What is Chi Gung?
Chi Gung, or Qi Gong, means "energy work".
There are many kinds of Chi Gung, which can be roughly paraphrased as the following: "An energetic exercise which has a specific energetic effect upon a specific part of the body or mind, performed repetitively with the active participation of the mind, can be called Chi Gung".
Thus, there are hundreds of Chi Gung "exercises". All have the goal of powering up the body's "operating system", giving you more energy, releasing tension and stress, strengthening systems in the body, calming the mind, and so on. You don't need any experience to do Chi Gung. You don't need to be svelte, slim or muscular. You don't need to be enlightened, cool, or a hippy. You don't need to be Chinese.
Anybody can do it. You can do chi gung it driving, photocopying, or having sex. The ability to be present and aware is crucial, and marks out Chi Gung, Ba Gua and Tai Chi from mere "mindless" exercise (plodding miserably on a treadmill with headphones, eyes sadly glued to TV). It works for me. It works for my students.
I teach a Hun Yuan (Eternal Circle) Chi Gung set, learned from my Master, Ma Ba Guo. Each movement builds on the one before it, slowly coalescing into a very intricate and complex set of movements that really open up and provide the smooth sense of having energy in a calm body. The contrast with the gym couldn´t be greater, where often a sense of being "pumped up" after a session is just one more tension in your life. That´s just my opinion though.
