Categories: Qi Gong

Do You Think Qigong Is Real? A Real Experience

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Certainly, Qigong is indeed real.

Let me describe a situation I have witnessed. When I was in college, there was a young teacher, in his 30s, who, due to health issues during his childhood, began practicing martial arts from a young age to improve his health.

His master was a practitioner of Tai Chi, not the kind of fitness-oriented Tai Chi that many people might think of, but a style focused on practical combat techniques. My college teacher had been practicing Tai Chi for nearly 20 years, and he would typically practice “standing meditation” daily.

Physically, he had a broad chest, back, and shoulders, which made him appear to be a fitness enthusiast. Nobody would have guessed that he was not only skilled in martial arts but also knowledgeable about qigong.

During a college club event, he convinced a fellow student to start a Tai Chi club and took on the role of the martial arts instructor. Many students who had taken his classes were surprised, and a crowd of people joined the club out of curiosity. I remember very clearly one evening when he taught the first class. In the class, he used a PowerPoint presentation to explain the body’s meridians, the Ren and Du meridians, and the upper, middle, and lower dantians. He also explained how the practice of standing meditation could help one feel the flow of qi.

In the classroom, many boys started making a fuss, claiming they wanted to become martial arts experts. Few students present believed in qigong. At most, they were curious to see our teacher perform a segment of Tai Chi, appreciating a different side of him compared to the classroom.

After speaking for a while, the teacher asked if anyone wanted to come forward to experience the qi.

Immediately, a male student raised his hand and rushed to the front. Here’s what the teacher did: he relaxed both of his hands, with the palms facing each other, leaving a gap in the middle, about the space for two or three palms. He had the student place one hand in the gap, and then the teacher’s palms and fingers began to move slowly. This was the process of emitting qi.

At that moment, suddenly, this male student exclaimed, “It’s tingling, it’s tingling, it feels so amazing.”

Once he said this, everyone couldn’t sit still anymore. Many ladies in the front row went up to experience it first, and they also felt a tingling sensation in their hands.

I also went up to feel it, and, how should I put it? As the teacher’s palms moved back and forth, I felt a tingling sensation in my hand, but it wasn’t like an electric shock. When his palm pushed towards mine, it felt like a tingling sensation, and when his palm moved away, it felt like a kind of suction. In any case, the sensation was distinct, and I’m sure I wasn’t imagining it.

With this happening, everyone’s expressions completely changed; it appeared that qigong was indeed real, and it became something people felt they must learn. The teacher continued to explain the “standing meditation” posture: we were to keep our hands in a rounded shape, our feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, tongue pressed against the roof of the mouth, and to breathe naturally and slowly. He advised that beginners should not overthink their breathing, and he discouraged the use of abdominal or reverse abdominal breathing. He simply instructed us to breathe slowly and imagine the qi sinking down gradually.

As a result, many students immediately got up from their seats and began adopting this posture. The teacher approached each of us to help adjust our positions. He emphasized that the lower back should be slightly arched, and the arms should be raised but not too high.

My personal experience was that the leg posture was manageable, but keeping the arms raised was tiring, and my upper arms quickly felt extremely sore. I did feel a slight sensation, such as warmth developing between the palms, as if something was resonating between them. However, the arm soreness overpowered the subtlety of this feeling, so I couldn’t persist.

Many other students had similar experiences.

Later, back in the dormitory, we started practicing again, but hardly anyone persevered. There wasn’t a need for any specific technique; it was just a matter of focusing your attention on the lower dan tian, and a warm flow would gradually move down. Afterward, the lower dan tian felt hard, and there would be a burning sensation during breathing. That was the time to proceed to the next step: focusing your intention on the back, specifically the spine, a bit lower. It was said that as long as your attention was concentrated on the back, the qi from the dan tian would autonomously flow downwards, moving from the perineum toward the tailbone, and then traveling up along the spine.

In the second year, my teacher went to Europe for a year of exchange and we didn’t chat much during that time. When he returned a year later and shared his experiences, he mentioned that his roommate in Europe was also a teacher from Jiangsu who had come to the same school for the exchange program. Interestingly, this roommate also had a passion for qigong, so they would meditate and practice qigong together in the evenings.

They thoroughly enjoyed this practice, and during their time abroad, they even recruited foreign students at their school and taught them standing meditation to cultivate their qi. As a result, they successfully introduced qigong to students from other countries, and it was said that these international students were immensely excited when they felt the qi.

As I write about this experience, memories come flooding back, and I find myself rekindling my interest in continuing the practice. After all, my teacher achieved real success, and it was through a book I had recommended to him. So, I plan to continue practicing in the same way as before, hoping to experience those sensations as well.