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I’ve been looking at spontaneous qigong forms such as Taoist Light Qigong, Yigong and Seiki Jutsu. Here are their links:
http://www.taoistlightqigong.com
http://www.easterninternalarts.org
http://keeneyinstitute.org/history.phpThe questions I have are:
1) What makes these qigong forms different from their choreographed counter parts?
2) Are they more (or less) effective than qigong styles that adapt to strict forms?
3) Can spontaneous qigong be used as sort of a “base” for working through the healing tao formulas or would that cause conflict?While I don’t wish to take time to evaluate other qigong systems for you (maybe someone else is interested), I can answer generally about spontaneous qigong.
A few random comments:
Spontaneous qigong can be kinda nice if you just want to get your body moving and your qi flowing. However, overall, I would say most lineage qigong forms are superior. The reason is that–over a historical period of time–many different types of qigong movements were experimented with. Of these, certain movements were experimentally shown to be more “potent” in terms of their effects. It is these that survived and were passed down from generation to generation. So overall, lineage forms tend to be more powerful than spontaneous movements. Often spontaneous movements are relatively chaotic, reminiscent of chaotic energy patterns already present in the body. Many historical qigong forms, however, can tonify or detoxify certain meridians, or channel in certain healing energy. In other words, usually there is some hidden reason for why set forms often are more potent, even outside of historical trial-and-error. Certain movements, when repeated, create a dynamic synergy that allows you to go deeply and amplify certain effects . . . something typically not found in spontaneous qigong, as it tends to be so random that it disrupts anything that is being gathered.S
I think this is an interesting area of reflection.
Recently I have taken an interest in a number of tai chi forms on youtube – the traditional source of lineage forms !!!
Well, how do I know they are not made up ? Or half remembered. With that research I did on Swimming Dragon Qigong, it does appear to be a half-remembered half-forgotten form … that was in the history description on their website, if you read between the lines.
Although it may have been once designed by a ‘Master’ … perhaps it has degraded, how would I know ? And you are supposed to study these things for years … perhaps you are studying something wishy-washy ?
Qigong is better because there are often descriptions of what is supposed to be happening inside, so you can use these descriptions to (a) verify what occurs inside, and (b) see if the purported inner effects actually make sense as a conceptual model.
Martial arts are tested by their fighting potential; although I have recently been reading / watching a number of traditional arts tested in live situations, and they did very badly. They lost, they were poor at fighting. Which would be disappointing if you had studied them for several years.
In all this I feel a need to take the responsibility to choose carefully and verify as much as possible.
Coming back to spontaneity vs lineage. Although it may be true that lineage forms produce certain effects that have been tested … long-term one can ask, is this way of learning really any good ?
Because if you only use lineage forms you are always at the behest of another human being, you are always begging for more information from another person. Who has the form that does a trick and gives you more energy, you want a trick, an empowerment.
Wouldn’t it be better to -from the beginning- try to be in contact with the Tao directly. With existence directly. Sure it is totally unfamiliar and messy … but if you can, if you can learn directly from the Tao, it would surely be much better in the long run. No longer are you at the behest of secret teachers and all that, nor trying to ‘study’ teachings … you study life, you are life, you merge directly. Is that not the goal ? And if you continue with lineage forms, at what point will you merge with the Tao ? Is it not best to begin in this fashion ?
Or perhaps, being practical, include some spontaneous work in your schedule.
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