Qigong retreats in China

[yinqi]

Does anyone know of a good Qigong training Center in China? Not too hardcore though. I don't speak Chinese so the teaching would have to be in English. Thank you.

[steve]

I don't personally know of any to recommend but you may want to look into options on Taiwan.

Many martial arts and qigong masters fled China during the cultural revolution and went to Taiwan and elsewhere.

It may be difficult to find good programs on the mainland.

[yinqi]

Thank you Steve.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

I don't personally know of any to recommend but you may want to look into options on Taiwan.

Many martial arts and qigong masters fled China during the cultural revolution and went to Taiwan and elsewhere.

It may be difficult to find good programs on the mainland.

 

Wow, propaganda never dies!!!

This concept is something I thought we had already disproven in the martial arts community about eight years ago.

No, not very many good Qi Gong and Daoist masters fled to Taiwan, most of them stayed in Mainland China.

Historically, if you understand that KMT exodus, it would have been very hard for Northern Chinese masters to exit to Taiwan, as the majority of exodus took place from the ports of Fuzhou, Xiamen, and Guangzhou, which are all in the deep south.

The only very famous martial arts master to go to Taiwan was Liu Yunqiao, the Baji master.  In terms of Qi Gong or Daoism, maybe Jiang Weiqiao, but aside from that there really werent that many.

Daoism, Qi Gong and martial arts in Taiwan suck.  I've spent lots of time in the community in both Taiwan and China and can say with absolute certainty that if you want to find real material, it is mostly in Mainland China..

In terms of Qi Gong, you could try to study with any left over students of Dr.Peng who invented Zhineng Gong, or the people from Wild Goose Qi Gong.  Actually, I'd also like to point out that Qi Gong is a twentieth century invention and was largely popularized by the Chinese Communist party who had to use it in a pinch when hospitals were not supplied with enough medicine. 

In terms of martial arts, go to Beijing or Shanghai.  If you get good at Chinese, you could go to Tianjin or Hebei, but I don't think you will enjoy yourself unless you really know how to eat bitter and be humble.

In terms of Daoism, most people who really understand Daoism won't teach you unless you really gain their trust, so you may as well dissuade yourself of this notion unless you want to spend the five or ten years it takes to develop a relationship with a real master.   

 

If you do want to study in Taiwan, you need to be very careful of the many pitfalls of Taiwanese religious practice.  Things like Qi Gong and meditation in Taiwan aren't wrapped up a nice secular practice like they are here.   It tends to be the case that you will be told at first that you are equal with the teacher, but always forced to show absolute loyalty and faith to their school, believe everything they tell you, and essentially become a thought slave to them.   Every Daoist or Qi Gong teacher I have met in Taiwan was like this, and most of them are only partially informed on the systems they practice anyway.  There is a lot of half information and intentional ignorance in Taiwan about religious stuff.   You really have to be careful of this, since it would totally suck to invest years in a system only to find out that it was a waste of time.

A quick example:  A master I know recently took on a student from Taiwan who had been the first person to organize and Yi Guan Dao temple in  Brazil.  That man spent his entire life in the yi guan dao cult believing that he was gaining the Dao, and finally when he realized that they only string along their disciples and don't actually teach them anything real.  He travelled in Asia for a decade afterward collection Daoist and Buddhist manuscripts, and then finally, after meeting this Mainland Chinese master who had studied at Baiyun Guan, he was able to find someone who could actually teach him the correct methods of Nei Dan.    Consider that this guy travelled for ten years and wasn't able to find a teacher.  Do you think that Taiwan really has any very skilled practitioners?

[Aetherous]

Actually, I'd also like to point out that Qi Gong is a twentieth century invention and was largely popularized by the Chinese Communist party who had to use it in a pinch when hospitals were not supplied with enough medicine. 

 

There might be some truth to this, but another truth is that there was daoyin, guiding and pulling exercises, even from BCE times. Here's an example.

[Gerard]

As Steve pointed out your best bet is Taiwan, due to English being widely spoken in the island especially in Taipei.

