Have you heard of Qigong yet? It’s an ancient Chinese secret for health and longevity involving breathing and movement. Tomorrow during the Payson farmer’s market from 10 to 11, we’ll be running a free Qigong class here at Rim Country Wellness.
What Is Qigong & How Does It Work?
The type of Qigong that we’re practicing comes from Zhong Xin Dao I Liq Chuan, the martial art that we’re practicing here throughout the weekend, We’re blessed to have Grandmaster Sam Chin here to lead us through this weekend’s training and to have the opportunity to experience some of the secrets through practice by breathing and moving to create and cultivate your own health and longevity. So without further ado, I will go to Grandmaster Sam Chin and Sifu Ashe Higgs.
Interview With GM Sam Chin
Sam Chin
Yes, I am glad to be here. All right, this is the first trip after COVID to Arizona here. Tomorrow, we are trying to promote the art we call Zhong Xin Dao which is a style of Chinese kung fu.
Alright, kung fu is about cultivation; it’s about the skill of knowing yourself, right mental and physical. So it’s based on the principles of Zen and Tao. It’s about balancing, about harmonizing; basically, it’s about how to be happy.
So, to understand how our minds and bodies work, it’s how we feel ourselves. Through understanding the movement, the breath, and then what to call, we say “qi/chi”.
What is the “qi”? Qi is the energy flow; it’s about the attention of how you look into the mechanism of the body, right.
Ashe Higgs
So, we mentioned that tomorrow morning, we’re going to be having the free Qigong session during the farmers market here at Rim Country Crossfit.
So, what is qigong?
Can Qigong Heal?
Sam Chin
Qigong is the art of energy cultivation, you could say it’s breathing exercises.
Qi is the life force you could say. So, what we eat, how we breathe, it’s the life force within us; everyone has it. Life force is also outside [of us] you see, we need to have that to survive. Through attention, through concentration, we are able to gather it; gather it for healing, for the purpose of healing any person.
Ashe Higgs
We all want to be happier and healthier, how does qigong help us to be healthier?
Sam Chin
Now, basically, because of the movement, there’s mental and physical, when once mental is physical. So this is what you call the unifying mental and physical. When you unify the action with the movement, you maintain your mind in the moment; when we talk about the moment, the moment has no kind of feeling of “you like, or you don’t like”; it’s a feeling of “as such”. When you feel it “as such” with balance, and harmony, you will have a feeling of satisfaction and joy.
This is one part of things that leads you to happiness. This happiness will be kind of continuous happiness that is different from another kind of happiness; when you get [the emotional kind of happiness], you’re afraid of losing it.
Qi Gong & Cancer
Ashe Higgs
So, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but a few years ago you had cancer.
Sam Chin
Yes, in 2013 I had cancer. I had mantle cell lymphoma, so I went through chemo and a bone marrow transplant; because of qigong and meditation and understanding how the mind works, how to handle me, myself mentally, it helped me to go through [the process of treatment].
Ashe Higgs
Did it give you tools for stress management during that time?
Sam Chin
Yes, it helped me to look into the [mental and physical] process. So like I said, when you look at the process, it’s just seeing what is happening [now]. So, if you don’t really have any resistance [to change], right, you won’t suffer.
Ashe Higgs
And it seems like it also gave you the ability to tolerate the chemo easier than most people. And it seems like you recovered faster than most people normally do, under those circumstances, right? If I remember correctly, you told us some stories that the doctors were impressed with how fast you could recover.
Qi Gong & Anxiety
Sam Chin
Yes, because it’s all about the mindset, or mental attitude. If you can stay more in the present, you won’t have [such a] stressful experience you see. Normally, when you have stress, it’s because you bring in all this past experience into [the present]. There’s a joke in Zen that knowledge and our past experience is attacking us, because [we’re] comparing [and judging] things; that makes us feel very stressed. So when we train qigong and all these exercises we call kung fu, it’s a skill of maintaining [yourself] in the moment, trying to maintain in the present to see what is happening.
Ashe Higgs
And you used the word “acceptance”, right, and said it’s more about what is happening, but at the same time it’s not like you gave up, right? You’re still here. So [flowing] is not a passive kind of thing, it’s still active.
Sam Chin
We say that nature itself is about change. To be in the moment is actually very active; active, and alert [with the quality of] readiness, so you will just enjoy the moment. It’s not that you will just [give up], but we can just enjoy everything as it is, to say that means we don’t add anything in or we don’t take anything away.
Through meditation and qigong, we’ll be able to look at things “as such”. When you’re doing things, let me say, everything has beauty by itself; you’re not comparing anything and then you will have the kind of joyfulness because you look at is the thing and it is not comparing, but it’s not that you don’t know the difference, you know the difference, but you’re not comparing it.
So everything has its own place. That’s why it exists. See, it’s not that “this is bad”, and “this is good”; this [kind of thinking/judging] is all from your own point of view. Anything that exists, has its own value; [things exist] because they all have a relationship and interact. So when whatever you encounter, every little thing has its own, intrinsic beaut.
So, everyone is the same; everyone has their own beauty by themselves if you can stay in the moment, but that takes the training, right? To understand, to have your attention there; how to pay attention within yourself.
Qi Gong Awareness
So that means you must first understand your breathing. Training your breathing in Chinese is called qigong. Qi is “breath”, gong is “exercise”; actually, it’s just breathing exercises.
Breathing exercise is about the pressure within ourselves, how we adjust this pressure through movement, and all these things. So, through this, at that moment you will attain peacefulness; this is what we call “discipline and concentration”.
So, when we want to attain this right being… learning how to be mindful, we will see things in a way we have not seen before because we’re more mindful. That is the purpose of training.
Learn More About Qigong
So, this mindfulness training will help you to get through everyday life, and not to be stressed out, because you know yourself, and how we handle your mind and body; how this mind affects the body, how the body affects the mind, and how to balance this [relationship].
If you can balance this, you will balance your movement, balancing your action, balancing your speech, how you talk, and everything. So, with this balancing, it creates harmony; with harmony, then you will affect your surroundings: your family, your colleagues, your workplace, and everything. So, this creates positive energy.
Ashe Higgs
It helps us to be better people.
Sam Chin
It helps you be a better person.
Ashe Higgs
So, movement and breathing exercises help us to understand our mind and understand our body better, like you’ve said before,” first you must know [understand] yourself, only then can you use yourself correctly (i.e. right action).”
Sam Chin
Yes.
Ashe Higgs
Rudy, you wanna take over?
Rudy
Thanks for joining us! Join us tomorrow for the free qigong from 10 AM to 11 AM, and to be present in the moment, come get a massage as well.
We’ve got chair massage going on here right next door to rim country CrossFit, at Rim Country Wellness with Miss Amy Jen’s coming up from the valley from eight to noon. So come join us for the Qigong class. Enjoy the farmers market, check out the art (of Zhong Xin Dao) to be more present, and become happier and healthier with us. A great night.
Sam Chin
Thank you
