In this article I am going to suggest a framework of 7 P’s to gauge how complete your understanding of your qigong practice is. If you can run through this checklist of 7 P’s for any given exercise, and confirm for yourself that you do understand each of the 7 P’s for the exercise, then you probably have a pretty complete and well rounded understanding of it. If on the other hand you go through the checklist and find that there are one of more of 7 P’s that you do not understand, then this could act as a good guide for an area you could look at further to deepen your practice and understand it better.
The 7 P’s are:
- Practice
- Purpose
- Physics
- Physiology
- Psychology
- Philosophy
- Personalization
We will look briefly at what each of these refers to and why it is useful to understand each of these for each qigong exercise to get the most out of your qigong practice.
1. Practice
The first P is Practice. This means to understand the details of how the qigong exercises are done. Of course to gain a good understanding of a qigong exercise you need to do it correctly and experience if for yourself. This may take quite a bit of practice so that you can refine the exercise to gain the most from it and understand how it feels.
2. Purpose
It is not enough to just understand how to do a practice. You really should know what the practice is for as well. This will help you to assess whether you are achieving the desired benefits of the practice. It will also help you to decide if and when this is a good practice for you to do. It would be rather disappointing to practice for a long time only to find that the exercise you have been doing is not aimed at achieving the things you would like to achieve. You might be better off choosing other exercises to achieve your purposes.
3. Physics
If you understand the basic physics of how energy moves through your body in an exercise, you will be better able to adjust your posture and movements so that the exercise more efficiently achieves its purpose. You will be able to refine the exercise and gain more benefit from it. You will also be more able to identify when the energy is not moving correctly and be better at avoiding injury or other ill effects.
4. Physiology
When you understand the physics of an exercise, you will be able to identify how the movement of energy from it is affecting the different tissues of your body including organs, muscles, bones, connective tissue, blood and so on. You will be able to identify how this stimulation then leads to chemical and other systemic effects right throughout the whole body. You will also be able to better understand when an exercise may or may not be suitable for your particular condition as you come to understand your own body and the effects of qigong on it better.
5. Psychology
How our body works affects our mind. Pressure on different parts of the body, and release of different hormones send a message to our brain about what is going on in our world and how we should think and feel about it. Equally, our mind affects our body in the opposite direction. When we think in particular ways it sends messages to change the tensions, activity and chemical environment in our body. By mastering our psychology we can think in ways that most effectively harmonize with the physical aspects of the qigong exercises we are doing to make them more effective.
6. Philosophy
The final piece of the puzzle is philosophy. When philosophy is applied well it ties together all of the other elements: Practice, Purpose, Physics, Physiology, and Psychology. Comprehensive as that list of P’s is, there will still be gaps in the knowledge and understanding even when all of these are present. Philosophy helps to join those dots, to fill in the blanks and understand how the pieces fit together. It acts as a guide to help direct us where to look and what to do to take our knowledge beyond our current understanding and experience.
7. Personalization
Each of us is different. Your physiology is different from mine. Your psychology is different than mine. Your purposes may be different from mine to a greater or lesser degree. When you really understand your qigong exercises well you will be able to adapt them to work better with your physiology, your psychology, and to more effectively achieve your purposes. Sometimes these adaptations will be very very small, sometimes they will be bigger. But you will be able to make the practices fit YOU, rather than trying to squeeze yourself into a practice that doesn’t quite fit right or meet your needs.
Where are you at in your understanding?
Now… you may read this list of 7 P’s and think… gosh I only really understand one or two of those for the qigong exercises I practice, and that’s ok. Even if all you understand is the ‘Practice’ – how to do the exercise, then you will still benefit from doing it, and over time as you practice many of the other P’s will reveal themselves to you through your own experience. Of course you can progress faster with good quality instruction and experienced advice which will help you to identify and understand all of these areas more quickly.
