What is it like to make a DVD presentation on a subject like Qigong? Read our experience on the making of Blossoms in the Spring and other martial and Qigong related DVDs in …
Both Sides of the Camera
August 4, 2010
August 27, 2009
What Happened to Chinese Medicine?
When I first began to study Chinese Medicine back in the 1980’s, it was in response to my fascination with Taoism and martial arts. Here was an ancient medicine based on principles of harmony and an understanding of our relationship to nature. It was radical in its premise that nature is self correcting, and that humans can heal naturally by tuning back in to the rhythm of natural cycles. The doctor’s job was to search out the cause of a patient’s disharmony and help them restore balance. We took the pulse; we listened to the voice; we observed movement, bearing, and skin tone; we asked questions about the patient’s life and their illness. Then we recommended changes in diet and lifestyle; we used needles, moxa, and herbs. We restored balance. Patients got better.
Somewhere along the line, things started to change. It’s been a subtle process, and therefore easy to miss. But Taoist medicine, in which skill is dependent on the refinement of the doctor’s sensitivity over a lifetime of practice, is getting gradually replaced by a westernized approach that emphasizes the constant acquisition of new treatment techniques and diagnostic tools.
I suspect this all started from the justifiable need for acupuncturists in this modern age of technological medicine to make a decent living and enjoy a modicum of respect among other health care professionals. Thus the emergence of what is now called “complementary” medicine (complementary to what I wonder?) and the blossoming of doctoral programs in Chinese medicine that teach us western medical skills so we can fit in better with the medical establishment.
All of this leaves me disheartened. These days, instead of instructing our patients in the art of meditation or qigong, reading their fate in the stars, and adjusting their home environment to correct imbalances, we are more likely to send them for lab tests and spend our time taking courses on which procedure codes to stack up on our insurance bills. Perhaps this is all necessary to survive as a healthcare provider in this strange antagonistic world.
But I long for a return to the Taoist roots of Chinese medicine, when a poem might be the prescription, and a life well lived, not a lab test, was the measure of success.
Return to Blossoms homepage
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.
Return to Blossom Home
Comments Off