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Category Archives: Chi Kung Healing
WHY SO MANY OTHER PRACTITIONERS DO NOT GET BENEFITS OF HIGH-LEVEL CHI KUNG
(reproduced from http://shaolin.org/answers/sp-issues/benefits.html)
A high-level chi kung class in England
Question
Why do so many other people who practice chi kung do not get the benefits you describe?
— Lin, Dubai
Answer by Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit
It is because these many people actually do not practice chi kung, they practice gentle physical exercise, though they do not realize it, whereas we practice genuine high-level chi kung.
The patterns are the same, but the arts are different. Let us take an example of Lifting the Sky.
Most other people practice Lifting the Sky as gentle physical exercise but they honestly think it is chi kung.
We practice Lifting the Sky not just as chi kung but as high-level chi kung.
There are two dimensions of difference: the difference between gentle physical exercise and chi kung, and the difference between ordinary chi kung and high-level chi kung.
Firstly, we need to know the difference between gentle physical exercise and chi kung. It is the failure to know this difference that causes thousands of people waste years of practice without obtaining any chi kung benefits. There are, for example, many chi kung instructors, even masters, who have taught chi kung for more than 10 years yet are routinely sick or in pain. This shouldn’t be as a basic benefit of chi kung practice is good health, which means free from sickness and pain.
In other words if they have practiced chi kung, genuine chi kung, they would not be sick or in pain. It is understandable if they are sick or in pain once a while, but certainly not routinely. In the same way, if you eat sufficient food and drink sufficient water, you would not go hungry or thirsty.
The fact is that these chi kung practitioners and masters do not actually practice chi kung, though they may not realize it. They practice gentle physical exercise but mistake it as chi kung. Similarly many people practice external Tai Chi forms as a dance but mistake it as Tai Chi Chuan as an internal martial art.
It is easy to make this mistake because the forms of gentle physical exercise and chi kung, and the forms of Tai Chi dance and Tai Chi Chuan are the same. It is how they are practiced, i.e. the skills involved, that makes the difference.
In gentle physical exercise, one practices the forms at a physical level. In chi kung, one practices the same forms at three levels — physical, energetic and spiritual. In other words, in gentle physical exercise one works only on the physical body, like loosening muscles and joints. In chi kung one works at the physical level, the energy level and the spiritual level, like loosening muscles and joints, having more vitality, and becoming peaceful and happy.
If a practitioner does not know what working on energy and spirit is, then he is unlikely to be practicing chi kung, though he may honestly think he is. As an analogy, if you are eating an orange, you will know what an orange is. If you had not eaten an orange or even seen one, you would not know what actually an orange was even when it was clearly described to you.
Thus, thousands of people who think that they practice chi kung do not get the chi kung benefits I describe because actually they do not practice chi kung; they only practice gentle physical exercise. No matter for how long and how well they have practiced, they only get benefits of gently physical exercise like relaxation, grace and balance, which are worthy benefits by themselves, but they will not get chi kung benefits like overcoming illness, enjoying good health, vitality and longevity, and experiencing mental clarity and spiritual joys.
Secondly, it is useful to know the difference between ordinary chi kung, which is usually low-level, and high-level chi kung. The difference is that ordinary chi kung takes a long time to obtain little benefit, whereas high-level chi kung takes a short time to obtain a lot of benefit. The forms, or techniques, may be the same. It is the skills that make the difference.
Let us take the technique, Lifting the Sky, as an example. In low-level chi kung, one needs to practice Lifting the Sky for many months before he can feel a noticeable increase of his energy level. In high-level chi kung he can feel a noticeable increase after practicing for just a few days. In our case, you felt a noticeable increase of energy level after just one practice session!
If someone is sick with a serious illness like cancer or clinical depression, he may not overcome his illness by practicing low-level chi kung. If he practices high-level chi kung, not only he can overcome his illness, but also he becomes healthier than he was before.
Very few people have the chance to practice high-level chi kung. This is another reason why so many other people who practice chi kung do not get the benefits I describe.
A high-level chi kung class in China
This article was taken from Question and Answer 1 of July 2014 Part 1 of the Selection of Questions and Answers.
