Bao wrote:origami_itto wrote:Tomato potato, you're being pedantic for the sake of having a hill to die on.
The point is that whatever you call it, you're doing energy work.
If we want to split hairs the venn gets stupid, so what's the point?
You are just being silly and unnecessarily confrontative.
It's entirely possiblewe're just being cranky. We flew halfway across the country and drove back over 48 hours with about four hours of actual sleep.
We're running on pure rage, man.
No it's not about being pedantic, it's about what kind of energy work and the purpose of what you are doing. Not all different kind of energy work, types of movements and exercises are compatible. If you have respect for what you are doing, you don't just mix stuff together, you study something, learn about it carefully before you bring in something else to your practice, or before you start mixing something together.
The exercise is what's important, not the name. We've seen so many different kinds of qigong that work on the body in various ways.
W, personally, don't care what you call it. Show us how to do it so we can play with it and that's good enough.
But also, I am aware that learned gentlemen of letters have stabbed each other and/or lived bitterly for decades over questions of taxonomy in virtually any discipline, so I understand the impulse.
It's about attitude and respect for what you are doing, as well as understanding your own goals and focus. Many people who combine their IMA practice with qigong, or other TCMA don't understand what they are doing. They are unfocused, wasting time and energy. They prolong their path or by their own actions, make sure they will never achieve their goals. Some people would even warn about different types of "qi-diseases", when mixing types of internal practices, but I myself won't go so far.
(But still, doing some things wrong, practice some types of exercises too much and similar, might affect things as your mood and sense of well-being in a negative manner)
Okay, no, yeah, THIS is what I was responding to in anger. The arrogance.
The Dong family stewards, practices, and teaches a rich body of qigong practices along with their various forms. I'm sure they would just laugh if you told them it wasn't Taijiquan.
What IS taijiquan? What IS neigong? We have these names and these methods, but ultimately they are about the cultivation of a particular end. Your methods and results may vary. Even if we are pedantic about the naming of gong, how can you say that taijiquan contains no qigong? Point to taijiquan? Where does it start and end? Is it the form and everything else just other stuff tacked on to serve the form?
It's a lab, it's a kitchen, can you smell what the Sifu's cookin? The neigong, the qigong, the yilu the erlu the taolu, they are all just means to the end of cultivation. Okay so you don't like pepper in your soup. I do. Therefore for me, soup contains pepper.
If your soup does not contain pepper it has no bearing on the pepper in my own. You don't get to define soup for everyone.
We move energy through meridians to cultivate it. Call it what you like, it doesn't change a thing.
Affecting meridians generally or indirectly as with Tai Chi, or directly with specific methods designed to affect a specific organ in a specific way, are two entirely different things. If you understand it or not, all types of internal cultivation are still not the same.
Edit: Some qigong methods are designed to increase the body's Yang, others will make your body more yin. If you have different types of diseases, the first type of practice might be better for your condition, the other might make it worse. This means that you should be careful about practicing medical qigong.
Tai Chi has the benefit that it will regulate and balance the body's yin and yang, not making it either too much yang or yin (if you practice correctly).
Desined to increase yang and yin don't seem very useful descriptions to me. There is far more subtlety and variation in the exercises in my experience. You know it can energize the discussion to disagree but at the end of the day I believe your point is an artificial distinction that serves no purpose.
It's like those amateur langauge sleuths (or Jordan Petersons) who think that because a word comes from a latin root the meaning of that root trumps the word's modern usage.
Language is fluid and flexible, and no matter how nerd patrol you want to get about assigning immutable categories, the fact is that culturally and practically among the body of practioners of these arts in China and around the world, Qigong is a much more general term than you are allowing for.
Where it is important to draw distinctions, the various systems are usually tagged with descriptions. Health qigong, conditioning qigong, whatever. I don't care about that. Just show me what works.
