Qigong

Qigong (qi gong, "the cultivation or skill of qi") is a Chinese practice of gathering, circulating, and refining qi, the vital energy, through the coordination of slow movement, breathing, and focused attention or visualization. It is an umbrella term for a vast and ancient family of practices, there are said to be thousands of distinct forms, ranging from gentle health-and-longevity exercises to meditative and spiritual disciplines and to the internal training that underlies the "internal" martial arts such as taiji (tai chi). Its roots lie deep in Chinese tradition, drawing on Daoist practices of "nourishing life" (yangsheng) and inner alchemy, on Buddhist meditation, and on the theory of qi and the meridians shared with traditional Chinese medicine, within which "medical qigong" is used as a therapeutic and preventive practice.

The historical practice was known by many older names; the general term qigong was popularized in twentieth-century China, and the practice underwent a huge popular revival in the late twentieth century. Presented fairly, qigong is a genuine traditional discipline valued for relaxation, gentle exercise, and meditative focus, and as a moving meditation it has documented benefits of the kind associated with any such practice; its traditional framework of qi and meridians is a feature of Chinese medical cosmology rather than of Western physiology, and claims of specific energetic or curative effects beyond those of gentle exercise and meditation are not established in those biomedical terms. As a living practice it remains widely performed for health, calm, and spiritual cultivation across China and around the world.

The word qigong is modern. The practices it covers, breath regulation, guided movement, and the long tradition of nourishing life, are old and were known by other names, but the compound term came into general use in China in the 1950s, when the new state was looking for a secular, national and inexpensive approach to public health. Presenting the material as exercise rather than as religion was part of what made it acceptable.

That framing worked, and then it slipped. Through the 1980s a mass enthusiasm developed that went far beyond health exercise: masters attracted large followings, extraordinary powers were claimed and reported in the press, research institutes were founded to study external qi, and organisations grew to a scale the state had not anticipated. Some were straightforwardly commercial, some were religious in all but name.

The state's response after 1999 was to suppress the movements it regarded as a threat and to retain the health practice, and the distinction between approved exercise and prohibited organisation has been enforced since. Qigong in its medical form remains widely taught in Chinese hospitals and parks.

The claims divide accordingly. That slow coordinated movement with attention to breath benefits balance, flexibility and mood in older adults is supported by trials of reasonable quality. That a practitioner can direct qi outward to affect another person or an object has been tested and not demonstrated.