Hi, everybody.
Thanks for tuning
in and tuning up.
This is Scott Jensen
with my Ancient Wisdom
Modern Health podcast.
Here, I share and explain
how to get and stay
healthy with Tai Chi,
Qi Gong and Kung Fu.
Mixing interviews with
incredible people and
my own insights and
experiences, we look
for timeless wisdom and
proven practices to be
healthy and happy today.
In today's episode,
I look at Qi Gong in
the martial world and
the deep connections
between classical martial
arts and traditional
medicine, massage
therapy and traumatology.
Today, when people are
thinking about learning
Qi Gong, for the most
part they're looking at
Qi Gong as a calming,
healthy breathing
exercise or gentle
movement exercise that's
good for recovering from
illnesses or injuries and
good for maintaining your
longevity and health.
People also viewed
Qi Gong as a way to
increase their personal
energy levels, perhaps
to increase their
concentration or focus.
But when I began
learning Qi Gong, that's
not what people were
doing Qi Gong for.
During that time period,
Qi Gong was very rare.
And for the most part,
the only people that were
practicing Qi Gong, were
the martial arts masters.
They were the traditional
chinese martial arts
masters who were each
either teaching Tai-Chi
or one of the traditional
Kung Fu styles.
For traditional Kung Fu
styles and styles of Tai
Chi, learning Qi Gong
is an important part of
the training program.
The Kung Fu styles focus
on martial Qi Gong, which
is a different type of Qi
Gong than healing Qi Gong
or spiritual Qi Gong.
Often an martial Qi Gong
does include healing
Qi Gong and it includes
some spiritual Qi
Gong, but the primary
focus in martial Qi
Gong, especially at
the beginning, is on
developing your bodies
ability to withstand
blows from your opponents
and to enhance your
own speed and power
and body control, so
that you're striking
skills and combat
skills are enhanced.
The martial artists were
often very skillful and
very knowledgeable in
their Qi Gong practice.
A martial artist doing
Qi Gong is expecting to
have a specific result.
That's testable.
If your body becomes much
stronger as a result of
your Qi Gong practice
and you no longer get
sick or ill, you no
longer get bruised
easily, perhaps you
get to the point where
someone punching as hard
as they can just sort
of bounces off and you
barely feel it, these are
results that the martial
artists know whether
they've achieved or not.
If you get hit and
you get a big, huge
bruise, it's obvious.
If you get hit and you
don't get a bruise,
that's really obvious.
In many cases, I
think people can fool
themselves, with Qi Gong.
They can perhaps
think things that
are happening, that
aren't happening.
Their imagination
will carry them away.
As a martial artist,
the methods that you're
likely to learn, you
can see if your teacher
has had success in them.
You can expect to relearn
something that way.
One of the aspects that
the martial artists,
that traditional
classical Kung Fu people
in particular, had
was their martial arts
was already connected
to Chinese medicine
and they were already
learning traditional
medicine as part of
their martial arts
training, in many cases.
The breathing methods
were connecting to the
medicine and the Qi Gong,
while they're practicing
their martial arts.
The martial artists were
also in the point of
realizing what it was to
be very healthy, what it
was to really have strong
chi, to have a very
strong body and how to
build up those qualities.
One thing that's very
important, if you're a
career martial artist
is if you get sick, if
you get injured that
you need to recover.
If you're sick,
you can't really be
a martial artist.
If you're injured, you
might not be able to
fight; or if you had to,
you might not survive
if you haven't recovered
fully from your injury.
So many of the practices
that are included in the
martial arts training
were designed to help you
recover from injuries,
we're designed to build
your health so that
it would be strong
enough to survive a
campaign in the field.
Those very exercises
and practices that
they were using to
strengthen themselves,
those exercises have
proven the test of time.
When I was going to
mainland China during
the 1990s, one of the
things that was very
unique about training
in this period was that
the old generation of
masters, who were in
their seventies and
eighties at that point,
we're simply amazing Kung
Fu people who had learned
in the Republican period
in the 1920s and 1930s.
Their teachers were
the type of people
who had fought for
a living as escorts,
bodyguards, you know,
professional fighters;
and they were
steeped in the really
authentic, deep culture
of martial arts.
And that period,
Kung Fu skill was the
difference between life
and death for these men.
And you really couldn't
fake martial arts, you
actually had to know it.
The skills that these
gentlemen had, that
I was learning from,
they were in their
seventies and eighties,
were still amazing
and their athleticism
was amazing.
Very inspirational
to see them.
These type of people,
they're no longer alive.
That generation is gone.
