I was pondering qigong, and what qigong is and does. It occured to me that when I see things like ballet, pilates, calasthenics, and such in the west, I notice that those how maintain a regular practice of those kinds of activities tend to be in better health in general and especially as they get older than others. If you watch a ballet dancer going through a routine a lot of the soft movements look an aweful lot like some qigong/tai chi movements. Also old ballarenias tend to be in fairly good condition and age pretty gracefully. A lot of Pilates moves also tend to resemble yoga, and Pilates was the little secret of the stars back in the day for them to remain healthy and young. Boxers have said for a long time to avoid sexual contact too soon before a bout because it made your legs weak.
Back when I was in the army I noticed that a lot of the streching and loosening up, and calasthenics we did every morning resemble a lot of qigong postures and streching. And of course the army did this in order to keep its soldiers in good physical condition for the battle field.
So my point/question is that with out having a concept of "chi" it would seem that in the west the effects of chi were observed nevertheless. Could ballet be considered a type of qigong if it produces the same effect? Did boxers stumble upon the extrodinary vessles in the legs being drained of chi by sexual activity and just not know what to call it?