Tangible feelings of Qi

[D_Glenn]

This is a really good video intro to my Bagua lineage's view of the world of IMA and internal cultivation practices:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLPjIKYlpps


I just watched the first video in the 5 part playlist and the intro covers a variety of topics that have come up here over the years, and I think, could make for some good discussion. Enjoy.

.

[neijia_boxer]

Excellent share, just listened to the whole thing while working in the office.
do you have the Chinese characters and pin-yin for? "Real becomes fake, fake becomes real"
that is so true!

Also the "jianhou" the pin yin and character of "people who misrespresent the art" aka banditos.

[yeniseri]

Thanks for the link as I enjoy listening to stuff like this!
My interpretive teaching methodology with periodically instructing on neigong/yangshengong/qigong is that when one is doing something positive (as in the neigong process) the results can be easily documented:
a. relaxation/ease/clarity of mind
b. hyperemia with temp increase
c. this facilitates 'natural healing'???
e. better musculoskeletal integrity (less stiffness, joint mobility and a bounce in step (both subjective and objective)

I would like to see more of these lectures with some level of current/present process in the realm of holistic health. Too many times, the language remain at the archaic level and there is no corresponding translation to current teaching methods. As an example when I use the expression "100 day gong" I use it as both figurative and literal to the extent that if anyone is to achieve some
level of "skill" it does not imply an exact 100 days. Some can do it in 60 days, othesr 200 days and many 1 yr or more. Within that paradigm is the :gong" definition of work/effort as I translate/interpret to a modern day equivalence of frequency and duration. I add the benefit of doing neigong at a specific period for that timeframe. Jus' sayin' per experience and what individuals have stated!

[Bob]

Although I agree with about 98% of what he says, his version of modern Chinese medicine history is a bit off.

Also the size of Yang family practitioners not all quite as big as Yang Chengfu LOL
(in his youth he was quite slim as evidenced by the pictures in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts)

A new and superb source is:

Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle over China's Modernity
by Sean Hsiang-Lin Lei

Neither Donkey nor Horse tells the story of how Chinese medicine was transformed from the antithesis of modernity in the early twentieth century into a potent symbol of and vehicle for China’s exploration of its own modernity half a century later. Instead of viewing this transition as derivative of the political history of modern China, Sean Hsiang-lin Lei argues that China’s medical history had a life of its own, one that at times directly influenced the ideological struggle over the meaning of China’s modernity and the Chinese state.

Far from being a remnant of China’s pre-modern past, Chinese medicine in the twentieth century coevolved with Western medicine and the Nationalist state, undergoing a profound transformation—institutionally, epistemologically, and materially—that resulted in the creation of a modern Chinese medicine. This new medicine was derided as “neither donkey nor horse” because it necessarily betrayed both of the parental traditions and therefore was doomed to fail. Yet this hybrid medicine survived, through self-innovation and negotiation, thus challenging the conception of modernity that rejected the possibility of productive crossbreeding between the modern and the traditional.

By exploring the production of modern Chinese medicine and China’s modernity in tandem, Lei offers both a political history of medicine and a medical history of the Chinese state.

http://www.amazon.com/Neither-Donkey-no ... +modernity

Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History
by TJ Hinrichs (Editor), Linda L. Barnes (Editor), Constance A. Cook (Contributor),

Popular how-to books about Chinese medicine written for Americans abound. Those who have some understanding of the basics, beginning with the manipulation of qi, or vital energy, and who want an in-depth look at the history, evolution, and impact of this many-faceted tradition will find much to contemplate in this serious and enlightening essay collection. Hinrichs, an associate history professor at Cornell, and Barnes, director of the master’s program in medical anthropology and cross-cultural practice at the Boston University School of Medicine, invited 58 international scholars from diverse disciplines to share their groundbreaking investigations into past and present practices, efficacy, and the global dissemination of Chinese medicine. Coverage begins with the first appearance of Chinese script around 1200 BCE, when supernatural forces were believed to cause disease, and flows on to the vulnerability of traditional medicine in today’s increasingly high-tech and economically ambitious China. From oracle bones to herbs, meditation, acupuncture, therapeutic massage, feng shui, movement-based practices, and food therapy, this far-ranging yet exacting overview sets Chinese medicine and healing within a vividly rendered historical and social framework. --Donna Seaman

