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Hi,

I am interested in getting started in Qigong.

I know basically nothing about it but I have a good grounding in meditation and visualisation.

I would appreciate it if someone could point me at some basic starter information.

Thanks.

Lee Holden, he used to do a show on PBS. He is a great teacher and has some DVDs that are reasonably priced on amazon.

IMO it's less easy to learn stuff like that without seeing somebody do it in front of you, so I would recommend following a good video to get into a routine, and maybe supplementing that practice with book learning if that interests you. It's one of those things that can be kinda boring to read about, and you really need to get up and try it to learn.

Also, if you are interested in using chi energy to heal, check out Hongchi Xiao's youtube videos about Paida Lajin. It's a very simple system of slapping your major joints and meridian channels, then stretching so that chi flow is encouraged. He's got a lot of quality testimonials from injured people who claim its benefit, and he teaches the techniques for free online. IMO this is a great supplement to a qigong practice.

I would argue that there's no such thing as "basic starter information" for Qigong. Not because it's some super secret difficult art, but because "Qigong" is a vague term which was invented back in the second half of the 20th century to cover the vast collection of Chinese systems of training which focused on the cultivation of Qi. Prior to that these systems had been known under a multitude of different names, depending on their origin, technique and purpose etc.

People have tried to come up with different ways to divide up the term "Qigong" into sub-categories, the most common are either the division into Medical/Martial/Spiritual Qigong, or the division into Qigong (Vital Energy Cultivation)/Neigong (Internal Cultivation)/Neidan (Internal Alchemy). Personally I think they're both flawed, and that the best route is to look for a good teacher with a genuine lineage and simply use the the terminology of the lineage in question.

It's a bit like asking for "basic starter information for playing an instrument"... you have to pick an instrument first :p

As for how to do that, the best and easiest method is to look around your area for a teacher and check out the training they offer. If you're in an urban or suburban area, there should be several classes within easy access. Check them out, find one which gels with you, and go from there.

Alternatively, there's a thread here: https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/40061-potent-systems/ which lists a number of the more prominent and well respected teachers in the field, you could search through that and see if any of them are both accessible and in line with what you're hoping to learn.

Finally, there are books and DVD's. I wouldn't recommend trying to learn anything solely from books and DVD's, but they can serve as good supplements to whatever you're learning in-person, as well as provide a deeper foundation in the theory and cosmology behind qigong.

Good luck

Thanks for the info guys.

I did a search and apparently there is a "School of Chinese Internal Arts" almost at the end of my street.

Although I am in the process of looking for a new house so I am going to put a pause on it until I am more settled, but I do think doing a class is the best option.

Thanks again guys.

Go read some online articles on the subject so that you know slightly more about the subject and know what to look for. Rin said it the best. It's a large subject, try to narrow it down a little bit.

Micr0cosM wrote:Thanks for the info guys.

I did a search and apparently there is a "School of Chinese Internal Arts" almost at the end of my street.

Although I am in the process of looking for a new house so I am going to put a pause on it until I am more settled, but I do think doing a class is the best option.

Thanks again guys.

Sounds like a good place to check out.

Desecrated's idea of looking for online articles is a good one too, as a starting point, there's a lot of decent material here: http://www.scholarsage.com/

The daobums forum I linked earlier is also highly active and has a lot of skilled practitioners as members, as well as several highly respected teachers who contribute on occasion. It's an excellent source of information for Qigong and related arts, and overall a great community, with a much better ratio of signal to noise than most such forums.

Good luck.