Thu Jun 28, 2007), 9.4: Wei and Wu-wei, Deeming Action and Non-Deeming Action.

[2] Frantzis, Bruce (2006), p25.

A scientific perspective on qi and meridians: the connective tissue link

In the last 15 years or so, studies have been conducted revealing a correlation between the planes of connective tissue (fascia) in the human body, and what Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has for over thousands of years known as jingluò, or meridians.[1]

Our bodies are held together by a weave of connective tissue, sometimes referred to as the extracellular matrix or ECM. It takes many forms in the body; its hardest manifestation is in bone, and at the other end of the scale is our soft tissue. The word ‘fascia’ refers to this soft tissue, which permeates our entire structure, forming

a whole body continuous 3D matrix of structural support. It penetrates and surrounds all of the body’s vital organs, muscles, bones, and nerve fibres, creating a unique physiological environment.[2]

This environment supports all our body’s metabolic processes, and conducts signals between systems in the body.

In 2002 Hélène Langevin and Jason Yandow published their scientifically controlled study[3] of the relationship between acupuncture points (and meridians) with planes of interstitial connective tissue: the tissue that makes up the spaces between our muscles, or between a muscle and bone or tendon.

By mapping acupuncture points onto anatomical cross-sections of a human arm, they found ‘an 80% correspondence between the sites of acupuncture points and intermuscular and intramuscular connective tissue planes’.[4]

As the authors explain, in acupuncture 12 primary meridians (consisting of externally located points) are said to connect the limbs with the trunk and head, with accessory and internal branches that start at peripheral points along these primary meridians and enter deeply inside the body to reach internal organs. This is exactly what the fascial network also does. Connective tissue does not just exist around and within muscles, but is continuous with many different kinds of specialised connective tissue in the body, including the lining of our brain, spinal cord, and lungs; it “permeates all organs and surrounds all nerves, blood vessels, and lymphatics.”[5]

Langevin and Yandow found that

during acupuncture needle rotation, connective tissue winds itself around the acupuncture needle, creating a tight mechanical coupling between needle and tissue [which] allows further movements of the needle to pull and deform the connective tissue surrounding the needle, delivering a mechanical signal into the tissue.[6]

As the authors go on to explain, this is important because mechanical signal transmission in connective tissue affects the information our cells receive. The body can convert a signal that starts out as mechanical into one that is bioelectrical or biochemical, and all these transmissions have knock-on effects in cell activity, even changing the composition of connective tissue itself – which in turn affects the way cells in this tissue can transmit future signals.

Langevin and Yandow’s proposition that ‘acupunture points may correspond to sites of convergence in a network of connective tissue permeating the whole body, analogous to highway intersections in a network of primary and secondary roads’[7] leads them to suggest further anatomical and physiological translations of key concepts in Traditional Chinese Medicine, shared by Qigong and acupuncture[8]:

Meridians: connective tissue planes

Acupuncture points: convergence of connective tissue planes

Qi: Sum of all body energetic phenomena (eg metabolism, movement, signaling, information exchange)

Meridian qi: connective tissue biochemical, information exchange

Blockage of qi: Altered connective tissue matrix composition, leading to altered signal transduction.

Restoration of flow of qi: Cellular activation/gene expression leading to restored connective tissue matrix composition and signal transduction.

Like acupuncture and acupressure, part of the aim with the movements of Qigong is to gradually free any blockages in the flow of energy through the meridians, which is seen as the prerequisite not only for healing of illness, but also for maintaining good health. Slowly moving and holding the limbs and the trunk in particular positions with meditative attention, while breathing in a relaxed and open way, would also stimulate the connective tissue. While this is not proven, it will be interesting to see how new research evolves into connective tissue behaviour and its role in Qigong.

[1] See Yu Bai et al, ‘Review of Evidence Suggesting That the Fascia Network Could Be the Anatomical Basis for Acupoints and Meridians in the Human Body’, p3, in ‘Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Volume 2011, Article ID 260510. Vivien Shaw has anatomically investigated vascular structures as the pathway of meridians: Shaw, V., ‘Chong Meridian an Ancient Chinese Description of the Vascular System?’, British Medical Journal, Acupunct Med 2014; 32:279-285.

[2] Ibid, p3.

[3] Langevin, Hélene, and Yandow, Jason, 2002, ‘Relationship of Acupuncture Points and Meridians to Connective Tissue Planes’, The Anatomical Record (New Anat), 269:257-265. DOI 10.1002/ar.10185

[4] Ibid, p257.

[5] Ibid, p 263.

[6] Ibid, p259.

[7] Ibid, 264.

[8] Ibid, Table 1 Summary of Proposed Model of Physiological Effects Seen in Acupuncture

Origins of Qigong

Qigong has had many names over the course of history. Tu ga na xin, meaning ‘expelling the old energy, drawing in the new’ and dao-yin, meaning ‘leading and guiding the energy’ are two of the earliest, but they all reflect the importance of a flowing, unobstructed internal life force to optimal health.

The Spring and Autumn Annals (c.200BC) reports that during the reign of a Mythical Emperor Yao who lived c.2,000 BC, flooding had caused congestion and stagnation in the land and its inhabitants. Catherine Despeux translates[1]:

“The ways of water were broken and obstructed, so that the flow was bad from the very sources. For the same reason, when the breath or energy of the individual is congested and stagnant, the muscles and bones are contracted and don’t flex well. One therefore prescribes certain dances which guide the breath and ensure that it moves throughout the body in a harmonious fashion.”

Archeological and textual evidence links earlier forms of qigong exercises (dao-yin), with ancient shamanic animal dances recorded in rock art[2], and there are some core aspects that early forms of qigong share with shamanism: acute observation of nature and animals, and the filtering from these observations of certain core principles from which all living, breathing organisms can learn in order to live well and be more free of pain than they might otherwise be.

[1] Despeux, Catherine, Gymnastics: The Ancient Tradition in Taoist Meditation & Longevity Techniques (1989), Ed. Livia Kohn, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, p238.

[2] Such dances were popular during the Zhou Dynasty (1028-221 BC) according to Kenneth Cohen in The Way of Qigong, The Art & Science of Chinese Energy Healing, 1997, New York, Ballantine Books, pg 13

What’s the difference between Qigong and Tai Chi Chuan?

Both have the art of internally guiding the qi (Neigong) at their core. Tai Chi Chuan is a martial art that weaves this into longer and more elaborate choreography of movements, whereas in Qigong the movements (repeated to cultivate qi) can be slight or few, depending on the form, but the development of profound inner somatic awareness and breathing technique is strong. I do not teach Tai Chi Chuan on its own. The form I have studied is Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi, a deliberate combination of aspects of both practices. Read more in ‘Tai Chi Qigong classes’

Great Grandmaster Kellen Chia of the Tai Chi Society writes[1]

‘While low-level Tai Chi [Chuan] is solely a physical exercise, at higher level it transcends into a Qigong discipline. In other words, if there is no Qigong then there is no real Tai Chi — if one cannot master the internal skill of Qigong, then one will not be able to master Tai Chi. If one has mastered Qigong internal skill, then it does not necessarily mean that one is capable of mastering Tai Chi, but if one has mastered real Tai Chi then one has also mastered Qigong internal skill.

The essence of Qigong is critical for Tai Chi, in that it gives one real power throughout the practice of Tai Chi.’

[1] Chia, Kellen, ‘The Difference Between Tai Chi and Qigong” 23 Oct 2011, online at http://www.taichisociety.net/difference-between-tai-chi-qigong.html