Hi guys, I came across an old written text describing the basic theory behind qing gong. The secret of qing gong gong fu written by Pai Yen Sheng. The theory is very sound and does not contradict to the modern science. It refers to the mastery of inner being ability beyond the normal limitations. In some way, I am looking very silly in trying to explain the idea that text attempt. But keep an open mind before you read on. Qing gong gong fu basically consists of two main skills according to this old text. One is being the ability to jump vertically as many fold of the body length. The second is the ability to flit through the wheat field or tree or water as if flying. The second ability of flitting through wheat field is the highest level of mastery of this skill. The text stated that the body weight is not reduced when performing qing gong. It is not magic in any length of imaginary. It is just a trick of mastering a different way of walking or running that allows a display of lightness in an illusive way. Simply put, qing gong is just the ability of transition of body weight between the two feet in such a way that the body weight never gets the chance or time long enough to accumulate and rest its fullness on to any of the legs in any giving period of time. In the normal way of walking, the weight is carried from one leg to the other with its fullness at each time. The body weight in this kind of walking in order to complete its transition in a normal way to its fullest requires a given period of time. If we measure the amount of weight accumulated in one leg during this normal walking transition, we probably will observe that the magnitude of weight increases from 0 to body weight as max. For this increase to take place there is a time factor. Just to illustrate, here is the time interval with its related weight transition accumulation progress: Time interval/weight in fraction of second : Time : 0 1 2 3 ... N weight : w1 w1+w2 w1+w2+w3 w1+w2+w3+w4 ... w1+w2+...+wN The ability of qing gong of second category is the skill that enables one individual to immediately transit the partially accumulative weight from one leg to the other before the full body weight has a chance to accumulate/rest totally on one leg. The normal walking/running time cycle could be 0,1,2,3 ... N. In a qing gong way of walking, the duration of weight transition interruption could happen in a cycle of 0,1,2 ... 0,1,2 ...0,1,2 .. This means that the two legs/feet are constantly manipulating the weight transition with a very high speed that causing forward momentum to carry the weight in the air. At any giving of time only a small fraction of the weight is used for body displacement or leg displacement. You are probably imagining how fast the two legs are able to operate (Not to mention how the body,hands,head work together in special manner in order to maintain the forward momentum). The text mentioned that the main constraint is that one's body weight cannot be over a certain weight. It seems to imply that there is a certain barrier on how the speed of both legs can operate. The other constraint is the age to start this training. It says that is required to start at a very young age with persistence. Apparently, the result is special kind of body, legs & tendons. Gong Bao Tian was said to be quite small comparing to the average person at the time. He was probably heavier than his son. That's probably why his son was able to do the flitting on the trees as opposed to him. Looking at the theory, it doesn't seem to contradict science but further than that it uses science to achieve its goal. Martial art is always about exploring, discovering, developing the natural ability of the human body to achieve to the fullness of its capacity. I am not surprised if qing gong was the last lost treasure of ancient China (ah! good old times of my favourite country) Do you guys remember Crouching Tiger...? 乾杯
I’ve come across this 'Qing Gong' skill a few times in books, but it was a very slight reference in most cases, though I have head of a training method for it, which is basically placing a large board against a building, then running up it for however long and gradually increasing the angle, as a result apparently the tendons in your legs change (as mentioned by Gerard) specifically the feet become very flexible i.e. you can touch your shins with your toes. But, I have never seen any one do it, and have read it being referred to as a lost art. I would also think there is something akin to levitation in this practice, like enlightening ones Qi, in order to make it oppose or compliment that of the earth, speaking of which I have never seen any one do either, though have heard claims to it several times, one of which included a group of people who would sit in a full lotus then jump in that position, and land, then they would be like yeah that’s levitation, which is pretty funny, like if you consider jumping to be levitation then yeah jumping is levitation, I don’t know maybe I missed something. However, if anyone does know the energetic principle/theory behind levitation do let me know. Cheers.
In integrating, your internal arts to things associated with jumping as well as weight distribution in making the body light- I would recommend checking out this website: www.parkour.com It's a freerunning website and the videos may be quite revealing. While in the continued progressive doing, we often find ourselves being.
Hi guys, someone asked me for what does qing gong look like. Well I have managed to obtain a couple of pictures of a Bagua master in qing gong skill. Traditionally Baguazhang involved training qing gong, which was done using a plank against a wall and the steep was increased overtime. They also attached to themselves weights (sandbags) while walking on a circle. However, qing gong is a jing skill that is developed through years of practice. If you click here you'll see that qing gong is an essential aspect of Baguazhang (Gong Bao Tian lineage) and Bajiquan training I hope this helps.
