# QiGong or Chigong



## SFC JeffJ (Feb 12, 2007)

Are these the same thing?

Thanks in advance,

Jeff


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## Carol (Feb 12, 2007)

Yes, just different spellings.  My instructor uses the "Chi Gong" spelling.


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## SFC JeffJ (Feb 12, 2007)

Thanks Carol!

Would you mind telling me of your experiences with it?  I'm thinking of giving it a shot.

Jeff


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## Carol (Feb 12, 2007)

Ohhhh... I don't train in it.  Guro Mike and Guro May have a Chinese night (monday evening) where they teach Wing Chun and Chi Gong.

I will say that one of our students was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and after training with Guro Mike, she recovered enough to make a trip to Russia (her homeland) and sent Guro Mike a beautiful card from the church where he prayed for him in thanks.


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## SFC JeffJ (Feb 12, 2007)

Cool!

I'll have to ask Xue and maybe get a rant from him!


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## Carol (Feb 12, 2007)

Ohhhhhhh a Xue Sheng Rant!!!  Awesome! 

He knows a lot about Chi Gong or at least he knows a lot more than I do.


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## Steel Tiger (Feb 12, 2007)

I practice a form of qigong known as Golden Bell Cover.  It is what is known as a still form of qigong.  Very good meditative techniques and can supposedly give results similar to the very famous Iron Shirt qigong.

My teacher also knows Flying Crane qigong which is a moving qigong.  He taught me some aspects of it but as we were doing bagua and walking the circle he didn't consider it as useful as Golden Bell Cover which compliments the qigong aspects of bagua nicely.

I think qigong is a very good way to enhance ones fighting skills through a better understanding of the relationship between breathing and moving.  Just don't expect to be running across water, leaping over buildings, or breaking swords on your chest.


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## SFC JeffJ (Feb 12, 2007)

Steel Tiger said:


> I practice a form of qigong known as Golden Bell Cover.  It is what is known as a still form of qigong.  Very good meditative techniques and can supposedly give results similar to the very famous Iron Shirt qigong.
> 
> My teacher also knows Flying Crane qigong which is a moving qigong.  He taught me some aspects of it but as we were doing bagua and walking the circle he didn't consider it as useful as Golden Bell Cover which compliments the qigong aspects of bagua nicely.
> 
> I think qigong is a very good way to enhance ones fighting skills through a better understanding of the relationship between breathing and moving.  Just don't expect to be running across water, leaping over buildings, or breaking swords on your chest.


Thanks for the info, I didn't realize there were different styles of it. 

And no walking on water?  Jeesh, why bother?


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## Steel Tiger (Feb 12, 2007)

I suppose there may be as many different styles of qigong as there are styles of gongfu and that would be hundreds.

I'm disappointed about not being able to run on water too.  The light foot techniques of the wu xia movies are way cool.


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## grydth (Feb 13, 2007)

There are indeed many forms of this, and the several varied ways of spelling reflect that. Our group does Eight Pieces of Brocade and the 18 Form, pretty much to relax and warm up before we get into Tai Chi.

If memory serves me, even Falun Gong was once among the mainstream 'Gong systems......but that's as far as I will go.


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## JadecloudAlchemist (Feb 13, 2007)

Qigong Chigong or even Chi kung are all correct.

Jeff Qigong is a very good healing practice and is a very broad art.

There are many styles theories and methods in Qigong each school and teacher has his own method though common theories cross.
The first thing I ask my students is what are you trying to achieve in your Qigong practice as well as current health states since not all Qigong practices are for everyone. (performing grand circulation for a new person is not recommended)

As been said before there is Golden bell cover training and eight brocade and wild goose qigong. Just swinging your arms is Qigong!


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 13, 2007)

Sorry Jeff and Carol but ranting is not something I take lightly and THIS is not rantable material... yet....besides I will only rant for Chocolate pie these days...as far as Jeff is concerned that is

From the Chinese language perspective, as it is taught in China and most of the world Qigong is correct. But to English speakers Chi gong and qi gong are the same thing

Qigong is Pinyin and what most Chinese speaker today would recognize and pinyin is the English spelling of Chinese characters as developed by China.

Chi Gong is form wade Giles I believe which is the English version of Chinese as I believe done by Britain.

If you go in to Beijing and walk up to someone there and write down Chi Gong and show it to them they will likely look at it as Chr Gong and wonder why you want to eat gong where as if you show them Qigong they will know what you are talking about.

I have trained a lot of different forms of Qigong and after many years I have decided you really only need to train a couple not several, to be honest if you train the heavy duty stuff 1 is more that enough. It takes a long time to gain benefit from qigong and trying to train several just does not work in my opinion, focus on 1, 2 or maybe 3 but beyond that it is in my opinion counter productive. However with that said I do stance training for Xingyi, Taiji and what little I know of yiquan which I suppose I could say is a form of qigong but to me it is stance training and not so much qigong.

Other than that the only Qigong I train now is the Qigong I have been taught by my Yang style Sifu, which includes something he calls Shi er daun jin (12 pieces of brocade) and a standing taiji qigong training and some sitting training but it is all geared towards Taiji. Other than that it is Ba Duan Jin (8 pieces of brocade) which I studied with 3 different people and it is slightly different from all 3 sifus.