WOULD YOU CONSIDER GRATITUDE A VERY IMPORTANT ATTITUDE?
(reproduced from http://shaolin.org/answers/ans16b/nov16-2.html)
Question 4
Would you consider gratitude a very important attitude?
– Sifu Sippe Douma, New Zealand
Answer by Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit
Yes, it is a very important attitude, more important and more influential than what many people think. It is also an attitude we cultivate and cherish in our school, and the evidence of its benefits can be clearly found if we examine closely.
I have led a very happy life, and I sincerely believe one very important reason is that I am always grateful. I am very grateful to all the divine beings who are so very kind to guide and protect me, my family and our school. I am very grateful to all my teachers who passed the wonderful arts to us. I am very grateful to all my students who have shown much dedication in their practice and have shown much respect and care for me. I am very grateful to you for taking time off work to show me beautiful New Zealand and for paying almost all my meals.
On the other hand, those who are ungrateful suffered the bad karma of their ungratefulness, though some may never realise it. It is helpful to remember that there is nothing religious or superstitious about karma. It means cause and effect.
The effect is immediate. When a person is ungrateful, he has resentment. The person he should be grateful to may not know it, but his resentment immediately makes him less peaceful and less happy than what he should be. Severe or prolonged resentment brings forth physical or emotional illness.
When a person is grateful, the immediate effect is that he is appreciative, resulting in his feeling more peaceful and happier than other times. It contributes to his good health and longevity. In the history of our school, I came across some people who were ungrateful, and they did not have good karma. Here is one example. A woman had cancer, but after learning chi kung from me, she recovered. Besides taking my regional course, she also took a special course from me, for which I charged her only US$1000 instead of the usual US$5000 for a personalised course. I also transmitted chi to her from a great distance for free to help her to recover. But she paid me 1000 Canadian dollars instead of 1000 US dollars, despite the organizer telling her and she knowing it beforehand.
Later her cancer relapsed. She phoned me asking whether I could continue to transmit chi to her. I replied that I would consider. Had she asked me again I would continue to transmit chi to her for free, despite her breaking her promise and showing ingratitude. But she did not ask again. Her breaking her promise of not paying the agreed sum might have affected her thinking. I later learned from the organiser that she died from cancer.
SELECTION OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS AUGUST 2016 PART 1 BY GRANDMASTER WONG KIEW KIT
(reproduced from http://shaolin.org/answers/ans16b/aug16-1.html)
Grandmaster has often said that he remained unbeaten in his early days not because he was combat efficient but because he was smart; he spent a lot of time preparing for his upcoming free sparring
Question 1
Sigung, you were unbeaten in sparring in your young days. Can you please share your secret with us?
— Peter, Ireland
Answer
I used to say “in my young days”, but Douglas, my most senior student in Europe, reminded me at the time when I was about 50 that I was still young, so I have changed the expression to “my younger days”. Even now when I am over 70 and still feel young, I use the expression “in my younger days”.
In my younger days, especially between about 20 to 40 years of age, I spent a lot of time looking for sparring partners. At first I could beat them not because I was good but because I was smart. I chose opponents whom I had confidence of beating.
I made my victory doubly sure by doing a lot of homework, i.e. by practicing over and over again sequences which I used in the sparring. I devised the sequences from the way I expected my opponents would fight. This was not difficult because most of my opponents then were Taekwondo and Karate exponents, with some Boxing and Judo practitioners, and the way they fought was quite stereotyped.
For example, if I had to spar with a Taekwondo black-belt, I knew that he would probably start with some jabbing or side kicks, then round-house kicks, and eventually reverse round-house. So I would avoid his initial jabbing and side kicks, slant my body backward to avoid his round-house kicks, and when he executed a reverse round-house I would swiftly move forward with a coup de grace. I would practice this sequence many, many times, sometimes with modifications. When the actual situation occured during sparring, and this planned scenario almost always happened, I could use my practiced sequence to defeat my opponent easily. I always gently tapped my opponents; I never hurt them.
