Chi or QI- what is it? How do you cultivate it? Do you believe it exists?

Hey Alyda – I love that you started this discussion! My answer might be a bit long-winded…

I can offer my perspective as a current student of acupuncture. Qi cultivation is vital not only in the treatment of our patients but in the treatment of our inner selves. We learn as students that if our posture is wonky, our breath is held or shallow, or our minds are focused elsewhere instead of in the moment with our patients, treatment will most likely be unsuccessful and unsatisfactory on both ends. Interestingly enough, if we do not get the ‘De Qi’ or the feeling or ‘meeting/arrival of the Qi’ through the needle when treating a patient or if the patient doesn’t feel a response or react to the stimulus, we are told to either try the point again, or change the selected point in order to elicit such a response! Here’s an article on that, if you’re interested: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705793/

Though in modern times it can be difficult to spend time cultivating our Qi, my school stresses the importance of adopting some type of Taiji, Qigong, or martial arts practice in order to contribute to the continuous cultivation of Qi – which is a lifelong endeavor!

The main difference comes in the physical aspect of the gathering and circulating of Qi…

In TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), there are various types of Qi that assist us with…well, existing! The food we eat, the air we breathe, the genes we inherit, our daily mindset, and much more all contribute to the Qi we have to work with, and where that Qi goes! Proper (and ideally – daily) cultivation of Qi results in enhanced, stronger awareness of ourselves and others, and contributes to our overall physical, mental, and emotional health (cue tales of sages and immortals who required nothing but Qi to survive for hundreds of years lol).

I recently found a great TCM Youtube channel that actually has a video about Qi – I think the breakdown of Chinese characters is especially important to the understanding of Qi from this perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2HfwhhSqzc&t=263s

If you’re interested, that same TCM Youtube channel has videos for each meridian – super helpful if you want to learn more about them, where they’re located, etc.

For me, Qi cultivation is similar to meditation but with more focus on the awareness of Self and the Inner Landscape – similar to mindfulness techniques. Sam said something about this in class on Sunday, how he meditates on each of his organs – great stuff!! Inner Smile meditations and cultivation of what various lineages refer to as the “inner” spiritual world are extremely useful in Qi cultivation, and are beautiful exercises that really do contribute to an overall feeling of peace.

I sought out a martial arts practice/school in order to work on my Qi cultivation and ended up here with you awesome people!! 🙂 I would call myself an ‘internal artist’ before anything else (learning self-defense here and practical application is a plus I didn’t seek out on purpose), and the fact that this lineage has an internal component is truly what got me hooked! I do my best to focus on this when practicing the forms – at the end of the day, I’m a big dork for inner alchemical work…

Thanks for reading this huge response (if you did hehe)!! Hope to hear what others have to say & discuss again soon!

Keep rockin’ – J