Here’s the second part (the first can be seen below) of this three-part interview. Narrye Caldwell discusses her own experiences with Qigong.
January 8, 2010
September 21, 2009
A Fast Four Hours
September 20, 2009: Santa Cruz, California:
The Academy of Martial Arts
A wide range of people and training came together to spend a few hours learning a very special approach to the practice of Qigong. Acupuncturists, nurses, Qigong teachers and people completely new to the art all convened on the Academy of Martial Arts to spend time together and to learn what seems a simple art of breathing. (more…)
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September 20, 2009
“The Picture of Health”
Such a nice phrase, really a compliment we bestow on those who seem to us to be emblematic of perfect health. But is our picture clear, or as foggy as snow on an old black and white tv? (more…)
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September 5, 2009
Interview: Narrye Caldwell L.Ac.
Our whole site is built around the ancient Qigong method known as Blossoms in the Spring. We asked the co-author of the new book on Blossoms to share her experiences as an acupuncturist, her insights into Qigong and her view of medicine, East and West.
HARMONY: Is there anything you might like to say at the start ?
NARRYE: I’m kind of hot right now about the tendency in this culture to make everything a workout, to drive towards getting to some goal. I’m trying to make people aware of the disadvantage of being always attached to a specific outcome, rather than an involvement in the process.
HARMONY: Can you go into a little more detail? (more…)
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August 18, 2009
Baskin Robbins 3000
The Chinese government has estimated that somewhere around three thousand (yes, 3000) forms of Qigong still exist in China. It’s true they may be disappearing faster than the rain forest but, as of now, there is still a great inheritance.
Martial arts fans of Kung Fu may know that Kung Fu used to boast (before the devastation called the Cultural Revolution) somewhere around 350 styles of martial practice. But the 3000 forms of Qigong makes one pause. Why, that’s inventing one new style a year for the last three thousand years. Good Lord, that would be astonishing if, as is the case, Qigong were not about 3000 years old.
Think of it, one of the most creative peoples on the face of the earth given 3000 years. It used to be a fact that the amount of poetry written in the Chinese language exceeded all the poetry in the rest of the world combined. Hardly surprising when you think of how long the Chinese have loved poetry and how many Chinese have done so. Remember this is a culture that looks to be entering it’s SIXTH renaissance soon.
But the major reason there are so many styles of Qigong is that it is deeply rooted in the lives of the Chinese folk. I remember traveling to Taiwan on a plane. You know one of those long, drowsy trips. I awoke suddenly around midnight and the old lady next to me, the one I had helped with her seat belt, was rubbing her hands together. After a few second this lovely old Hui (Chinese Moslem) woman held her palms out and we both watched as they turned a deep purple. Then she proceeded to massage her face. This was as dramatic a demonstration as any teacher I saw in Taipei. And, obviously, it was a family thing, a little traditional self-maintenance handed down from grandmother to grandmother
So, let me tell you, 3000 is probably just the number of Qigong methods which have survived the centuries. Qigong is one of the great contributions of Chinese society and to think that it all depends on what modern people, fickle as the wind, think or don’t think about it all is to be a little naive. Qigong is on the planet to stay. How it will develop in the next hundred or so years may, in part, be up to you.
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Joy and Qi
The Nei Jing is the oldest medical record in China. Here’s a section from it:
“It is known that all diseases arise out of the upset of Qi.
Anger pushes the Qi up,
Joy makes the Qi slack,
Grief scatters the Qi,
Fear drops the Qi down,
and Anxiety stagnates the Qi.”
Of course we can see the etiology of disease in other terms, such as the germ theory. But let’s consider this ancient approach for a minute. We know, for example, that fear can make someone pee in his pants (down), or that anxiety locks up the whole person (stagnates). We recognize that strong emotions can affect the entire metabolic system and, in this case, we regard Qi in its funciton of representing the whole human being, not just a fuzzy energy floating around inside body.
The idea of strong emotions affecting people isn’t new. But the concept of the benefits of nothing in excess, a basic attitude not only of Chinese medicine but of Chinese culture, can be a little confusing to over-reved modern man.
Let’s take a telling example: Joy. How can you have too much joy (other than knowing it has all got to end sometime)? Well, let’s push the idea a little and see if it pushes back. Imagine someone on drugs or drunk who has begun to feel “real good” and starts to jump around, dance wildly, annoying people in a friendly way, spilling drinks, etc. in his ebullience. Well of course the first negative result might very well be a punch in the mouth. On another level the part of the character which “holds us together” is so weak that the over-joyed (think about that word) person stars going off in ten directions at once. Waiting for a fall? Of course. What about joy at that new relationship that just took you over by storm? Heartache in the morning? Scattered so much by that inheritance that you ignore your friends? Definitely hidden shoals ahead. Joy can be as dangerous as other emotions- in excess. Remember all those lottery ticket winners who fall over with heart attacks. And, as the medical sages always said, joy attacks the heart.
A good, rational look at the emotions convinces us that the developers of the ancient medical theory had at least something right in their observations. As we explore the uses and meaning of Qi we might be surprised at just how right they were.
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August 17, 2009
A Free World Inside
The only thing keeping Qigong from being one of the most controversial topics in the twenty first century is that so few people know anything about it. That’s, of course, ignoring the over fifty million people who practice it now. Just this month we have two beautiful examples. The first is from the Gainesville Sun and it’s a short article telling how people in that area are coming to Qigong for everything from stress reduction to toxicity.
On the other side of the world, in the very country of Qigong’s origin, we have the beginning of a repressive movement to ban all new Qigong groups.
Why is this? What is the threat poses suddenly by a three thousand year old exercise that is beautiful, ritualized, relaxing and serene? Well, one answer lies in the fact that freedom is always a radical concept. Now there’s all kinds of freedoms but wise people from all over the earth have, throughout history, discovered that the freedom we obtain from knowing out true selves is often the deepest and most personal form of freedom. Not the same as freedom from restraint or political freedom, the freedom of self-knowledge poses a threat not to this or that form of compulsion but to the very idea of compulsion.
The world of Qigong is a wonderful place and a wonderful practice. But, as you can see, some times the idea of change itself scares some people while beckoning others.
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