Talk:Qigong

Removed link

I removed the following link, as instructed by the CZ Self-Promotion policy, because it links to a site with which the author is associated:

• http://genbukan.biz/disciplines_qigong.html

Bruce M.Tindall 12:55, 5 April 2007 (CDT)

Get this in shape

Hi Gary. This is a good start for an article. I think you could write something really informative here, but it needs to take a more neutral stance concerning the concept of Qi and energy. The article starts to describe Qi, but then moves on. Is it real? Is it measurable? Is it a metaphor? Do chinese still believe this is real? Is it a New Age therapy, etc., etc.. If we do this right, we can develop the other energy concepts accordingly. What do you think? --Matt Innis (Talk) 19:36, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

Hi, Matt, I added some more as per your suggestions. Gary Giamboi 16:36, 30 June 2007 (EDT)

Definitely a step in the right direction. One of the things I noticed was this sentence, and it explained a lot to me when I read it:

• This is because in ancient times, since people could not see oxygen, they believed we inhaled Qi or energy. Later, even after the discovery of air, the notion of breathing in some kind of Universal Cosmic Energy remained and also became synonymous with breathing in air.

I seem to remember something from one of my readings about (and you would know better than I) the flow of energy starts in the lungs (because we breathe it in) and it concentrates in the area of the kidneys and how it forms something (ying?). In other words, bile, blood, feces, urine, etc., are all places where the effects of these energies can be seen, right. Modern medicine studies these chemically. I think a lot of these terms can be explained this way... we can get people to understand that these "concepts" make sense, no matter what strange words are used to describe it. See what I mean? In other words, we don't know what this energy is anymore than we know what holds an oxygen molecule to iron in hemoglobin, other than it is a form of energy that is transferred from one place to another by the blood. I seem to be getting the idea that Qigong is an attempt to focus this "energy". I know that this is a very rudimentary attempt to explain anything, but am I close? --Matt Innis (Talk) 16:37, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Looking better. As we work through the article, I notice that many of the paragraphs are single sentences which each make a good point, but could be combined to make a nice flowing prose that would be more interesting. That is the nice thing about Citizendium that differs from wikipedia; we don't have to make every statement a dry fact with a verifiable source, you are the source. Would you consider puttignt he sections in paragraph form? And even consider changing the titles of the sections? I don't have any particular suggestions, yet, but what do you think? --Matt Innis (Talk) 17:50, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Possible parallels

Chinese "qi" is Japanese "ki" as in Aikido. It is also almost exactly "the force" from Star Wars. There is also a parallel with English usage where "respiration", and "spirit" have the same root, somewhat the way qi can mean both breath and energy. Would mentioning these parallels add to the article, or just complicate it? Sandy Harris 08:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Over-generalization

There are a number of over-generalizations, mostly present since the creation of the article, about what "the Chinese believe." These will need to be appropriately qualified. As Sandy points out above, in English we use the word "spirit" in some contexts to mean "breath" (and booze, for that matter) -- and I agree that that parallel does merit mention in this article -- yet that does not mean that "the English believe" that breath is the same thing as a supernatural spirit. Bruce M. Tindall 20:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)