"Because of his contacts in the Royal Palace, Gong BaoTien had a habit of smoking opium. Upon his return from the palace he built a two-level house without stairs in his home village, and he would jump to the second floor to smoke opium after every meal. One day after smoking he stood on the patio in the second floor looking at his students practicing in the field below. By accident he knocked a pot of plant off the patio. Before his students finished shouting about the falling plant, Gong had already jumped down the patio, grabbed the plant in the air, touched down on the ground with his two feet, flipped back up to the patio and replaced the plant. " Sounds like the students were smoking opium at the time as well. Why doesn't the next generation Gong BaoTien go to Beijing in four years, beat the world high jump record from a standing start (or become a pro basketball player), collect millions of dollars and build a flash new training school? Seriously - there's an multi-million (billion?) dollar industry in the sports field with teams of scientists working full-time on analysing the most effective and efficient ways of human movement. Look at the olympics. Yes, they're doing amazing things but I'm sure even an olympic sprinter can run over water or "flit through trees". If not the sprinters, how about the olympic walkers, the triple jumpers, hurdles, high jumpers or even cross country runners. If there was a more efficient way of moving, it would appear in the olympics. That's reality. Jininstructor - great link. Parkour is amazing!
qing gong was demonstrated on the mind, body and kick ass tv series recently on BBC 3....looks amazing-guys walking on light bulbs and on blades with no injuries seems risky to practise though.
If Qing Gong is as versatile as portrayed by the HK movies, dont you think the number of Qing Gong schools would far exceed any other MA? Why would you need to fight if you can practically fly? Heck, finally we find a way how MA can beat guns. Fly!
Gerard, the next Olympics is in Beijing. The Chinese are some of the most competitive athletes in the world in the olympics (look at the recent gymnastics, ping pong and diving). The Olympics is a world competition, NOT a western competition. I saw the pictures of Master He Ching - you can see his shadow, he isn't jumping very high at all. I ask again - why doesn't he go and win the olympics in Beijing and buy himself a new training hall (or pay for a professional website).
I remember reading in an interview with Sun Lu Tang's daughter that her dad could run up a twenty foot wall, and jump very high. I think that was something to do with Qing Gong. I don’t really think modern scientists know a great deal about how the body works, in a way that has enormous potential for sports. The reason being that the way they research is they split everything up and study individual systems giving them a very fragmented view of reality, thus their methods are also very fragmented. Whereas Taoist scientists, which are also the ones responsible for most of China's inventions, which are numerous, still in use today and far surpassed the West's advances at the time, studied the human organisms, and its system as a whole, giving a much more rounded and grounded results. This can still be seen today, in China 'Qi Gong' is regularly used along side Western modes of treatment in hospitals, the two work in synergize and give greater benefits to the patients, whereas in the West people, particularly the majority in the medical profession are so narrow minded that they refuse to see the positive results and hide behind their so called knowledge. A bit off topic here but I think its worth a mention, the human heart as said by modern western science - pumps the blood around the body, however if you calculate the amount of pumping force required to move the blood through all the vessels, capillaries, etc (which if taken out of an adult and put end to end are long enough to go around the globe), one will see that the action of the heart alone is not enough to move such distances of blood. However if you ask most medical professionals, and just about everyone else what the heart does they will say it pumps blood around the body. Now don’t ask me for evidence of this research, I cant provide it, but if you are a biologist or what have you, or are close to one, ask them to check this out and see what they tell you. If this is in fact true, which I believe it is, otherwise I dint think I would have mentioned it, Its interesting to note that Taoist have known for thousands of years that the 'Qi' is what moves the blood, and doing 'Qi Gong', from a credible source will quite easily show you that. This is easily done if one has some decent control over their 'Qi', you can move it to most parts of the body, though this really depends on your level, and make it visibly pulse. Anyway just throwing in my 0.00001 pence.