Having learnt from Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, my combat efficiency, including my internal force, improved tremendously. But initially I still used the same strategy. I chose sparring opponents whom I had confidence in beating, and I did a lot of homework. But gradually I did not have to do much homework as I could respond spontaneously and correctly to opponents’ attacks. As I became confident of my combat efficiency, I did not go out to look for sparring opponents.
I always used kungfu, including good stances, in my sparring. I never used Kick-Boxing, Muay Thai or any other martial arts, although I sparred with opponents from all styles. The difference was that in my earlier years of sparring I used simple punches and kicks, whereas in my later years my techniques were more sophisticated, like felling and chin-na. I discovered that when I used sophisticated kungfu techniques, my opponents just did not know how to defend against them.
So, if I have to give a secret for my unbeaten sparring record, I would say that I used a superior fighting art against opponents whose fighting arts were inferior to mine. Presuming that the skill levels were about equal, if I used simple punches and kicks, my opponents would have no difficulty defending against them. But if I used sophisticated techniques, like subtle felling and chin-na attacks, together with tactics and strategies that created situations for me to apply these attacks, my opponents had no techniques in their repertoire to defend.
Question 2
What are the effects of over-training?
— Sascha, Switzerland
Answer
For convenience, over-training may be divided into three stages.
At the most serious level, a practitioner who has over-trained becomes very weak and sick, or may even die. It is unlikely that practitioners who have over-trained will arrive at this serious stage, certainly not in our school.
But in my younger days, before I started Shaolin Wahnam Institute, I met a well-known kungfu master, who was a daughter-in-law of a kungfu patriarch, who either had over-trained or had practiced wrongly. As I knew him previously he was strong and full of vitality. When I last saw him, he was extremely weak and sickly. I regretted that I did not know chi kung healing them, or else I would have helped him recover.
The intermediate stage of over-training was when over-cleansing was clearly noticeable. Over-cleansing is the result of over-training, but practitioners are often confused over both these conditions. The symptoms are pain, tiredness, sleepiness and feeling of nauseousness. The practitioner who has over-trained feels unpleasant and uncomfortable, and is sometimes sick.
At the beginning stage of over-training, the practitioner feels tired and sleepy after his chi kung training, instead of feeling energised and fresh. The symptoms of cleansing are mild and may not be noticeable. Many practitioners over-train mildly at one time or another, and he will soon adjust to the excess energy from his training even without doing anything special.
What a typical Shaolin Wahnam student achieves in one day, it took Grandmaster Wong more than a month to achieve in his student’s days. Hence, it is important to guard against over-training.
Question 3
In a chi kung class, people had different diseases but they overcame their diseases by practicing the same exercises you taught. How did chi kung know which disease to cure?
— Roberto, Spain
Answer
In the chi kung perspective, which is also the traditional Chinese medical perspective, all diseases are caused by energy blockage. Western medical perspective uses different names for the different types of energy blockage.
In Western terms, if energy is blocked from inhibiting harmful micro-organisms from attacking a person, he is said to suffer from an infectious disease. If energy is blocked from working an organ normally, the patient is said to suffer from an organic disorder. If energy is blocked from flushing out negative emotions, he is said to suffer from psychological problems.
Chi kung works at the root cause, which is energy blockage. Other Chinese therapeutic methods, like herbalism and acupuncture, which also deal with energy blockage, work at higher hierarchical order. An acupuncturist or a herbalist will find out where the energy is blocked, and applies acupuncture or herbs to clear the blockage accordingly. Hence, in other Chinese therapeutic methods, correct diagnosis is very important.
It may sound ridiculous to those not familiar with chi kung philosophy that diagnosis is not necessary in chi kung healing! This is because chi kung deals with the root cause. Once the energy blockage is cleared, the patient recovers as a matter of course.
Different students in a same class might suffer from different diseases, like rheumatism, diabetes, cancer, chronic infection, and depression. But regardless of what the disease was, the root cause was energy blockage. Once the energy blockage was cleared, the patients recovered.
How did practicing chi kung clear energy blockage? It was through chi flow. The chi flow generated by chi kung practice cleared the energy blockage.
How did the chi flow know where the energy blockage was? Or, how did chi kung know which disease to cure?