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Medicine- ... DNSW7PR81X

Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-1963: A Medicine of Revolution (Needham Research Institute Series...
by Kim Taylor (Nov 27, 2011)

$54.95 $47.36 Paperback

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Innovation in Chinese Medicine (Needham Research Institute Studies)
by Elisabeth Hsu (Feb 17, 2011)

$44.00 $35.09 Paperback

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The Transmission of Chinese Medicine (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology)
by Elisabeth Hsu (Dec 28, 1999)

$48.00 $42.33 Paperback

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[D_Glenn]

Excellent share, just listened to the whole thing while working in the office.
do you have the Chinese characters and pin-yin for? "Real becomes fake, fake becomes real"
that is so true!

Also the "jianhou" the pin yin and character of "people who misrespresent the art" aka banditos.

I tried finding the characters for saying but there's just too many modern sayings the use the word fake.
I'll have to listen again.

I think it's this 江湖骗子 jiāng​hú​piàn​zi

***
Are you studying TCM now?

Here's a good short video/ audio clip you might enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-zJqBiTbK0


And one of the fundamental ideas behind YSB medicine is getting a tangible feeling of Weiqi in your hands and into the needle before inserting it. To be able to do this consistently requires the practitioner to do the 8 Daoyin exercises for medical practitioners every morning. A medical practitioner should really work to cultivate his own health. That's what all these videos are essentially about. And the difference that it can make is huge.

.

.

[yeniseri]

This link is one of the better sites I have come across regarding the teaching. "modernization" and subsequent "invention" of some of what is practiced today!
Do not take this as absolute as there are some great practitioners out there who seek to bridge the gap of ancient and what is called modern knowledge.

Enjoy!
http://www.classicalchinesemedicine.org ... risis-tcm/

[Deadmonki]

do you have the Chinese characters and pin-yin for? "Real becomes fake, fake becomes real"
that is so true!

The Chinese is "真假, 假真" (zhen jia, jia zhen) "the real becomes fake, the fake becomes real."

Although I agree with about 98% of what he says, his version of modern Chinese medicine history is a bit off.

I don't wish to get into whose teacher knows what better etc etc. Anyone with a brain knows what history and accounts of it are like.

However I would like to say that Andrew's views of the modern history of Chinese medicine comes primarily from three men, Prof Wang Jin-Huai, Dr Xie Peiqi, and Dr Li Hongxiang. All three of them were doctors of Chinese medicine who learned medicine before "TCM" existed. They all lived through the creation of TCM, the cultural revolution and all of that. During the late 80's and early 90's Prof Wang used to take Andrew out looking for as many of the old doctors that were still around as possible. He got to meet them, talk with them, and sometimes observe them.

Suffice to say, whether you agree with his opinions or views or not, they come from the direct experiences and observations of many of those who actually lived the history. And that is an opinion I'll certainly listen to, and in many ways would place more value in than that of most academics studying such things.

That said however, we should bear in mind another saying Andrew is fond of repeating; "If all you have is books, go out and find a teacher. If all you have is a teacher, go out and find some books". Seeking a balanced view is always best.

All the best,

[Bob]

"However I would like to say that Andrew's views of the modern history of Chinese medicine comes primarily from three men, Prof Wang Jin-Huai, Dr Xie Peiqi, and Dr Li Hongxiang. All three of them were doctors of Chinese medicine who learned medicine before "TCM" existed. They all lived through the creation of TCM, the cultural revolution and all of that. During the late 80's and early 90's Prof Wang used to take Andrew out looking for as many of the old doctors that were still around as possible. He got to meet them, talk with them, and sometimes observe them."

Without getting into a pissing match and while I value the experience of the three you mention there are other perspectives of equal value.

Of the references I posted, many are both academics and practitioners of TCM whose teachers also shared the same historical time period.