I don't know the exact definition of a qing gong practice, but I found this picture on another site. It looks like it's a pretty light skill. The guy who posted said it is an Emei Shaolin monk. Huh. http://www.wudang.cis.com.pl/obrazy/19/shaolin/syz_15.jpg
Parkour Too much South Park will kill you. Parkour Meeting some Free Flow guys at Uni inspired me to take up Gymnastics some time ago.The vibe of some of them is inbetween skateheads to surfers. Check out this site for a Aus forum http://p202.ezboard.com/burbanfreeflow
The guy who personally knows that master lives in England and he said that in those pictures master He Ching only performed a light jump. He is capable of more than that, like the imperial bodyguards (in Baguazhang skill) who were able to jump the height of two storeys. I asked my Chinese teacher last Saturday his personal view about qing gong and he told me that it is already a lost art in China due to the heavy training and many years of dedication involved. So you won't see that in the next Oly games. BTW what master He Ching thinks about about it maybe is not the same as you. Not everyone is $$$ obsessed as many are. His goals in life are probably different as that of others. Relativity, my friend, relativity.
Uh, no. Its a blatant contradiction of science. At any time your full bodyweight is being dragged down to earth, the way that you jump is simply to apply enough force against this drag that you lift up. No matter how you move at some point in the process your full bodyweight will press down on the earth, and you will need to exert enough force to overcome this drag in order to continue moving. Can be done using powerful electromagnets, mag-lev trains levitate, and frogs, and even a middle-aged woman in Japan have been levitated using powerful magnetic fields. So yes, its possible, but you need a lot of tech and energy to do it, humans ain't gonna learn to do it on their own. No he didn't. Firstly he'd need some way to fall faster than the plant pot, and increasing his weight would make no difference. Drop two balls, one made of metal, one made of wood, they'll fall at the same rate, maybe with a tiny variation due to air resistance. The only difference is in the terminal velocity of each but falling one floor is not enough to reach terminal velocity. Well where are the pictures showing that he's capable of more than that then? Yes, that's an impressive jump. Looks like he's jumping about a full five feet, not bad, but certainly doesn't require magic. These'd be the scientific methods that've given the West effective lordship over the world then? The scientific methods that for a while made Japanese industry and innovation nearly unbeatable? The scientific methods that can be tested and shown to be useful whereas your own cannot ever provide anything better than anecdotal evidence. Those scientific methods? Taoist scientists and their inventions huh? I'd be interested in hearing about some of these inventions, and how exactly these Taoist scientists used their methods to create them. More importantly if they're so much infinitely better and more advanced than 'Western' scientists, why is all modern technology based on genuine science? Uh, yes, because the heart does pump blood around the body, however it doesn't do it alone. The blood vessels themselves constrict and dilate to help move blood around the body thus taking the load off the heart. How convenient, yet more lost ancient knowledge so it can't be tested, but evidently it exists because there's so many myths about it. Hey, you know what? Dragons must have existed too! And of course all of those pantheons of Gods, not to mention the demi-gods, they must all've been real. Guess they've just all been temporarily misplaced as well.
Nice of you to join us Bunny. To your comment, as quoted above, mainly Taoist scientists because they were most methodical and scientific, also could think outside the box, unlike some people. Inventions, of the top of my head, glasses, telescopic equipment, missiles, crossbow(over 1000 years before it was invented in Europe), various mills, gunpowder, etc. But since you show such keen interest , I recommend the following book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...07084/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_8_1/202-9153685-0727036 Or you could do a search on google for: Ancient Chinese Inventions. Uh yes, very good, but I think you missed the point of my post, how very unusual. Bunny it seems to me that you don’t realize that there is no such thing as right or wrong, it is only perspective, or perception, however you want to look at it. You can go around looking at things from only one point of view, but that is what is referred to as being ‘narrow minded’. What humans know regardless of all the scientific measurements, knowledge etc, comes from the connection of our consciousness to our senses. Let me give you a scientific example, humans see color in a specific way through our eyes, yet a cat sees color differently from its eyes, so it can be said if you change the apparatus (eyes), perception will also change. Thus it makes sense to say that if one works on or changes ones perception, or equipment for perception one may perceive things completely differently. Since our scientific knowledge comes from a very standard way of human perception, its results, theories and beliefs stick with this one point of view, which is neither right or wrong, just a point of view. So when someone comes along with a different point of view, which resulted in a different observation, one with a scientific point of view will say no, that’s wrong, but that would be an ignorant mistake, because one does not realize that perception and apparatus for perception can change that which is to be perceived. If one realizes this much one can also realize that knowledge in itself can be of varying levels. Let me give you another example of this: (1) A Scientist may know the framework for Physics and be a great or a crap physicist. (2) A Scientist may know the framework for all Sciences be a great or a crap physicist. (3) A Scientist may know the fundamental framework for knowledge and be a great or a crap physicist. Each level 1, 2 & 3 goes deeper to the core of knowing, each one perceives things in accordance to how deep his/her knowledge goes yet it does not guarantee that one will be great or not, the reason being that all three perceive things differently, and the same goes for all and everything that you see in front and behind your eyes. So as you can see it is good or bad to mention that ‘Science’ or some specific knowledge does not agree with what so and so has said/posted, but just because the point of view that you seem to be stuck with does not agree with another point of view, is not to say one is wrong and one is right, by all means one can go ahead and do so, but by all means one is also free to lurch in ignorance. In light of this let me mention something which may/may not be of interest, you said: and I said ‘Qi’ moves the blood, as according to Taoist thinking. The ‘Qi’ can be experienced as a pulsing, or the variation between tension and relaxation, which in turn can be viewed as you said: Hope that’s of some use, but then again its only my point of view.