It was a natural characteristic of chi flow to flow from high energy level to low energy level. Disease areas were areas of low energy level where there was insufficient energy to perform natural physiological and psychological functions to maintain normal good health. The energy generated by practicing genuine chi kung would naturally flow to these low energy areas to clear the blockage. When the blockage was cleared, the students would recover, regardless of what diseases Western medicine might call them, as their energy flowed to these areas to resume natural physiological and psychological functioning to restore good health.
Question 4
Can we transmit chi to friends to clear their blockage and help them recover?
Answer
You can but you may not. In other words, it is within your ability to do it, but you should not do it. In fact, every person has the natural ability to transmit chi, or energy, to another person. Mothers do this to their babies when the mothers comfort them. When your girlfriend is cold, if you hug her you transmit chi to her to warm her.
But unless you are trained, the chi you transmit to friends to help them clear their blockage is unlikely to work. You may harm them and harm yourself.
If your friends’ energy is blocked, which is the reason why they are sick, adding more chi to them will aggravate their blockage causing more harm. Their sick chi may back-flow to you making you sick too.
Transmitting chi to patients to clear their blockage and help them recover is an important part of chi kung healing. A chi kung healer must be properly trained. Chi kung healing is not something any person can play about with.
Many people may find it hard to believe, but practicing high-level chi kung can overcome any illness
Question 5
Some schools pay much attention to visualisation. Can you please tell us more about visualisation in chi kung training?
— Dimitry, Switzerland
Answer
Chi kung operates at three levels — the levels of form, energy and mind. The proportions of benefit by practicing chi kung at these three respective levels are 1, 3 and 6. In other words, if all other things were equal,. practitioners operating at the form level may obtain 10% of the benefit of the chi kung training, those operating at the energy level obtain 30%, and those operating at the mind level obtain 60%.
As most chi kung practitioners practicing genuine chi kung operate at the form level, where they perform many chi kung techniques for a long time and get some chi flow, whereas we practice chi kung at all the three levels of form, energy and mind, our benefit is 10 times more than what most other practitioners get.
A common misconception among some people is that when a practitioner operates at the mind level, he has to visualise. This is not true. Operating at the mind level, the practitioner may or may not visualise, but he must be in a chi kung state of mind, or at a heightened level of consciousness.
Many practitioners, especially those who learn from books and videos, confuse visualisation with intellectualisation. They think they visualise when they actually intellectualise.
Even if they visualise, it is still different from visualisation in the mind level of chi kung. These practitioners visualise while in their ordinary state of mind, whereas visualisation in chi kung must be performed in a chi kung state of mind. It is actually having a gentle thought rather than visualisation.
We do not need to employ visualisation at the elementary level of our chi kung exercises, but we still operate at the level of mind (even without visualization). Hence, our students get more benefits practicing our elementary chi kung exercises than other practitioners practicing advanced exercises. Many people may not believe it, and some may become angry at this statement, but it is a fact. Some examples of our elementary chi kung exercises are 5-Animal Play, 18 Jewels, and 18 Lohan Hands.
We use visualisation for some of our intermediate chi kung exercises, and do not use visualisations for other intermediate chi kung exercises. Some example of our intermediate chi kung exercises where visualisation is needed are Cosmic Shower and Abdominal Breathing, and some examples where visualisation is not needed are stance training and 18-Lohan Art.
We generally use visualisation in our advanced chi kung exercises, though they are some exceptions. Two remarkable exception are Sinew Metamorphosis and Cosmic Breathing which are very powerful. Examples of advanced exercises where visualization is needed include Bone Marrow Cleansing and Expanding into the Cosmos.
Question 6
What, in your opinion, will Shaolin Kungfu and Taijiuan be in a hundred years from now?
Answer
In my opinion in a hundred years from now more people will practice genuine Shaolin Kungfu and genuine Taijiquan, instead of practicing Shaolin forms for demonstration or for free exchange of blows, and Taiji dance. The total number of people who practice the genuine arts will still be small, but it will be bigger than the number now where most people, despite their good intention, cannot differentiate the genuine from the bogus.