Below also is a very informative resource:

Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626-2006

In 1626, a young man named Fei Shangyou moved his family to Menghe, a small town in the Yangzi delta of China. According to family legend, he abandoned his career as a scholar and began working as a physician. In doing so, he founded a medical lineage that continues to the present day. This book describes the development, flourishing, and decline of this lineage and its many branches, as well as that of the other medical lineages and families with which it merged over time to form the current of Menghe learning (Menghe xuepai). This current and its offshoots produced some of the most influential physicians in the Chinese medical tradition during the 19th and 20th centuries. Menghe physicians, their disciples and students treated emperors, imperial mandarins, Nationalist Party generals, leading figures in the Communist Party, affluent businessmen, and influential artists. In late imperial China, Menghe medicine was a self-conscious attempt to unite diverse strands of medical learning into one integrated tradition centered on ancient principles of practice. In Republican Shanghai, Menghe physicians and their students were at the forefront of medical modernization, establishing schools, professional associations, and journals that became models for others to follow. During the 1950s and 1960s, the heirs of Menghe medicine were key players in creating the institutional framework for contemporary Chinese medicine. Their students are now practicing all over the world, shaping Chinese medicine in Los Angeles, New York, Oxford, Mallorca, and Berlin. The history of the Menghe current is relevant to anyone interested in the development of Chinese medicine in late imperial and modern China. This book traces Chinese medical history along the currents created by generations of physicians linked to each other by a shared heritage of learning, by descent and kinship, by sentiments of native place as well as nationalist fervor, by personal rivalries and economic competition, by the struggle for the survival of tradition and glorious visions of a new global medicine. On the level of both theory and practice, this history marks a departure from the focus on texts and ideas that has dominated Western engagement with Chinese medicine to date. Its goal is to locate medicine within the concrete lives of physicians and their patients, restoring an agency to their actions that easily gets lost in our search for the forces or structures that shape historical process. To this end, the author interweaves social history and medical case studies, ethnography and biography to narrate a story of Chinese medicine that is very different from any that has been told before.

About the Author

Dr. Volker Scheid is a scholar physician with more than twenty years of clinical experience in the practice of Chinese medicine. A senior research fellow at the School of Integrated Health, University of Westminster, London (UK), he also maintains a private medical practice and lectures internationally. He has published widely in academic and professional journals, including a book Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis (Duke University Press, 2002).

http://www.amazon.com/Currents-Traditio ... ker+scheid

[Deadmonki]

Without getting into a pissing match and while I value the experience of the three you mention, you need to look more carefully at the academic researchers and their background and in particular, their experiences.

Bob, I neither wish to get into a pissing match. You have mis-read my post if you think I am saying academics should be ignored. You are also assuming and presuming a hell of a lot about who is and is not familiar with the people you are citing and the various opinions academic or not about the modern history of Chinese medicine.

Best,

[Bob]

If I have misread your post, then you have my sincere apologies.

I'll re-edit the post a bit.

[yeniseri]

One of my old teachers exclaimed (as I imagined I thought I heard) that the modern Chinese language has changed to the extent that many of its old associations have been lost except for those who were trained in a specific tradition and therefore understand the 'word' (ideograph representation) the meaning and the interpretation thereof, which would be unintelligible to those of the modern generation. Can someone corroborate the existence of the greater than 6 styles of calligraphy and their names, of which I am ignorant and cannot remember?

When one seeks to test the validity (construct validity) of process, it is always best to allow another with that knowledge to bring to the forefront so the true elements of reality to the mix can be validated as opposed to just 'well my teacher studied with god (fill in the blanks) and he said it so it must be right" and who would know anyway! jaja

[taiwandeutscher]

Deadmonki's "... of Chinese medicine who learned medicine before "TCM" existed" is very correct.

There is a rather big difference between TCM, the modern stuff influenced by Marxist-Leninist dialectics, and the Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) from before that period.

If interested, Prof. Dr. Paul U. Unschuld has written very clearly on that topic.

[Deadmonki]

If I have misread your post, then you have my sincere apologies.

Thats okay. Bob if we were to meet and chat over a beer, I'm sure we'd both enjoy the conversation. I like many of the things you post on the forum, and the people whose work you post too. Not all of them, but most of them (got to have some differences of opinion ).

I can read all the world war II history books I want, by well respected historians. However, I will take first and second hand accounts of the people on the ground in the war anyday. Any differences between the two are weighed, and through this I get the picture formed. I don't discount the historians simply because they were not there.