How exactly did those come from a mystical view of the human organism? Sounds more like they came from noticing certain properties of materials and extending the theory, which is not unique to any form of science, in fact the basic principles of that method are science. No one came up with the idea of a crossbow by having it spring fully formed into their head, there were trials and tests beforehand. Which happens to work better than most, and be more useful for innovation and explanations of the universe. I'd say that makes it closer to right than saying, for example, invisible gnomes control our every thought. It might be true, we can't disprove it, and you could say its due to a different perception of things but its not exactly useful. So 'Qi' is muscular contraction and dilation of blood vessels, particularly the veins?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but who said anything about ‘mystical view’, if that is what you think Taoism is then you are seriously misinformed, then again what you consider mystical, others may not. Perhaps you should do some research on Taoism, you may find it interesting, if you cant be bothered you can always ask for an explanation. But generally the Tao is all encompassing, it has all dualistic opposites, mystical and scientific, in the case of invention, I would think it makes more sense if the scientific aspect of it was used, though once again, it only my perception. Don’t really know what your on about here mate. It could well have happened in any way. The fact is that it was developed in China over 1000 years before it was developed in Europe. I don’t know if you understood my last post, but I would think if you did you would realize that what your comment alludes to, is once again only a matter of perspective, yes it may be very good for looking at certain things and yes it may be very bad for looking at others. Then again maybe those gnomes your talking about are clouding your perception. Qi is a lot of different things, due to its nature it cannot be fully described in words, in my opinion the above is connected to it, but it is only a matter of perspective.
"The tao that can be explained is not the true tao". Not much use when you're after an explanation really. Which means what exactly? Guns were invented in Europe a long time before they were developed in China, even though China had gunpowder and fireworks. The method of development is the important thing, and that would have been through trial and error, also know as a scientific method. The computer you're using is explained by scientific theories. It works. It does not rely on your believing the theories for it to work. It does not rely on you having the same perception as the person who built the computer. It merely needs you to press a power switch to turn it on.
I never said I was going to explain the ‘Tao’ to you, I said an explanation of ‘Taoism’. I still have no clue what your point is, we were discussing Chinese inventions, I said they invented the crossbow over a thousand years before the Europeans. You keep coming up with some bizarre comments, you lost me on this one. I’m glad you brought this up, Taoism is based in part on a text called the ‘I Ching’ which is over 5,000 years old and is also the precursor and inspiration that lead to the development of the binary system, which is the lifeblood of computers. You may want to research this a bit more. However, saying that it is not necessary for us to believe in a computer for it to work is not necessarily true, if we got an individual who to the very core of his/her being did not believe a computer worked, it in fact may not work, though such an experiment would be pretty difficult to achieve. Besides a computer is not a perception it is a conception in physical reality, we may view it differently but it will still be what we call a computer. Just like a caveman may have looked at a volcano and said it is like a giant ass taking a dump, we see it as tectonic activity and so on, the fact is it still remains what it is, despite what we perceive it to be. Sorry for the graphic demonstration.
I wouldn't say its the precursor and inspiration, the binary system is a simple numary system based on bits. 1 and 0, on or off. The I Ching as far as I'm aware is a collection of shapes consisting of either broken or whole lines, supposedly with each one containing meaning. But you're now stating my point for me. A genuine physical thing is still what it is no matter how you perceive it. Newton's theories still approximate motion when applied no matter how you perceive that motion, the approximation will still be correct with no change to the theory. Perception only works on abstracts.
