DAOYIN
The gymnastic practice covers daoyin or “guiding and pulling,” typically represented by the Eight Length of Brocade and the Five Animal Plays, and other types of moving or dynamic Qi Gong. In practice, the entire body moves from one posture to another, or a posture is held while the four limbs move through various positions in correlation with certain breathing methods, and special meditative techniques, designed to dispatch negative energies and enhance positive energies.
According to the classics of meditation and gymnastics, and the lineage-transmissions, all gymnastic practices should be undertaken in the calm and closed rooms rather than outdoors. One should use a warm mat or cushion, or a secured bed rather than direct contact with the earth ground. (Sun Simiao, 155) The room should be balanced in yin and yang, namely not too bright, or too dark, or too high or too low (in elevation), the high creates the overflow of yang and bright energies; the low creates the overflow of yin and dark energies. The over-bright hurts hun 魂 or the divine part of the soul, and the over-dark hurts po 魄, or the sentient part of the soul. (Sima Chengzhen, 159)
When one performs the exercises for the purpose of longevity and health, especially healing or therapy, the specific direction one faces plays an important factor. This aspect of the exercises normally is determined by the complexity of the cosmological and the medical ideas. For instance, stated in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Book, in order to heal the accumulated kidney illness or the chronic low back problems, “sitting down and facing the south at the hours between 3am-5am, one stills the mind, empties all thoughts, and concentrates on the breathing, and then halts and holds the breathing. One repeats it for seven times, each time swallows the breath deeply as if swallowing the hard substance. After seven times, one's mouth will be full of saliva.” (Meng, 702) Certain numbers of repetitions of the moments are also required; the numbers of repetitions are often associated with the direction, and the hours at which the exercises are undertaken.
Therapeutic gymnastics are practiced only when they are used as therapy to cure a specific ailment. As a longevity technique, these gymnastics should be practiced in the same way as breathing exercises or qi circulation practices, at certain prescribed hours when the “thriving qi” is strong. According to Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536), these times, from 1 am to 11 am, are the life-thriving qi, and after 11 am, before 1 am are life-ill qi. (Tao, 150) Therefore, gymnastics should be part of daily routines, as life-giving and necessary as eating, drinking, and sleeping.
Postures of the Body
In all gymnastic exercises, whether the entire body or certain part of it move, or a specific position is held for a certain time, all techniques—breathing in certain ways with given movements—three fundamental posture are standard: standing, sitting, and lying down. Standing posture, a preliminary preparation stage of all Qi Gong practices, is commonly related to health and strengthening techniques, especially techniques regarding martial practice, or yinggong 硬功, which was defined in the 1970s by contemporary Qi Gong practitioners. It refers to traditional practices like breaking a thick iron pole, or rock with bare hands, lying down naked on bare blades, or similar acrobatics. While lying down posture is more connected to the therapeutic or medical techniques of gymnastic practices, sitting posture is associated with the meditative practices in order to attain longevity and spirituality.
Movements
Like the traditional Western style aerobic moments, when it is considered merely the outer movements of body, of the torso and the limbs, one is astonished at how simple the ancient Chinese gymnastics are, and how easy to perform. Very little space is needed; hardly any effort necessary, people of any fitness level or age would find the gymnastics easy to learn.
Simple as they are, the movements should be undertaken in a playful rhythm that ensures the breathing stays even and smoothly, and becomes increasingly deeper. Gradually these outer moments affect the inside of the body, so that the outer movement practices are replaced by the inner qi circulation practices. The latter is a relatively slow guiding process by the adept/master.
For all functional disorders affecting the body, torso or limbs, practices should consist of maintaining a certain posture over a given time span while the adept/master’s mental guiding directs the qi through the body. These achieved adepts/masters are in fact capable of healing others with his/her qi.
Breathing
In the classic sources of the ancient gymnastic tradition, preparation of the mind/heart is not very often mentioned. The minor techniques of concentration and visualization are used in combination with breathing techniques. The breathing should be smooth, even, and quiet, as Wang Zijiao speaks: “The inhalation and exhalation of qi should not be heard by the ear or felt by the nose.” One should always focuses on dantian, or the cinnabar field, as Master Ning speaks: “Always keep a completed elixir in the heart, and the elixir is completed in the cinnabar field.” (“Treatise of Great Purity on Gymnastics and Nurturing Vitality,” 206)
Since the time of Zhuangzi, the distinguished remarks were already made between the meditative practice and the gymnastic exercise by breathing methods: while the practitioners of meditation breathe with their heels, a more advanced technique, the practitioners of gymnastics blow out and breathe in slowly, to puff out the old breaths and draw in the new. Either way, the breathing is already understood as means of driving out impure and pathogenic breath and taking in life-giving and healthy breath. These various breathing exercises including holding the breath not only help heal diseases, but can also be used as preventive measures against all sorts of negative influences. The breathing exercises are especially used to absorb positive and energizing qi, thus they often are to be performed in accordance with a given direction and specific season, and only at certain hours of the day based on the practitioner's specific need or focus.
