I spoke with my acupuncturist about qigong (my expert consult) this week and mentioned how hard I was finding the concentration necessary to do qigong. She mentioned to me that this concentration-focused qigong was only one form of qigong and that this was not the major form of qigong practiced in China. She went on to describe a more active form of qigong, sometimes know as "Animal poses," so I've been looking into that this week.
It's a little silly, but a lot of fun.
The idea is this: there are five animal poses, and each pose is supposed to help with a particular part of the body where qi circulates:
The tiger pose helps with ailments of the lung
The bear pose helps with ailments of the kidney
The deer pose helps with ailments of the liver
The crane pose helps ailments of the heart, having to do with blood circulation
The monkey pose helps with ailments of the stomach
The idea is that during the posing, you become the personality of the animal you take on. In fact, one site I've read warns that you should only try out these activities in the presence of a trained qigong teacher as, in rare instances, a person who assumes these personalities might not be able to return to their own personality. So, if you find me acting like a monkey in class on day, you'll know what happened.
Here's the tiger--pretty...weird:
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