Qigong and Martial Arts
Ever since Bruce Lee came on the scene, we in the West have had the opportunity to see a lot of martial arts movies and TV shows.
What does this have to do with qigong?
If you do a web search on the term qigong, you’ll run across tons of websites connecting it with martial arts. And it’s not surprising. After all, the ancient roots of the Oriental martial arts (kung fu, tai ji) and of qigong, reach deeply into the old temple system in China.
The monks living in these temples typically spent a great deal of time meditating and practicing exercises to increase their health and vitality. At the same time, the world they lived in was a dangerous place. They needed skills to insure they would survive when they went out into the world. Qigong helped them achieve an inner balance and martial arts helped insure their survival.
And since we were talking about stress in the last post, can you imagine a more stressful situation than one where you would need to call upon your martial arts skills? I can’t. It was (and still is) extremely useful to have mastery over your energy and inner state of mind in any sort of survival situation. Being able to direct your awareness, breathing, movement and focus under such circumstances gives you the maximum edge to survive.
And isn’t that what stress management is all about?
Be well,
Dr. Bruce