Conclusion and Recommendation on the
Gymnastic Practices (Dynamic Qi Gong)
Before one participates in the gymnastics (Dynamic Qi Gong), the first and foremost important task is to understand the differences between the conceptual natures of physical exercises. The French sinologist Despeux remarks that the traditions of physical exercises between the West and China are imperatively different. In the West, the tradition of physical exercises has been seen as an essentially useful and necessary means to excel health. Nevertheless, the concept of competition is embedded in the understanding of physical exercises with the ancient Greek Olympic festivals. As a result, physical exercises became something vigorously strenuous, an arena where humans excel and strive for the external powers—the futile tasks—far beyond their ordinary limits. Accordingly, physical exercises are used as a means to project a particular human image as powerful and independent from the world. This reinforced man's position is therefore projected onto himself, society, and the state and the rest of the world. (Despeux, 258) There has no doubt existed a tradition of using gymnastics for health therapy in the West. However, it is only nowadays that people began to pay attention to the importance of gymnastic exercises for overall health, which at heart, more or less lingered on the external guise and power seeking.
In China, life and death are seen as the flow of the continuity of the universe. Individual lives certainly bounded by birth and death, yet, each person's life is regarded as a part of the world, and a link within the continuum of the ancestral lineage, which includes both of the living and the dead. Both the mind and the body movement are accompanied by the flow, or the primordial qi from the movement of the universe. This cosmic agent is ultimately responsible for any movement of the body, so the body in itself was neither demanded to strain to its limits nor thought of as important. Therapeutic and preventive exercises have been thought of very highly, the movement of the body has been secondary since the earliest time. Reduced to its ultimate minimum, the gymnastic exercises consist mostly of stretches of limbs, and serve to make the joints more flexible and dissolve blockages in the way of energy and spirit. Associated with other longevity and meditation techniques, gymnastic exercises represent a preliminary stage on the path to the liberation of body and mind.
There is a essential system of gymnastics or dynamic Qi Gong, which is basically derivatives of the traditional practices like the Eight Length of Brocade, the Five Animal Plays, accessible to everyone, and could be undertaken collectively or individually. One may learn gymnastics or dynamic Qi Gong through short-courses/ classes, even DVDs and books. However, to save your time and energy, to get the maximum benefits within minimum time, you would always be better off to find a adept/master who is transmitted by a lineage in continuous practice, normally for hundreds of years. Working with such a lineage-transmitted adept/master not only can assist you in learning the essence and accuracy of the exercises, but also can the master mentally and physically guide the qi through your body to the highest rate of success within the shortest amount of time.
[1] Sun, Simiao 孫思邈 (581-682). “Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold” Qianjin yaofang 千金要方 in Fang ed. Zhongguo Qigong Dacheng.
[2] Sima, Chengzhen 司馬承禎 (655-735). “The Book of Nourishing Life by Master Tianyinzi” Tianyinzi yangshen shu 天隱子養生書 in Fang ed. Zhongguo Qigong Dacheng.
[3] Meng, Jingchun 孟景春. 1996. Explication on the Yellow Emperor's Inner Book, the Original Questions, Huangdi neijing suwen yishi 黃帝內經素問譯釋. Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Press.
[4] Tao, Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536). “Records Concerning Tending Life and the Prolonging of Life” Yangxing yanming lu 養性延命錄 in Fang ed. Zhongguo Qigong Dacheng.
[5] “Treatise of Great Purity on Gymnastics and Nurturing Vitality”
Taiqing daoyin yangshengjing 太清導引養生經 4th Century. in Fang ed. Zhongguo Qigong Dacheng.
[6] Despeux, Catherine. 1989. “Gymnastics: The Ancient Tradition” in Livia Kohn ed. Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques. Ann Arbor: Center For Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan.
Fang, Chunyang 方春陽 ed. 1988. The Great Anthology of Chinese Qi Gong Classics, Zhongguo Qigong Dacheng 中國氣功大成. Jiling: Jiling Science and Technology Press.