Methods Of Qigong In Kung Fu Training
by: Alexander Popov
Qigong is a general name for the systems of hardening and improvement of body and mind, treatment and health enhancement created in China. They primarily based on the ability to control your own consciousness, mentality and through them all the physiological processes of the organism. Practicing Qigong you can achieve stunning results some of which even the powerful modern science cannot conceive and explain.
There are three main categories of Qigong: Health-improving, Fighting and Mystical.
1. It was Chinese physicians who developed and evolved the Health-improving Qigong during many centuries. They created special exercises aimed to preserve and promote health as well as to cure various diseases.
2. Fighting (or Hard) Qigong was developed by those practitioners of Qigong who at the same time were masters of martial arts. These exercises serve to enhance the energy concentration in muscles and other parts of the body allowing to hugely increase the bodily strength and its resistance against the attempts to cause it a physical injury.
3. Mystical Qigong is a child of Buddhist monks and Taosian anchorites. The goal of Mystical Qigong consists in achieving the so called Enlightenment – a special psychophysical state of the human being. Taosian anchorites also developed methods of anti-aging based on Mystical Qigong. Mystical Qigong is the most difficult to master.
Qigong is not only the art of Qi energy control; it trains the mind and helps to work out the ability to control your volitional impulse. Qigong techniques include a huge variety of exercises but they all consist of the three main parts: control of position, control of breath, and control of mind.
Controlling his position, a man can acquire some optimal posture of body which would allow Qi to flow in the organism without delays or blockages not causing any disturbing feelings and removing diseases. The exercises are mostly performed in common stands, for example, in the Rider’s stance.
You need to control your breath to let the external Qi (from the air) not only to pass mechanically into the internal state but to spread along energy channels, fully feeding all the organs.
Consciousness is crucial in breath control; it distributes Qi along the body. At the highest stage, the breath is controlled at the level of subconsciousness and do not require too much of your attention.
Step by step learning to control his energy resources, a practitioner will pass from using the physical strength (Li) to the internal burst of effort (Tsin). This internal effort, as Chinese masters believe, is produced not by muscles but in tendons and marrow.
This is the reason why the most of Kung Fu exercises aimed not to increase the mass of muscles but to strengthen tendons and bones. While muscles tend to loose their strength (Li) as the man grows older, masters preserve their internal effort (Tsin) until great age. That’s why Chinese masters of Kung Fu say: “If you do not practice Fighting Qigong but train only your physical strength you’ll be left with nothing when you grow old enough.”
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Methods Of Qigong In Kung Fu Training
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About The Author
Alexander Popov dedicated about 20 years to Shaolin Hung Gar Kung Fu. He is the successor of Hung Gar Kung Fu tradition in the 8th masters’ generation. Kung Fu and Qigong articles and ebooks: http://www.shaolin-kungfu-qigong.com.
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