Hard White Crane Qigong Dangerous?

[goju]

In Dr. Yangs White Crane book he says that hard qigong is harmful to your health. Can anyone tell me in what ways it is harmful? Does it have to do with holding the breath in the postures.

[Walter Wong]

From what I understand, the hard qigong would charge up your yang side. You'll be so over charged, that you'll have too much yang energy and can cause probably some erratic energies surging through your organs and system. Kind of like a fan that can only have so much electricity or so many watts go through it to make it function properly. Too much electricity or over the recommended amount of watts would burn the fan out and cease functioning. The proper amount of watts running through it would have the fan running much longer than having too much watts.
So you having too much yang energy or your yang side over charged, you'll be like the fan that's having too much electricity or too much watts running through it while it's on.
Too much hard qigong will charge up the yang energy excessively.
This does not mean you do only some hard qigong, but you must do some soft qigong for the yin side to help balance the yang side. So the more hard qigong you do, you should do just as much soft qigong.

That is my understanding so far. But I'm not qi or qigong expert by any means so all you qigong people out there, feel free to correct me and please do cause I'm still learning also.

[goju]

Thanks Walter. I appreciate the response. I ask because I practice Okinawan Goju Ryu Karate and have been researching the history of the style and its origins and obviously it brings me to white crane. We train a form called Sanchin which I believe is supposed to be the moving hard qigong of the style but I also know that alot of the Okinawan teachers who stated that Sanchin is the root of the system have died from cerebral hemorage, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and other similar ailments in their late 50's / early 60's. This seems to be a bit young. Is it that they did not balance the training with soft qigong? I used to watch the people in their 70's and 80's practicing taiji and qigong in chinatown in NYC and am in awe of the vitality and energy that these practitioners would posses. Either way, my journey seems to be leading me toward the chinese way of things.

[Walter Wong]

From what I understand and seen of Okinawan Karate, there is a hard and soft side to it as well. Only from the perspective of a White Crane or Tai Chi practitioner, the soft side to Okinawan Karate is still pretty hard.

I speculate that Okinawan Karate is completely a hard qigong in it's own right. And like I said of my previous post, alot of hard qigong without alot of soft qigong is gonna burn a person out eventually. Which I am not surprised when you said:

I believe is supposed to be the moving hard qigong of the style but I also know that alot of the Okinawan teachers who stated that Sanchin is the root of the system have died from cerebral hemorage, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and other similar ailments in their late 50's / early 60's.

Not to say you have to stop doing Goju if that is your love. By all means, practice the martial arts you love.

I know of a couple of former Goju practitioners that train Tai Chi at our school. I'm not sure if one of them is still there.

But yeah, I would advise to begin a journey into learning soft qigong if all your training consists of hard qigong practices and movements.
I would say Okinawan Karate stylists, their bodies have a highly charged yang side.

But that is my perspective and I could be wrong but this is what I currently believe.
DOM, would you please clarify as you are more of an authority on Karate than I am.

[DOM]

goju is a great style of karate,that had great influince on other forms of karate.The style I practiced did sanchin but was not any thing like there sanchin.There was no dynamic tension at all.Insome ways I am glad for the reasons goju mentions.But from my studies of white crane,qigung and other chines martial arts,sanchin is definatly hard chigung and a form of iron shirt,golden bell training.I can see why this was a very important form.Okinawa had it's own martial art before the influince of the chines arts and the okinawans practiced for one reason,to protect them selves,family and village.I do not beleave they were that concernd about living a long healthy spiritual life.I do not know at what age or how Miyagi died or any of the other pioners of the style.Maybe they knew how to reverse the negitive effects but did not pass it on to none okinawens.Or maybe he never completed the rest of the training before adapting it to his style.I do not know if those who practice iron shirt have similar problems or not.But somthing we all have to remember,a lot of the training we do was developed for combat and war,there was no fire power they had to forge their bodies in to weapons and most never lived to a ripe old age of 50 or 60.Alot of what we train,dose and will damage the body to some degrea.Even training tai chi chaun as a martial art can cause injuries.I have a theroy that alot of peaple who train sanchin just train with two much tension and improper breathing because of competitions.From the few I have attended,the ones who tense up the most and make the most noise will recieve higher scores.I feel this is a form that should never be used or tought in a compeditive manner in or out of the dojo.Imo as one progresses in sanchin the more it should be come internalized.From hard to soft{goju}just like hard chigung or any other external style.