Genuine Shaolin Kungfu and genuine Taijiquan give practitioners wonderful benefits. Besides being able to defend themselves when needed, these genuine arts provide practitioners with good health, vitality and longevity, as well as mental clarity and spiritual joys. Masters who teach bogus Shaolin Kungfu and bogus Taijiquan also say that their arts give good health, vitality and longevity as well as mental clarity and spiritual joys, but their students never attain these benefits, and they don’t realize it. By the time they realise this fact, they are too proud to change to genuine arts even if they have the opportunities, but usually they may not have the opportunities as genuine Shaolin Kungfu and genuine Taijiquan are very rare nowadays.
It is precisely to preserve genuine Shaolin Kungfu, and later genuine Taijiquan, that I established Shaolin Wahnam Association in the early 1980s, which later evolved to our school, Shaolin Wahnam Institute, in the middle 1990s. We have progressed very well. We now have more than 60,000 students spread over more than 35 countries in the world. Even if I were to retire tomorrow, our Shaolin Kungfu and Taijiquan as well as chi kung will continue to spread as we have very good instructors.
It is legitimate to ask what justification we have to claim that our Shaolin Kungfu and Taijiquan are genuine. The benefits our students get correspond exactly with what genuine Shaolin Kungfu and genuine Taijiquan will give. Besides being able to defend ourselves using our arts, our students have good health, vitality, longevity, mental clarity and spiritual joys.
Internal force is not only used for combat; more importantly it is used to enrich our daily life
Question 7
What is the difference between chi kung and nei gong?
Answer
Chi kung means “energy art”, and nei gong means “internal art”. In this case, “chi kung” is in English spelling, and “nei gong” is in Romanced Chinese spelling.
In Romanized Chinese spelling, chi kung is “qi gong”, and in English spelling hei gong is “nei kung”. Because we are used to English spelling, we may think that Romanize Chinese spelling is funny. Actually it is English spelling that is funny. “Bus”, for example, is pronounced as /bas/, not /bus/, and “phone” is pronounced as /fon/, not /phone/.
The two terms, “chi kung” and “nei gong”, can be used interchangeably, i.e. they have similar meaning though the connotation may be different. Chi kung is a modern term, nei gong is more classical.
For example, 18 Lohan Hands and Sinew Metamorphosis can be called chi kung or nei gong. Calling some exercises as chi kung gives a connotation that they are modern and are practiced to maintain some general well-being. Calling them as nei gong gives a connotation that they are classical inheritance practiced for martial art purposes.
In this connection, most of our chi kung exercises are more aptly described as nei gong than as chi kung, especially when chi kung has today degraded into gentle physical exercise, or “ti cao” (pronounced as t’i c’ao) which is bodily exercise. But we still call them chi kung exercises because the term “chi kung” has been established.
Question 8
We develop a lot of internal force in our chi kung or nei gong exercises. What are we to do with the internal force?
Answer
It is like asking what we are to do with money when we have earned a lot of money. Use it, force or money, wisely.
There are three main functions we can put internal force to use:
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To maintain life.
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To enhance life.
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To enable us to have better results no matter what we do.
Maintaining life is the most important function of internal force. It is also the function that many people with internal force, including genuine masters, fail to realize. The force that changes the breakfast you ate into blood and flesh as well as vital energy is internal force.
The second function of internal force is to enhance life. It is similar to but not the same as the first function. Enhancing life can be manifested in many ways. Having zest in your work and joy in spending time with your family are some of the manifestations of enhancing life.
The third function is to enable those with internal force to have better results than when they did not have internal force, in whatever they do, including martial arts, intellectual work, sports and playing games. Take a few seconds to reflect on this tremendous benefit. No matter what you do, because you have internal force you will do better than when you did not have internal force!
If you have any questions, please e-mail them to Grandmaster Wong via his Secretary at secretary@shaolin.org stating your name, country and e-mail address.
HEART TO HEART TRANSMISSION
(reproduced from http://shaolin.org/answers/ans15a/jun15-3.html)
According to chi kung philosophy all diseases can be overcome
Question 1
Can you tell us more about heart to heart transmission?
