Book Review – Chinese Medical Qigong

I have just finished reading Chinese Medicine Qigong – edited by Tianjun Liu and Kevin W Chen. I actually bought this book not long after it was first published in 2010. Billed as “the first and as yet only approved Qigong textbook used in most Traditional Chinese Medicine Colleges and Universities in China” and translated into English for the first time, it seemed like it would be a worthwhile and valuable resource to become familiar with. As you can see – it took me a little while to actually get around to reading it through. Now that I have done that, I thought I would share my perspective on it with you so that you can see if it is a book that you would like to purchase, and even more importantly, a book that you would like to put the time into reading and understanding the contents of.

Why did it take me so long to read this book?

This book was written and edited by experts from more than ten different universities and research institutes in China. In addition to this, it was translated not just by one person, but again by a team of translators. I actually started reading the book not long after I bought it, but to be honest, it reads a lot like you might imagine it would after having been produced in this way -very much as if it has been written by a committee (the book credits no less than 37 editors and translators as having worked on the book!), particularly in the opening chapters. The writing is often convoluted, and academic and cultural politics are clearly at play in some of the passages of those opening sections as the lead editors worked to put together something resembling a consensus on some of the topics. It really takes some patience to wade through this, and at the time when I first started reading the book this initial introduction did not seem like it would add much to my understanding or practice, so much as I was interested in it’s contents, I put it aside to focus on things that were more immediately valuable to me at the time. But now that I am preparing to release Long White Cloud Qigong’s Introduction to Qigong Healing course in the near future, I again thought it would be worthwhile for me to review this book in depth as an overview of the practice of Medical Qigong – so I plunged back in.

The good news is that the Chief Editor Liu Tianjun is well aware of the shortcomings and limitations of the book. In his postscript to this edition he says “We have to coordinate various standpoints and respect the opinions of the majority; therefore, some essentials may have been lost in the process.” Given the size and complexity of the task they have undertaken, I think that what they have accomplished is impressive, and… the readability of the book does improve in later sections.

Contents of this qigong book review

So in this review I will give you:

1. What I think the book does well
2. Issues or weak points in the book
3. A summary of my thoughts and who I think the book would be of interest to.

What the book does well

Part I of the book is about fundamental theories and history of qigong.

With a history dating back over five thousand years, and theory and practice which has evolved and diversified as practitioners have applied this knowledge to many different facets of life and philosophy resulting in literally thousands of different schools and styles, the book does well at broadly surveying this history and development, to paint the big picture of how this has evolved, and some of the key influential concepts and writings. They will give the reader a good overview to put into perspective the different practices they may see and be engaged in today.

The book continues this historic narrative up until our current time, very carefully finding its way around some of the more recent and messy political history. For an informed reader this will give good insight into the current accepted view of qigong practice within China.

One thing the book does very well is cite references both to historic documents about qigong, and also modern scientific research and studies into the mode of action and effectiveness of qigong for different conditions. The serious qigong student will find the extensive references contained in each chapter very useful in helping them to find original source documents if they wish to dig deeper into specific topics.

Part II of the book moves on to the practice of qigong.

In this section I particularly liked the discussion of possible adverse reactions to qigong practice. This is an area that many teachers and writers gloss over, or do not even acknowledge as a possibility. In this book they are careful to explain that qigong is very safe and low risk, but that there still is the possibility of adverse reaction, and they go further to describe many such possible issues in detail as well as what the likely causes are, and what can be done to avoid or remedy these issues.

They also give a written description of 13 different qigong forms, which can be interesting for the more experienced student or practitioner to compare and contrast with what they know and practice, as well as possibly pick up one or two insights into different aspects of the practices.

Part III of the book addresses clinical application of qigong

I was disappointed to discover that the book does not really deal with what they refer to as external treatment with qigong, where the skilled qigong practitioner emits qi to bring balance to the flow of energy in the patient’s body, and effect healing. It does provide a brief description of this aspect of practice and clearly state that the book does not focus on it. It also refers to some controversy around this type of practice, which could be why it was not included in this volume? Or perhaps it was simply to restrict the scope of the work undertaken in producing this book?

What it does focus on is the prescription of different exercises for patient’s self practice. It gives many examples of this for different conditions, looking at the process of prescription from the point of view of both western disease classification and Traditional Chinese Medicine syndrome differentiation. In addition to this it also considers the role factors such as the constitution of the patient should have in formulating a prescription. A practitioner developing their clinical practice will find this section valuable, not just for the specific prescriptions, but more so for the example of the thought process that goes into coming up with a prescription tailored to your patient’s specific needs.