 

In any case, you can find Qigong practitoners and their teachers at:

 

Peace Memorial Park

 

In China, no problem either any local park of any populated area will hold Qigong groups....but little or no English.

 

Good luck!

[yinqi]

Thank you all so much. What about the centers in Ubud, Bali? Any idea of how good they are?

[Gerard]

Very welcome Be aware that Bali is an exotic location and as such it will attract commercialisation rather than learning an authentic

system. Also most Qigong system were developed during and after the Cultural Revolution in order to pass on to the masses an easier to learn system as opposed to more traditional and highly complex methods like Tai Chi Chuan. Same goes with Buddhist Vipassana which traditionally runs for 51 days, now most centres offer 10-day retreats. IMO too short as this method is very slow; it requires a very subtle and precise fine tuning of the mind and the five senses. Multiple 10-day or longer retreats is what more dedicated practitioners tend to do as one sitting is clearly not enough to see a real benefit. In any case, these are all lifetime practices. I hope you find what you are looking for!

Edited August 6, 2016 by Gerard

[yinqi]

Thank you Gerard.

[Walker]

Every Daoist or Qi Gong teacher I have met in Taiwan was like this, and most of them are only partially informed on the systems they practice anyway.  There is a lot of half information and intentional ignorance in Taiwan about religious stuff.   You really have to be careful of this, since it would totally suck to invest years in a system only to find out that it was a waste of time.

A quick example:  A master I know recently took on a student from Taiwan who had been the first person to organize and Yi Guan Dao temple in  Brazil.  That man spent his entire life in the yi guan dao cult believing that he was gaining the Dao, and finally when he realized that they only string along their disciples and don't actually teach them anything real.  He travelled in Asia for a decade afterward collection Daoist and Buddhist manuscripts, and then finally, after meeting this Mainland Chinese master who had studied at Baiyun Guan, he was able to find someone who could actually teach him the correct methods of Nei Dan.    Consider that this guy travelled for ten years and wasn't able to find a teacher.  Do you think that Taiwan really has any very skilled practitioners?

 

I think you make a good contribution to this thread but I think that your rhetorical question at the end is moot--the story tells us nothing. An old Daoist might hear it and just laugh, "well, he could have been living next door to Lu Dongbin for ten long years, and if it wasn't his fate to hear the Dao yet, then he'd be none the wiser."

 

I know monks who live in temples with masters who have neidan lineages who don't know the first thing about neidan and sit around playing beat the landlord on their "smart" phones long into the night.

 

I also have also met monks in temples who crave neidan transmission badly enough to try and get a laowai to make introductions for them, but who still know little or nothing about the immortal method.

 

Taiwan has, what, 20 to 30 million people? Nobody can say for sure what might be found in such a population. We can leave aside questions of who brought what from the mainland when the KMT came over decades ago; there is a thriving interchange of people, ideas, and spiritual teachings between the mainland, Taiwan, and the rest of the world that is going on ceaselessly. An immortal who was in the Zhongnan Mountains yesterday could book a flight to Kaohsiung tomorrow. Who knows. Regarding Daoist practice, the most well-informed individual I met on the island last I went was a Buddhist monk who splits his time between Taiwan, the mainland, and Japan. I know a young Taiwanese-American woman there who teaches yoga and spends three months each year in India deepening her studies of yoga and Buddhism with admirable dedication. Tomorrow or the next day, who can say who will be where, teaching what?

 

Thus, one hundred wanderers might comb Taiwan (or the mainland, or the many qigong or Daoism retreats in the West) in search of transmission and come up empty handed; the one hundred and first has the right combination of de and ming and luck and hard work and ends up finding real teachings.

 

Of these one hundred and one people, who has wasted his or her time? Ultimately, I would say none of them. In my opinion, the time often comes when it's right, which may have little or nothing to do with all our good planning and informed choices.

 

Returning to your example, yes, we can say that the Taiwanese Yi Guan Dao devotee in your story "wasted" his decade. But looking at it from another angle, I cannot but suspect that had he not spent his ten years this way, he probably never would have encountered his new teacher.

[yinqi]