Taking your understanding further with Long White Cloud Qigong
I think at Long White Cloud Qigong we do a pretty good job of giving a practical understanding of qigong. Of course your understanding will come step by step and little by little, and time and lots of your own practice. But at Long White Cloud Qigong we go far beyond just teaching the practices, or just teaching the philosophy, and open the door to understanding every one of these 7’ps for each exercise that we teach, so that you can have a truly practical understanding of the qigong that you practice.
If you haven’t looked yet, check out some of our online courses. We also have instructors and teach workshops all over the world. So you might have the opportunity to find a class or a workshop happening near you. We also have some exciting developments to further enhance your learning due to be announced soon, so make sure you are signed up to our newsletter to hear about the details when they are announced.
Wishing you all the best on your qigong journey,
John Munro
8 Comments. Leave new
Thank you for this better understanding of the many facets of QiGong. I need more work in all these areas, but am truly motivated to continue to explore the multifaceted effects of QiGong.
Be well,
Kimberly DesChamp
I think we will all continue to work on all of these areas, but I think it is still useful as a way to think about your level of understanding and identify ways to develop further.
I would possibly be interested. First, I would be curious to know, briefly, what is actually understood about the physics and physiology of Qigong and even more specifically Chi or qi. I am very curious about Chi, what it is, why it exists, what its purpose is, where it came from, how to tangibly measure Chi with instrumentation etc. I’m somewhat familiar with how it moves along meridians and how those meridians interact with various organs, muscles etc. but I don’t know much beyond that. I started reading a book on it but I wasn’t following it well. To Westerner, I didn’t understand the Eastern way of scientifically looking at, or describing human physiology.Please tell me how far humanity has come in this understanding.
One of the problems with measuring qi is that it is a multi variable construct.
Qi is living energy, or the energy created by life, the energy directed by life. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a bit like ‘Food’. What is food? It is what we need to feed our bodies to fuel and maintain them, different types of food have different effects and so on. It is made of many parts… and we know that, but we still put it together as one concept ‘Food’.
All to often in trying to measure ‘Qi’, people do not recognize its multi variable nature. So they find one aspect of it and measure that, and then claim ‘Aha, I have measured qi!’. But then their claims don’t quite hold up, because it doesn’t match the full description of qi, only part of it. It is a bit like someone just measuring ‘Protein’ or ‘Carbohydrate’ or ‘Fat’ or perhaps ‘Vitamins’ or ‘Minerals’ and then thinking they have measured the construct we call ‘Food’. Measuring one aspect of it will provide some explanations, and some really useful information, but it still does not describe the whole. Our thinking needs to be more comprehensive and wholistic to understand that.
There has been success in measuring electrical conductivity and currents, heat and other portions of the emitted energy spectrum, sound and vibration, even certain types of charged particle, and each of these has partial explanatory power for what we call ‘Qi’. But each alone does not come close to describing ‘Qi’ in its entirety.
Until we take a wholistic view of understanding qi and its many parts we will not be very successful in measuring it. In fact we cannot measure ‘Qi’ any more than we can measure ‘Food’, but we can understand how the parts combine in a useful way into ‘Nutrition’. And the fact that we understand the parts doesn’t stop us from talking about ‘Food’ in generic ways which are useful to us even if the parts are not precisely specified. Good food, bad food, hot food, cold food etc.
Great post on the 7 Ps. I think that perhaps an individual may feel that they “know” a qigong because they can do the physical movements. This is a wonderful way to look into the many layers of qigong.
Very nicely summarises the multi layers of Qigong! And how important it is to personalise Qigong to multi layered selves
I definitely need work in all these areas to bring the 7Ps to full consciousness. For several practices there is an innate understanding in my subconscious. I also notice that there are some days when I practice that a light goes on guiding me on what my needs are and what to focus on in the particular practice. I look forward to discussing further at our instructor gathering.
I definitely need to work on all the areas to bring forward what is in my subconscious to full awareness. And build a deeper understanding all around. In personalization my understanding is stronger, whether gearing a practice for others or for myself. Before my own practice I take a few minutes to meditate on what I need. Sometimes it was what I intended and sometimes I need to adjust.