They then took movement a step further and discovered that certain static postures where the patient would have to stand in a certain manner and hold certain hand and arm postures, would also cause this great Qi healing. They discovered that when we light a fire we require energy, and after the fire is lit, it produces its own energy. The static Qigong stances that they invented caused the body to >light a fire= in the Tantien area which caused the Qi to have to be routed to all parts of the body and the fuel for this fire was air or breathing in a certain way.
So now we have an exercise or >non-exercise= that almost anyone can perform in some way or another depending upon how ill they are. And it was discovered that this form of Chi Kung was also beneficial in stopping disease before it started by simply keeping the body in a constant state of balance. It treated the whole body and not just the immediate disease or ailment or part of the body that was affected.
Long before we in the West discovered the great healing benefits of exercise, the Chinese had taken the movement therapies to great heights by combining set patterns of movement with specific breathing methods.
For thousands of years, Chinese Doctors had been treating patients for all kinds of physical and mental ailments using an ancient healing method called Chi Kung. (Also spelled, Qigong, Ch=i Kung, and Ch=i Gung).
Chi Kung is based upon Traditional Chinese Medicine and many believe that Traditional Chinese Medicine is actually based upon Chi Kung. There is evidence to suggest that Chi Kung came first and because of the knowledge gained from this therapy, we gained the knowledge of acupuncture and the various energy (Qi) flows in the body.
Nowadays much scientific research has been done to substantiate the effectiveness of this healing art, mainly in China where they still lead the world in this type of therapy. I have included an article from a Chinese newspaper about some of this research.
Qigong
An Article from Science and Medicine Magazine in China.
By Wu Xiaoming
Professor Feng Lida, deputy director of the Navy General Hospital in Beijing, believes that a Qigong doctor is different from a Qigong Master in that eh former needs a knowledge of Western Medicine science to help him treat patients more effectively.
Feng, 62, who has been researching the immunization effect of traditional Chinese deep breathing therapy from a Western medical point of view, will deliver a report on her findings at the first international symposium on the medical uses of Qigong, which opens today in Beijing.
Born into the family of a prominent general, Feng studied at the Medical School of Huaxi University in Cehngdu, the Department of Biology of the University of CA at Berkeley in the USA and the Leningrad Medical College in the Soviet Union, where she studied immunology and obtained an associate doctorate degree.
While in Leningrad, (now St Petersburg), she realized that existing treatment methods for diphtheria were ineffective because they did not improve the patient’s immunity. She then began to treat patients with acupuncture with good results. Feng began her research on Qigong’s immunizing effects in 1979, after hearing some patients say they were cured through Qigong.
In the summer of 1981, Feng and her assistants conducted experiments on the effect of Qigong on colon bacilli, the bacteria often used in medical experiments because of their strong resistence to treatment. They held a test tube containing bacilli and projected Qi, or vital energy on them for a minute. Microscopic photos showed that 44 to nearly 90 percent of the bacilli were destroyed – they swelled, broke or dissolved.
Similar experiments revealed that Qi also kills 66.7 to 98.9 per cent of treated dysentery bacilli and destroys flu bacteria.
Interestingly, Qigong can either destroy bacteria of help the proliferate, depending upon what kind of Qi a doctor directs on them.
Feng believes that after training by a Qigong doctor, a patient can activate the Qi within his or her body to help kill bacilli and cure an ailment.
A Qigong doctor’s concentration influences the effect, a report by Feng’s research group says, adding that bionic research and an instrument to measure the quantity and quality of Qi are needed to monitor Qi emissions.
Feng and her assistants have also conducted experiments on Qigong’s effect on cancer cells.
Western medical treatment including surgery, radioactive and chemical therapies, often lower the immunity of the human body while killing cancer cells.
Feng hopes to find new ways to treat cancer that avoid this problem.
In another series of experiments different doctors treated cervical cancer cells with Qigong for 20 minutes. Results showed that a third to two thirds of the treated cancer cells were killed. In experiments in which stomach cancer cells were treated with Qi for 60 minutes, a quarter were destroyed. Microscopic photos revealed that both the surface and nucleus of these cells were destroyed and that the chromosome structure of these cells had been altered.