[Walter Wong]

That was great DOM. Thank you for the clarification.

Perhaps if there was a way that the former Goju masters could reverse the negative health effects from Sanchin practice, it may have been a secret that wasn't passed on?

[yat_chum]

Hi Goju, Karate as I'm sure you know is a fusion of the martial arts of Fujian and the Okinawan's indigenous style. I don't believe that the founders of Karate ever learnt White Crane soft qigong, as they only seem to have learnt the beginning forms such as the Sam Chien, which are hard qigong. However the Okinawan's are well known for their longevity and I believe that part of their answer to the problem of energy dispersion is found traditional Okinawan dance, which I have heard has the same health benefits as Tai Chi.

A man who loves music can make great progress in karate; a man who does not love music will never perform karate correctly.

Mas Oyama

The subject of the Sam Chien has been brought up in other threads
http://www.ymaaschool.com/phpbb2/viewto ... sc&start=0
http://www.ymaaschool.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=753

"Lien kun sam chien ki, sam chien, lien kaw si" Begin your training by practising Sam Chien and don't stop practising Sam Chien until your very end.

[DOM]

great point about okinawan dance;Mater Oyama now there was a real worrier.IMO he put out one of the best books on karate,[This is karate].There is some realy great training techniques in this book.I recommend it to any one interested in martial arts.I use to practice some of them alot,like candle training and trying to punch a hole threw a piece of paper.Walter he even shows candle training with a Katana.In the book he even shows a lot of crane teckniques,like the crane wing and how to use it.Master Nakamuro a top student of Master Oyama and Founder of Seido karate put out a nother great book called Karate technique and spirit.Both these books realy show the deapth and effectiveness of karate.A far cry from what peaple see at the Mcdojo's and think is karate.If you have not seen it check out the fighting black kings.A great documentury about Oyamas karate Kyokushinkai.There is a lot of real full contact matches in this one.Even some with karate against kunfu.

[goju]

Hi Jo. You could be right about the okinawan dance. I was thinking that the soft qiqong might be in the form of a kata called tensho. It translates to mean revolving or rotatiting hands. Allegedly Chojun Miyagi (founder of Goju Ryu Karate) created it based on a soft chinese set called rokkugokishu. I've seen it spelled many ways so i'm not sure if this is thr true spelling. However i've seen tensho practiced with almost the same tension or hardness as sanchin. I have softened my sanchin breathing and tension which has in turn made my tensho practice follow suit. I wish I had access to someone who practiced the okinawan dance to pick their brain on the subject. Thanks for all the responses. Happy New Year to all.

[Dvivid]

Speaking of Sanchin...new book:



http://www.ymaa.com/publishing/books/external/way-of-sanchin-kata

[Yue]

"Too much hard qigong will charge up the yang energy excessively.
This does not mean you do only some hard qigong, but you must do some soft qigong for the yin side to help balance the yang side. So the more hard qigong you do, you should do just as much soft qigong."

What kind of soft qigong would one do?

[darth_freak]

8 pieces of brocade, taiji qigong, your taiji form emphasizing on qi flow, white crane soft qigong. That kind of qigong.
Something that makes you soft and relax but where you keep moving.

[Yue]

Thanks for the answer, I've been wondering about that for some time now.

[Dvivid]

Taiji Ball Qigong...Taiji Symbol Sticking solo practice...

I personally feel that Master Yang's soft white crane qigong is very effective:


http://www.ymaa.com/publishing/dvd/qigong_DVD/shaolin_white_crane_qigong_DVD

[Yue]

You mean Flying Crane? I can't seem to learn that for some reason. The only soft qigong I can do from that book is the moving soft qigong set that starts out like eight pieces of brocade.

[darth_freak]

Once I pushed myself too hard on white crane soft qigong. I thought I xas relax but the chest movements may have put my neck in weird position because afterwards I felt like I had sand between my vertebra. When I stopped it went away.
I was then told to practice with th neck pushed back and baihui streched up but it's not relax anymore...

[Yue]

I know what you mean. I try to be really cautious when practicing that set, because once I pulled a muscle in my chest doing the first piece where you stretch vertically with your fingers interlocked over your head. I couldn't train for days.

[Yue]

What kinds of soft qigong are used to balance out iron arm and iron board bridge?