— Dagmar, Germany
Answer by Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit
Heart to heart transmission is self-explanatory. It means the transfer of knowledge, skills, wisdom or realization from the heart of the teacher to the heart of the student. However, like many arts such as chi kung and spiritual cultivation, the uninitiated may still not understand the meaning even when it is clearly explained.
A good example is “chi”, or energy. Students in our school do not ask what chi is because they realize its meaning through direct experience. But many chi kung practitioners still ask what chi is despite having practiced chi kung, or what they think is chi kung, for many years. It is because they do not have a direct experience of chi.
All great arts are not merely taught by a teacher to his students, but are transmitted by him to them from heart to heart. It is failing to appreciate this fact, mainly due to a lack of direct experience, that many people think, mistakenly, that they can learn great arts from books or videos, or that all teachers of these arts are the same.
It is also due to a failure to appreciate this fact that some people ask me what chi kung exercises they should practice to overcome certain illness. It is not the kind of exercises they perform, i.e. the techniques, but how they perform them, i.e. the skills, that are crucial in enabling them to overcome illness. In other words, even when they know the best techniques but lack the necessary skills, they would not overcome their illness. Skills are best acquired from a competent teacher. On the other hand, even when a person has only mediocre techniques but good skills, he may overcome his illness.
It is because of our understanding of this fact about techniques and skills, that we have become very cost-effective in our training. Indeed, we are cost-effective to a ridiculous extent, that our students can attain in one month what it takes even masters a year to attain!
Masters take a much longer time to attain similar results because they do not differentiate between techniques and skills. They practice appropriate techniques dedicatedly and develop the necessary skills unknowingly, which may happen haphazardly. Only when the necessary skills are present during their training that the desired benefits result. Hence, they do not have the great advantage of accumulated benefit even when they practice everyday, because, as they are unaware of them, the necessary skills do not occur every time they practice.
This understanding between techniques and skills constitute a crucial part of heart to heart transmission. It is skills that are transmitted from heart to heart, not techniques.
Let us take Cosmic Shower as an illustration. An excellent technique for Cosmic Shower is Carrying the Moon. Students may practice Carrying the Moon correctly and diligently, but they may not have a cosmic shower. Indeed, most of them do not have even an energy flow. They practice the technique as gentle physical exercise, not as an art of energy.
Some of these dedicated students may eventually, but without their conscious awareness, develop the skills of generating an energy flow. Next, usually after many years, a very few of these dedicated students may experience a cosmic shower after they have unknowingly developed the necessary skills.
Our students are very lucky. When they take a course on Cosmic Shower, the necessary skills are transmitted to them. By applying these skills they can have a cosmic shower in just one day! As I mentioned earlier, this is ridiculous, but true.
How do our students know that they have a cosmic shower? In principle it is the same as asking how do people know they eat an orange or drink some coffee. They know from direct experience. Our students know they have a cosmic shower as surely as those eating oranges or drinking coffee know they eat oranges or drink coffee. Those who have no experience of a cosmic shower, eating oranges or drinking coffee will not know regardless of how well the events are described to them.
The transmission must be from heart to heart, not merely giving instructions from mouth to ear. Let us take an example. A teacher may ask his students to relax, which incidentally is a very important requirement in any internal cultivation. The instruction comes from the teacher’s mouth, and enters the students’ ears. But the students may not be relaxed. No matter how well they perform the techniques, they will not get the benefit of the art.
On the other hand, when a teacher from our school asks his students to relax, it is transmitted from his heart to his students’ heart. He sincerely wants his students to relax so that his teaching is successful, and his students genuinely want to relax so that they derive the benefit of the training. When I teach a class on Cosmic Shower, I sincerely want to impart the necessary skills, and the students genuinely want to follow the instructions so as to get the desired results.
SELECTION OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS JANUARY 2016 PART 3 BY GRANDMASTER WONG KIEW KIT
(reproduced from http://shaolin.org/answers/ans16a/jan16-3.html)
Many stories described in “The Way of the Master” are incredible but true
Question 1
I have read your book. “The Art of Chi Kung”, over 3 times now, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I look forward to reading “The Way of the Master”.
