My study indicates aside from self serving nationalist rhetoric Qigong seems to be a type of yoga that was introduced to China from the India.

Of course the sinogists won’t agree, but their capacity for study is limited to borders and so ends up being very subjective.

MichaelBMallory@gmail.com I would greatly appreciate it.

This kind of ignores what Yoga is.
The term can be roughly translated to mean “to unify”
There are many forms of Yoga, including martial.
I practice Japa Yoga, this is mantra yoga.

I like Zen Yoga too, among other forms.
Qigong can be described as a type of Yoga, though not all Yoga is Qigong. The origin of qigong may relate to yoga as well.

I really agree with a great deal of what you wrote in this article.

To address your question about a single word that links:

legit qigong,
martial arts and
other self development

I would say that one of three things fit:

integrity
practice or
consciousness

Regarding establishing a set of criteria for defining high quality instruction, one parameter is quite simple.

Here it is:

If you practice diligently and attend qigong class several times a week and do not notice clear channel qi meridian changes in 90 days, find a new teacher.

If you are studying with an accomplished practitioner, your channel qi meridians will start to change and begin opening by then. If you aren’t getting results within 90 days, you probably won’t with that teacher.

I studied T’ai Chi for 2 years and never got the meridians to open correctly. And I practiced two full sets – morning and night for 3 years almost every day – maybe I missed two days in three years.

Subsequently, I studied a qigong system integrated into an internal gungfu system and the meridians were wide open within 3 months – all except the heart chakra – that took more time. My lower dantian got very strong and my kidney energy was very powerful with good root strength and a good opening of the legs and arms – tingling feet and such…

But compared to the T’ai Chi instruction, there was no comparison.

After the original qigong training, I worked with another master for about 4 years and consistently, the typical time frame for the channels to begin activating in students and really start changing was right around 3 months.

So if you aren’t getting results, I would suggest finding a new teacher.

Regarding your other point of an inevitable decline in teaching standards, this is already here. It has been declining for a long time.

I interfaced with long time qigong students during in-class
“pair” training and could personally feel the energy differential during the practice. Some of the people were from China with many years of training “from prominent masters”. Yet, with less than two years of personal experience and training, my channel qi was much stronger.

Please understand when I say this, I am not tooting my horn, I am tooting my teacher’s horn. Others students in our class had the same experience.

The way I can tell if a teacher is good or not is to attend the class and feel the energy. Unfortunately, there are many who claim to have authority regarding channel qi internal power that are really not qualified.

Somehow these types of people always seem to excel in the politics of organizations who create ratings and evaluations.
The people really doing the work well often do not care and dislike politics.

The baddest guys I know are very private about their skills.

Measurement of qigong energy is a very achievable process. For example, I know a qigong master who is also a research scientist. He has been testing and documenting enzymes in students before, during and after practice for some time.

But problems arise when agendas get involved. True evaluation and standards require objectivity. As an example, take the NIH. Although this is not about qigong specifically, there is a parallel here. The NIH did a 16 year study that conclusively “proves” that there is no benefit to acupuncture as a modality. I know this because I subscribed to their newsletter for several years.

As far as that goes, the NIH, in my opinion, is simply not qualified to evaluate internal energetic modalities.

The only way to establish accurate standards and evaluations is to have accomplished masters and advanced qigong students do the evaluating.

A standard can be established if the masters will work together and quit squabbling over turf. If I never get evaluated by a qigong governing body, I’ll be able to survive without certification. People who work with me soon learn my integrity and capability.

Nothing else really matters to me. But it would be nice to get certified via a legitimate set of standards.

Who am I to make these evaluations? Just a guy who loves qigong and wants to see high standards adhered to for the long term benefit of the art.

Just for the record…

I had about 350 hours of training in my first 8 months of qigong study (not including the TaiChi) and then about 6-8 hours of class per week for 175 weeks from another teacher. This was class time. At my practice peak, I practiced up to three hours a day at home – in addition to class time.

I have been practicing for 14 years on my own since the class time.

I love qigong.