Qigong in New York
Fans of ancient exercise get to meet masters at camp
NEW YORK — Learning wuqinxi, which imitates the moves of bears, tigers, monkeys, deer and birds to promote health, listening to lectures on the “harmony of the universe” from the world’s top-grade qigong masters, and sharing experiences and lessons of your daily exercise and training.
Doing all these things is a dream come true for fans in the United States, practitioners and tutors of qigong, a traditional Chinese exercise that aims at exploiting human body’s inner energy to achieve both physical and mental harmony. More amazingly, they don’t even have to go to China for this, as it is happening in Long Island, New York.
Around 100 participants have traveled from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California to attend the 2018 Eastern US Health Qigong Tutors Training Camp launched at the weekend.
On a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon, they gathered on the lawn of the picturesque Oheka Castle Hotel & Estate in eastern Long Island to learn some new movements from qigong master Wang Xiaojun, who is also a professor and postgraduate tutor at Beijing Sport University.
“It’s tremendous to learn the six new movements today from master Wang, which are bringing your body to stretch in different directions that you haven’t done before,” said Marc Santiago, a retired teacher from New York.
Santiago, who has been learning and practicing tai chi (Chinese shadowboxing) and qigong at a Long Island facility for about four years, said he was “very happy” as such training helped improve his health, balance and strength, which means “my kids don’t have to worry about taking care of me when I get old”.
Third in a row
He was echoed by Olivia Rosenkrantz, a tap dancer living in Manhattan who has been studying qigong and tai chi for about three years. “It’s helping me a lot with my body, with tension, and also with my mind,” she said.
“Today we studied here something that I will definitely keep practicing,” said the dancer, adding that she would also share the new skills with her boyfriend, who is also practicing every day with her.
Co-hosted by the TaiChi Qigong Association of America and the Chinese Health Qigong Association, the three-day training camp is now an annual event and already the third in a row. This year the Chinese Health Qigong Association sent a delegation of four, including three qigong masters.
“Health qigong is easy to learn and fun to practice, so it gets popular in many parts of the world,” said Professor Wang from Beijing Sport University. “This is my fourth trip to New York in recent years, and every time I was impressed by the great improvements of the American practitioners and tutors, not only in their skills but also in their understanding of the Chinese culture and philosophy.”
Similar to yoga, qigong has a long history that extends back several thousand years. And it is believed to have embodied the ancient Chinese wisdom of “harmony between nature and man” as well as “unison of body and mind”.
According to Wang Jianjun, head of the delegation of the Chinese Health Qigong Association, there are approximately 6.5 million qigong practitioners in the world today, including some 2.5 million outside of the Chinese mainland.