Olga. Qigong
How did you come to Qigong?
I worked as a psychologist at a factory. In last years, when I worked there, I moved to the medical department. There was a room for autogenic relaxation. When the workers had a break or after their shift, they came to us to relieve the tension: we conducted sessions of autogenic training and gymnastics using the Norbekov system. Dim light, meditative, calm music and positive mental images helped them to relax and relieve stress. Then, when I was in China, my husband’s friend came from Moscow to Tibet to collect herbs and on the way back he visited us in Beijing. We chatted about the lack of vital energy. He suggested to try Qigong and gave phone numbers of Qigong centers in Moscow. I said that I will not be in Moscow soon. Then he asked why I don’t look for classes in China, where I can get first-hand information from the best masters of Qigong. From Chinese, Qi is energy and Gong is control.
We discussed it with my husband and asked a Chinese friend to advise us a school of Qigong. He gave us a long list, everywhere they were teaching in English and in Chinese, but there were no Russian classes. We went to different schools and eventually settled on the Qigong Center at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. The lessons were in Chinese, but my husband said that he will come with me and translate everything. So we took a course of Qigong there.
Did your husband also take the lessons?
Yes, he learned Qigong and translated at the same time.
Did you study in a group?
No, these were individual lessons. We officially signed up for the training and, after completing, received a certificate from the Institute of the Academy of Sciences. After that, we continued to study for some time with the professor in our house, we had a very spacious apartment in Beijing.
What is the name of the program?
It is called Shi Wu Duan, this is a healing system of fifteen forms including different mental images: a peacock opens its tail, an eagle hovers, a horseman with floating clouds, etc.
It happens sometimes that people start practicing Qigong, then leave for yoga or other practices. They become scattered, therefore they see no result. In order to get to a result, it is important to be consistent and regularly practice in one direction. There are different Qigong programs, for example, Zhong Yuan Qigong, which has several levels. The first two levels are for health and wellbeing, there are also deeper levels. In Beijing were exclusively practiced the health complex.
When you lived in Shanghai, did you practice Qigong as well?
In Shanghai, we practiced at the Scientific Research Institute of Medical Qigong associated with a clinic, where people were treated with Qigong. We studied with a woman, who was a professor, a doctor of medical sciences. She had very unique abilities, for example, she could do hypnosis. We trained with her the U-Sin program, which includes color and sound images for various internal organs. This is the direction of therapeutic Qigong, also known as Qigong therapy.
The 15 forms that you studied in Beijing also belong to some branch of Qigong?
This is Taoist Qigong therapy. There is an interesting story behind the program of 15 forms. The professor, with whom we studied, was seriously ill in the childhood. None of the doctors could help or understand the cause of the disease. Parents took him to Taoist monks, where he lived in a Monastery until adulthood. The monks treated him with ancient Qigong practices. So he lived in the monastery from the age of six and practiced Qigong. He completely cured and became so interested in Qigong that at the age of 18 he enrolled in a medical university to try to understand Qigong from the scientific point of view. When we met, he had been practicing Qigong for more than 30 years. He was a doctor and a professor of medicine. He worked at the Academy of Medical Sciences of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. This program also has higher levels, but he told us that for now it was enough.
He himself developed these forms?
Not exactly, rather he gathered the knowledge that he received in the monastery. The program of 15 forms is based on ancient philosophical and medical treatises. The program was developed by a group of scientists of the Qigong Institute at the Academy of Sciences headed by him. The Taoist practices underlying the program have been studied from the point of view of medicine. These exercises were performed by patients in clinics under the supervision of doctors, some things were corrected. After testing, exercises have been successfully implemented in some hospitals in China. Doctors conduct research on the recovery of patients after various diseases using Qigong, for example, after an ulcer or pancreatitis. They selected groups with similar diagnoses and medical tests and, along with conventional therapy, they practiced Qigong. Other groups were limited only to the usual treatment. When comparing these groups: those who practiced Qigong, recovered faster, they were discharged earlier from the hospitals.
How about Chinese medicine, is it different from ours?
It struck me very much in China that they have their own, unusual for us pharmacology, their medicines are of natural origin: vegetable or animal, they also use minerals. For example, they use antelope horns against fever, rather than aspirin or, for example, they treat indigestion with wolf berries and chrysanthemum flowers. The recipes are very different from ours as well: the Chinese doctor indicates only the type of plant or animal and which part of them to use: for example, roots, flowers, or leafs of a plant or an organ of an animal, e.g., skin or horns, and the weight required for the treatment in grams. In the pharmacy the pharmacologist individually prepares the medicine. Chinese pharmacology, by the way, like their cuisine, uses everything that is in nature, there is such a unity of man and nature. Of course, there are Western pharmacies as well, where they sell the usual, in our understanding, drugs obtained by chemical synthesis. Foreigners living in China often use the usual pharmacies.
But, back to Qigong. Our professor said that Qigong is an ancient knowledge. It is more than six thousand years old and has been handed down from one generation to another by Taoist monks. By practicing these exercises, you can stay healthy and never get sick. Later in Moscow, while practicing Zhong Yuan Qigong, our Chinese master said that this knowledge was secret for a long time, and it became completely open only in 1976. Qigong is a work of our mind with complete relaxation of the physical body.