And I have not seen the
current generation really
reach these heights of
skill that those men had.
There is not the same
culture and the same
environment that would
push them to real martial
skill in the same way.
I think that one thing
that separates the
martial artists learning
and teaching Qi Gong is
that it's, it's a very
practical endeavor for
the martial artists.
They are expecting a
specific result, which
they can tell whether
or not they've gotten.
It's not just that I
feel a little bit better,
it's a really profound
change that they're
hoping to achieve through
their Qi Gong practice.
The martial arts masters,
also, really value
their knowledge and
that it's been tested
and handed down from
their teacher from an
authentic lineage, with
experience and fine
tuning and testing and
refining the method
over a period of time.
This is very different
from someone who is
making it all up; or has
a very simple exercise,
which is really nothing
more than a warmup.
It is true that in
addition to actually
having a large group of
authentic practitioners
in the Bay area, we also
had our fair share of
con-men or fakers or
beginners, pretending
to be much better
than they are, so that
they could make money.
Back in the seventies
and eighties, was that
there was a branch of
people doing Qi Gong as
a spiritual exercise,
as part of their
personal growth program.
Many people were fond of
doing some, rather, very
advanced, very exotic
sounding Qi Gongs, for
the most part, people
learning the more
spiritual types of Qi
Gong in the seventies
and eighties, I would
say had a little success
and many problems.
Most of the teachers
at that time, teaching
them what I would call
spiritual Qi Gongs,
or very advanced Qi
Gongs, we're doing it
as a seminar, book based
career making money.
And they weren't able,
because of the seminar
structure that they
were doing, or distant
nature of it, to
actually supervise the
students that they had,
closely enough through
these very advanced
Qi Gongs that they
weren't prepared for.
It wasn't a very
successful endeavor,
at that time.
However, the martial
artists were often
very skillful and very
knowledgeable in their
Qi Gong practice.
When you learn the
martial art of Xing
Yi Quan, if you're
fortunate and your
teacher also knows the
Tui Na, you find that
there's an incredible
overlap between the body
movements and the body
method required to do the
martial arts and develop
force, and the body
method required to do
the massage techniques,
which also involve
generating some force and
different types of force.
And there's a lot of
the exercises in the
Xing Yi system that are
designed to do double
duty, preparing you both
to do the martial arts
practice and develop
power for striking, and
throwing and to do the
massage therapy and have
both the combination of
strength and sensitivity
to be able to treat
people effectively.
In the 1990s, I started
learning Tui Na and
traditional Chinese
medicine, to supplement
my martial arts training.
My Xing Yi teachers
were very insistent that
learning traditional
Tui Na was was part of
the Xing Yi system; and
that I couldn't be an
expert, I couldn't be a
teacher, unless I did.
And I did began
learning Tui Na.
Tui Na means
push or pull.
Tui is push
and Na is pull.
And this is
the traditional
therapeutic massage
system of classical
Chinese medicine.
For the most part Tui
Na is done completely
clothed; and it's a
fantastic musculoskeletal
system of manual therapy.
Tui Na includes bone
setting, in terms of
even broken bones,
but also realigning
misaligned bones, it
includes very effective
treatments for muscle
spasms for muscle pulls,
all sorts of
traumatology, the use
of liniments, the use
of herbs, the use of
poultices, a lot of very
practical techniques
that you can use to treat
common injuries and also
to recover from deeper
injuries and problems.
During this period, I
also started receiving
a lot of treatments.
In addition to getting
acupuncture, I'd
received craniosacral
treatments and I studied
craniosacral therapy.
I received acupuncture
from many different
acupuncturist and
many of them in the
martial arts community.
In general, the martial
artists who were also
acupuncturist tended
to be better martial
artists; and they
also tended to be the
better acupuncturists.
Uh, my experience was
that learning a little
bit of Chinese medicine,
learning the first
semester of acupuncture
school theory,
made an incredibly
profound difference
in my perception and
understanding of the
classical Chinese
martial arts, like Tai
Chi and Xing Y Quan
and Bagua Zhang, and
even Northern Shalon.
Learning the Tui Na
techniques and the
Traumatology over the
years has allowed me to
help countless students.
And if someone injures
themself in class,
I can usually treat
them and they go
home feeling okay.
And the recovery period
will be very short,
compared to without
having the treatment.
That concludes
today's episode.
Thank you for listening.
If you have questions,
please send them to
ask@ancientwisdommodernhealth.com.
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Thank you.
Until our next
episod, when I
answer the question,
"what is Qi?", be
well and stay happy.