I mentioned who Andrew's 3 primary teachers were, not because they trump anything or anyone else, but to point out that they lived through it. And that is where the views come from. Please note I did try to point out that through Prof Wang he also met and had access to as many other of these old doctors as Prof Wang could track down. Learning from some of them, and simply talking to others. It isn't just 3, but they are the ones he learned from in a direct relationship. Is their view a little different, possibly, probably. But I feel it is worth taking note of because of where it comes from.

So I felt "his version of modern Chinese medicine history is a bit off" was a comment that needed clarifying.

A bit off from what? History is what history is, and the accounts we have of any history are just that and will always vary. I don't know who here is or is not familiar with who Andrew's teacher were/are. Hence the post, so people, not just yourself, had maybe a better understanding of why his views are what they are. I'm not trying to convince anyone of which history is "correct", a pointless and fruitless task if ever there was one.

If you feel the history you know is more reliable, fair enough. As I said, everyone has to weigh the differing perspectives, for what they are, against each other and seek a picture for themselves. For me, getting to hear about the views of the old doctors from Andrew has been invaluable. But I'm not so naive that I ignore all other sources. And no Andrew is not the only person to have ever met the old doctors either.

Best,

[Bob]

Deadmonki's "... of Chinese medicine who learned medicine before "TCM" existed" is very correct.

There is a rather big difference between TCM, the modern stuff influenced by Marxist-Leninist dialectics, and the Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) from before that period.

If interested, Prof. Dr. Paul U. Unschuld has written very clearly on that topic.

I've read most of Unschuld's material and I have a copy of his latest book - interestingly he seems to convey a fairly negative view of Chinese medicine and argues that there really was not a historically unified theory and practice of traditional Chinese medicine. (Other researchers like Elisabeth Hsu also reach this conclusion but without the negative implications)

Prior to the 1900s, as Unschild raises in his historical material, which Chinese medicine does one speak of or believe in?

The system of Imperial Court? The folk? The Song dynasty institutionalization? Which family tradition and teaching, as much of this was hidden and kept within family lines?

These are issues he raises and also points out that many of the traditional practices have little or no foundation in correlative cosmology (yin/yang theory).

But my intent is not to co-opt this thread to a discussion of the history of Chinese medicine (not my desire to go back through my research notes with quotes to support or argue my position with others as this discussion is not a journal article review and defense).

And again, I have previously bought most of Andrew's lectures on this material and agree with his views but his teachers were not the only ones that experienced the evolution of Chinese medicine through the 20th century.

That does not devalue their experiences or thoughts but simply puts them into a larger context of other sources, some which may challenge their generalizations/conclusions.

Let me just stop the historical discussion and let the focus of the discussion return to 98% of the material in which there is agreement. LOL

Although I am appreciative of academic perspectives and find them useful in my understanding of traditional Chinese martial arts, I also don't want to be limited or constrained by them either, especially in this forum.

There are much better things to discuss here than the history of Chinese medicine, you know, like tangible feelings of Qi? LOL And there we can find agreement which was the focus of the clip - my bad.


Traditional Chinese Medicine - Science or Pseudoscience? A Response to Paul Unschuld

Peter Eckman

This article was motivated by the interview in Issue 103 of The Journal of Chinese Medicine (October 2013) with Professor Paul Unschuld. Although Professor Unschuld is a prolific translator of Chinese medicine texts, and thus a gatekeeper to vital information for practitioners who do not read classical Chinese, this interview (together with other communications from Professor Unschuld) raises questions about his perspective on Chinese medicine. It appears that Unschuld characterises Chinese medical theories as ‘magical’ – i.e. pseudoscientific – thinking. This article examines the tacit beliefs which appear to underlie the work of Professor Unschuld (and that seem to be shared by other prominent authors such as Joseph Needham and Ted Kaptchuk) that deny Chinese medicine equal status with modern biomedicine - as being based on scientific fact. In addition, the question is asked: Should Chinese medicine be subject to verification by the methods of Western biomedicine, and if so, which part(s) of Chinese medicine meet that standard?

http://www.jcm.co.uk/sample-articles/pr ... -unschuld/

[neijia_boxer]

As a student of TCM, I really like Andrews background and videos. I've been watching them constantly on topics I am currently studying and getting a ton of great information. His depth of experience is welcomed and refreshing.