Chi Kung and Endurance

Allot of taoist have a different idea about strength and what is cardiovascular health. You will naturaly transision into a stronger energy body, and you will be pluged into a well of vitality and unlimited energy as you progress. I think you will find walking or maybe some fun swimming nothing to serius will be more then enough. Welcome to a new way of thinking about, and approaching health and what is healthy.

My experience is qi gong, while keeping you healthy and giving you more energy, doesn’t build cardiovascular endurance. That is, if you’re training for a marathon, or even 5 or 10k meter runs, you’ll need to do some cardiovascular exercise.

I bike and run a little. And i remember climbing the stairs of the big Buddha in Hong Kong with a very high level practitioner of qi gong. He was a little winded at the top, but i wasn’t.

Also, i remember climbing Hua Shan one night with several spry young guys who did a lot of qi gong and martial arts. They were all in their 20s, special diet non-smoking guys all bragging about how healthy they are due to their lifestyles and dissing me and my buddy, both in our 30s and smokers. Well, all the super-fit special diet martial arts guys collapsed before the peak and sat on the trail sucking wind.

I had held back to hike with this older guy from the UK who was having a blast and filling my walk up the mountain with some of the most interesting conversation I’ve ever had. He too is a high level practitioner of qi gong.

When we caught up to the other guys, there were our three young martial artists hunched on the trail while my friend, on his feet, leaned coolly on a rock smokin a fag.

Anyway, we all got to the top ok, but the three guys had to abandon it on account of cold, while my friend, the old guy and I stayed to watch the sunrise, then spent another 5 hours hiking around the top before returning to the hotel.

My point in all of this is that qi gong can maintain high levels of health but not necessarily prepare you for great athletic endeavors. The old guy, being a high level practitioner but no athlete, had the physical capacity to get thru the experience and he carefully paced himself to achieve it and had a rewarding experience. My friend and i were fairly new to qi gong but in good physical shape from the other exercises we did. The other fellows did neither qigong or cardiovascular exercise, just martial arts (not as cardiovascular as running, swimming, cycling, etc.) and they crapped out early.

I’ve heard of super-endurance athletes learning qigong techniques to boost performance, but i don’t know much about it. Michael has posted such info to this forum before and can probably tell u more. What i do is kind of tune into alchemical machinery while running or biking and breath in the dan tian.

So i would say, depending on your purpose or needs you could do both. that is until you’re at a high enuff level to manipulate physical matter with your qi and zap in and zap out of places at will.

I think the high level practioners on that trip did a much better job with body control, that is maintaining body temperature in the unheated, cold and damp conditions during our stay at the monastery. People without good qigong suffered a lot more from the constant cold and dampness.

The way I’ve experienced it, we can use qigong and dao yin to remove the restrictions we’ve accumulated in our joints and connective tissue. If we do that, and as we build our awareness of structure and how to use it more effectively, we move more fluidly, gracefully, efficiently, less effortfully, etc. Sort of like a well lubricated auto – less energy is lost due to heat and friction.

However, we still have to condition our body for the feats we want to perform. Qigong again makes that process go a lot more smoothly. If you train with all those old injuries and tight areas hampering you, with sub-par structure, you’re not going to get quite as far. Assuming you avoid injury, you’re going to need a lot more muscle, food, you name it to overcome the inefficiencies. Training as a qigong practitioner, you can use your body so that you use only *just enough* energy to take the next step up Huashan, or in the marathon, or whatever.

I’ll roar in my two cents get it..snowlion “lionsroar” whatever…

I trained Iron Shirt with Liang Shou Yu and a few other teachers in Canada we trained whats called Li Gong, which utilized different martial drills with heavy cement, bricks iron. Sifu Pan Ching Fu (kitchner) taught it same way. Interesting memory Master Liang Shou Yu body was and is probaly still tough like iron a friend of mine in vancouver drove him to get vaccinated and the needle bent in his arm… fluke who knows it was cool story i believed to be true.

My personnal study on the comparison is that western weight lifting for me and my personal trainer bodies did two blind studies one with integrated Li Gong and one without, straight weight lifting actually caused tendon, muscle to be more shorter or taunt, bulkier and integrated li gong gave more flexibility a leaner look not so roid head looking, more flexibility.

Know the poo poo comment:

The consesus on hard style training is risky can cause high blood pressure issues if not integrated with deeper inner practice like inner smile, any style of awareness practices. Liang said that you have to know your limits and training in older years has to change due to aging process. We also used alot of swimming exercises to counteract the external power drills…so there it is.

I think theres alot of value in the resistance training if you can intergrate it into
a energy body approach. Liang did alot of bagua walking with heavy cement blocks iron plates…he has a great well rounded physique.

Heavy weight low reps= more mass (more dangerous)
light weight high reps= leaner cut(less dangerous)

SL