Outside vs. Inside: Hard and Soft Qigong
If you do much reading on qigong, you’ll eventually run across the idea of “hard” versus “soft” qigong.
Each has teachers that prefer it and each has its place in the overall scheme of qigong practices. I’ll offer my opinion on these two, but first I’d like to clarify what they mean.
The simplest way to describe hard qigong is to say that it focuses on strengthening the body in various ways. There are exercises for strengthening muscles, ligaments and tendons as well as improving endurance and stamina. Hard qigong is especially popular with martial artists and others who rely on physical strength in their pursuits.
Soft qigong is more focused on the internal aspects of health. It includes exercises for stretching, deepening breathing, massaging and balancing the internal organs and even psychic development. It supports a healthy life and increases longevity. People of a more contemplative nature tend to like soft qigong better.
So you can see that each of these have a place in the ‘world’ of qigong. And depending on your personal goals, one or the other may be more appropriate.
However, if you had to make a choice between them, I’d recommend soft qigong. The reason is simple. By emphasizing health and longevity you are improving the overall quality of your life. And soft qigong offers an outstanding complement to the more ‘external’ disciplines such as martial arts, etc.
This isn’t just my opinion either. I recall visiting with a very highly trained kung fu (gungfu) master in the San Francisco area many years ago. He’d spent most of his then 50 years of practice focusing the harder, more external arts.
The conversation turned to the hard vs. soft question and he said, “I now wish that I’d spent more time doing the internal practices. After all these years emphasizing the external arts, my body and health have suffered.”
This means that if you practice hard qigong, you must practice soft qigong to heal and balance yourself. But if you practice only soft qigong, you may or may not want to practice the more external forms.
Be well,
Dr. Bruce