I use to do some Taoist qigong, some Tibetan qigong, some swimming dragon qigong, etc. But now I would highly recommend that if someone is going to train qigong, particularly a beginner, focus on 1 and find a qualified teacher. Higher levels of this stuff can be and are dangerous without a HIGHLY training instructor. And the Tibetan and Taoist stuff can get to pretty high levels, scary levels actually without a HIGHLY qualified teacher.

Also there are qigong teachers out there that do REALLY know and train several different types and styles of qigong. But they have had years and years of training. I have seen only 1 maybe 2 that I am fairly certain is capable of this and one is in his late 80s and a real live practicing Taoist. Generally, in my opinion, that the majority of the people that do and really know multiple qigong forms are Taoist or Buddhist monks or if not monks damn close to it. 

I have also talked to several that tell me that they know this qigong and that qigong and by the time they are done they have listed 10, 12 or more different qigong practices that they do. They generally know a qigong form not qigong, the qigong equivalent of forms collection. The same as the people who say they know Yang, Chen, Wu, Sun, and Hao styles of taiji, it just ain't possible to know that many. You can know that many forms but not that many styles.


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## JadecloudAlchemist (Feb 13, 2007)

```
I have also talked to several that tell me that they know this qigong and that qigong and by the time they are done they have listed 10, 12 or more different qigong practices that they do. They generally know a qigong form not qigong, the qigong equivalent of forms collection.
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I teach different Qigong practices because some practices have different theories. Lets use Yi jin jing(muscle changing) the theory is to strengthen the muscles,sinews and so on. However Xiao zhou tian(small circulation) is a different practice with different theory. I suppose we could say both lead to a healthier state and both follow channels however, one involves the 6 hand channels the other involving the governing and conception vessel. it is may be able to perform muscle changing easier than small circulation since one is more wai dan(outer elixr) while the other is more nei dan(inner elixr) When I teach I start off with very simple Qigong exercises so the practicer can learn proper theory and slowly advance.I do agree learning over 50 qigong system would not really result in much
however IMO knowing a good amount and knowing the theory behind them would be a greater advatage in helping a student progress. I also see nothing wrong with creating your own Qigong forms as long as they follow the correct theory of the application example following the medrians flow.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 13, 2007)

grydth said:


> IfFalun Gong was once among the mainstream 'Gong systems......but that's as far as I will go.


 
Sorry delayed response here, this just hit me.

My best advice about Fulan Gong avoid them at all cost. 

They are not what they appear to be or report they are and that is all I will say here becasue it would be a different post.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 13, 2007)

JadecloudAlchemist said:


> I teach different Qigong practices because some practices have different theories. Lets use Yi jin jing(muscle changing) the theory is to strengthen the muscles,sinews and so on. However Xiao zhou tian(small circulation) is a different practice with different theory. I suppose we could say both lead to a healthier state and both follow channels however, one involves the 6 hand channels the other involving the governing and conception vessel. it is may be able to perform muscle changing easier than small circulation since one is more wai dan(outer elixr) while the other is more nei dan(inner elixr) When I teach I start off with very simple Qigong exercises so the practicer can learn proper theory and slowly advance.I do agree learning over 50 qigong system would not really result in much however IMO knowing a good amount and knowing the theory behind them would be a greater advatage in helping a student progress.


 
First, not offense but how the heck do you get that scrolling quote? It is driving me nuts.

There are different qigong practices that address different things, and yes you can start with one a build to another but in my opinion, and this is just my opinion, continuing to practice all of them you learned along the way as you advance will only impede your progress. That is unless you have a lot of time to train and most do not today. This is also why I said those that do know a lot of qigong forms/styles are monks or close to it, they have the time and it takes a lot of time.

And it takes a long time to learn and understand any qigong. If you are teaching a student a basic form in order for them to advance to the next I see no problem with this at all. And as I said if you have a qualified teacher then follow the teacher and you are their teacher and you understand what you are teaching and that is fine. 

What I am talking about are those that go to a class for a couple weeks or a seminar or 2 and learn 3 or 4 qigong forms and then repeat until you have 12, 15 or 50. They are not doing gigong they are learning forms. And I am also talking about higher levels that can and will cause problems if there is not a qualified teacher readily available to help with those problems.


And there are many practices that start with small circulation and go to large as you advance but they are essentially the same practice externally. They just change internally as the practitioner advances. 



JadecloudAlchemist said:


> I also see nothing wrong with creating your own Qigong forms as long as they follow the correct theory of the application example following the medrians flow.


 
OK, fine with me but I never said anything about creating new forms. 

This is by the way how just about any form is created. Someone learns something really well or a few somethings really well or has some great observation and insight and they think of a way that they feel is better or addresses some other issue. 

I have not done the research on Qigong lineages like I have with Taiji so please allow this as an example of what I am trying to say;

This is how Yang style came form Chen style. Luchan felt he had a better way or a way better for his purposes. Same goes for qigong.


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## JadecloudAlchemist (Feb 13, 2007)

I have no idea how I get that scrolling thing it is weird. I think we both agree on the same thing. I agree 100% that it takes alot of time to learn even one qigong system/method correctly. I have been to a couple of schools promoting Qigong in my area and alot of them claim to teach many styles as you have encountered as well.The problem is many just teach the form no theory no reason behind just copy and thats it.
Tracing certain Qigong styles can be a nice challange.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 13, 2007)

agreed :asian:


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