I particularly appreciated the sentiment contained in the description of parts of the prescription process: “In many cases, the therapist must create and compile special Qigong exercises to meet special needs. In clinic, such newly developed methods are usually created by taking some parts of common Qigong practices and reorganizing them on the basis of their principles and their functions in accord with the needs of the case.” All too often this perspective is missing in qigong practice, the essential idea of adapting practice to the needs of the individual. It is far too common to find practitioners that believe they must rigidly conform to a formula of practice that has been passed down to them, not understanding that it is the underlying principles that really matter, and these need to be adapted to individual circumstances in order to obtain the best results. It is usually fine to follow a predefined routine of practice if you are in relatively good health, and in the process of learning, but the case of treating disease makes the process of adaptation so much more important, and I really appreciated seeing this addressed specifically in the book. This may give those from a more regimented training background psychological ‘permission’ to think about their practice and knowledge in a more flexible way as they move into clinical application of qigong.

Part IV of the book presents a selection of excerpts from classical qigong literature.

This is the part of the book that I enjoyed the most. Simple and direct statements of philosophy, principles, and application of qigong. There are many gems in here that will enrich and inform the practice of both new and more experienced practitioners. To be honest, for me personally there are more valuable clinical insights to be found in this section than in the section specifically on clinical prescriptions. A lot of the descriptions are more metaphorical, but the get to the heart of the matter in a way that some off the more modern writing does not seem to so easily.

It was really nice to have these excerpts from so many classic sources all compiled in one place.

Issues and weak points in this qigong book

History

While the overview of the history of qigong contained in this book will be useful to many students, it  seriously downplays the significance and detrimental impact of some of the political events of the last century on the knowledge and practice of qigong. While it is understandable why these topics would be treaded around so cautiously, it definitely misses something here which is key to understanding the current state of qigong practice. I think perhaps some of this is best viewed as a useful cultural interface to understand the official view of qigong in China at the current time, rather than a definitive exploration of it. The discerning reader may want to look more widely to gain perspective on how qigong practice has been affected and shaped by recent Chinese history.

Practice of qigong

This is definitely not a book to try to learn qigong practice from. The editors are very clear on this themselves, stating that an interested student or practitioner should find an expert in the methods described to learn from, rather than trying to do so from the descriptions in the book. This is important to bear in mind. The descriptions still have value for comparing and contrasting different forms, but this will be of most use to the student who already has gained significant qigong practice experience from other sources.

Theory

There were a few places where elements of theory stated seemed to be at odds with most conventional sources. It is hard to say whether this could just be the result of something being transposed in the process of translation and editorial review – an easy enough thing to happen in such a complex process for such an extensive book with so many people involved, or if it is legitimately a different view of the theory. My inclination is to believe that it is the former, and there was only one place where the use of the theory as described could lead to undesirable effects if applied to practice – a problem which would be avoided if this book was being used as supplemental information rather than as a sole source of learning. But issues such as this suggest that this book is definitely more suitable for experienced students or practitioners, who can detect, query, and resolve such seemingly conflicting information, rather than for beginner students who may simply become confused by this.

Lack of coverage of external treatment

If you go this book thinking you were going to learn about the use of external emission of qi as a clinical treatment, you would be very disappointed. The book is clear that it does not deal with this in depth, but it only states this about halfway through the book (which is over 600 pages long). As such I think it makes the title of the book a bit misleading. What is covered is definitely “Chinese Medical Qigong” but it only covers part of the topic, leaving out a huge and important aspect that most people would expect to see included. Perhaps a more accurate title would be something like “Chinese Medical Qigong – History, Principles, and Exercise Prescription” – to make it clear that it was only focusing on this specific part of Medical Qigong, and not to expect it to cover all aspects of it. I hope that if and when there is a second edition of this book, they either include more comprehensive coverage of external qigong treatment, or they consider making it clearer that this is not included in the book.

Summary

Overall I feel that this book is a valuable addition to the modern literature on qigong. As a broad overview of the history of medical qigong, and the modern application of exercise prescription within a clinical setting, it will be of interest to any serious student of qigong, or practitioner who is developing a qigong healing practice. The extensive references to source materials both of classic works and modern scientific research will be an asset to anyone with an interest in deepening their understanding of this ancient practice.

However… this book is definitely not for the beginner. There is too much in here that may confuse or simply not bring value to the understanding and practice of a beginner qigong student or practitioner. The writing is quite dry and academic, and really not suitable as a starting point for your qigong journey. Key to grasping the essence of qigong is your own experience of doing the practice. For this you will need to look to other sources of instruction, whether that be other books which are more focused on this, a live teacher, or online courses and videos. Once you have established this foundation, you may then be interested to start to use this book as a reference to give you perspective on the broader picture and application of qigong.

I hope you have found this book review useful. If you are interested in buying Chinese Medical Qigong, you can find it on Amazon.com here. Also, if you happen to already have the book, I would be curious to hear your thoughts about it too! Perhaps you could leave a description of your experience with the book in the comments below.

Also, I did mention that I am working on the Long White Cloud Qigong Introduction to Qigong Healing course at the moment. The plan is for this to be available by the middle of this year! If you are interested in that (there will probably be a book published to go along with the course too), you can make sure you hear when it is ready by signing up to our newsletter by putting your email address in the box below.

And of course, if you are interested in learning some specific qigong practices in a very practical experiential way, check out our online courses here.

Yours in Qi,

John Munro

Long White Cloud Qigong