— Qasim, UK
Answer
Thanks for your kind words for “The Art of Chi Kung”. Many people have kindly commented that it is the best chi kung book they have read. It gives a comprehensive, yet in-depth picture of what chi kung is, as well as what practitioners in the pasts attained in practicing chi kung. Hopefully this book may prevent chi kung from degenerating into mere external forms.
“The Way of the Master” is my autobiography, and has been kindly described by the editor as the real story of a small boy becoming a world legend. Interestingly, it is also the most entertaining book I like to read. Readers will not only have much reading pleasure, but also learn many useful lessons that can enrich their daily life.
Question 2
It a bit sad to see that some form of chi kung is lost, like your teacher Sifu Ho Fatt Nam could jump 10 feet from a standing position. I would love to practice that. Can you do that?
Answer
My sifu did not jump 10 feet from the ground, but his sifu, i.e. my sigung did. I cannot do that, though I have other benefits of the Art of Lightness which my sifu taught me, like running up four storeys fast and without panting, and am flexible and agile at an age most people would consider old, i.e. 70, but I still regard as young.
Although I can run up many storeys and long distances, I prefer to take an elevator or drive a car, or better still be driven by a careful driver. As I have often told my students, we should make use of modern facilities.
It is worthwhile to know that chi kung methods were invented not for fun, but to meet expedient needs. Kungfu masters needed to learn the Art of Lightness to jump high as they were often ambushed by many opponents, and this skill enabled them to escape.
I trained the Art of Lightness in my younger days. After many months of daily training I could jump up to about 5 feet. One morning I fell down and cut my thigh, which resulted in stopping my training.
I discontinued my training not because of the cut, as I learned years ago that greatness lies not in never falling but in rising after every fall. I realized it was not a wise use of time, because now we have elevators and cars. Later my wife commented independently that she would love to see the Art of Lightness. Had I known this earlier, I would have continued my training just to make her smile.
But this does not mean that my training was wasted. One I saved my niece, who was about five years old then, from possible serious injury. She was about to roll down a long flight of stairs. I rushed up to save her before she could roll two steps!
Dim mak is believed by many people to be an lost art, but we are proud that it is found in our school
Question 3
What is the best form of mediation for calming the mind and raising consciousness?
Answer
The best form of meditation for calming the mind and raising consciousness, or the best form of any art for any purpose depends on various factors, like the philosophy and methodology of the teachers as well as the developmental stage and needs of the students.
For you if you have an opportunity to learn in our school, the best form of meditation is entering into a chi kung state of mind, which we do every time we practice. You may find it hard to believe, and many people may be angry at the statement, but it is true that in just a few seconds you will have a calmer mind and a higher level of consciousness than many others who have spend an hour sitting in a lotus position.
Question 4
I am crying as I write this. I myself suffer from Lyme Disease. My dad cannot keep track of his pills. He could not find his way through an airport. He has Parkinsons and dementia. He puts food all over the floor and cannot figure out how to put on his seatbelt. My dad cannot live without my mom.
Mom is utterly exhausted as a caregiver. Her relationship with dad has degraded so badly, that she resists wanting to try to help him at all anymore. Mom has so many demands on her time in caregiving and running an entire household on her own
— Carole, France
Answer
You dad is in a really bad shape.
It is best that he goes to the Holistic Health Centre straightaway, without having to go for my regional course. It is ideal if you and your dad can have treatment at the Centre.
You should be healed in three months, or perhaps two. But your dad may need six months.
You can help him in the first month, but your help should be progressively less each day so that he could be on his own by the second month. This is definitely for his own good. He must learn how to be on his own, and he can do so everyday in one month.
To be well means, for example, he has to eat his own food, not have someone eat his food for him, and do his own toilet, not have someone do it for him. He has first learn how to live, and then how to wholesomely enjoy living his life, all in six months. He can’t have someone feed him and pamper him for life, even if he has money to employ someone to do so.
Your dad must give your mom a chance to live her life, but still loving to him and be his wife. It is very selfish of your dad to want your mom to be his slave, and it is also very bad for his own life.
Your dad, your mom and you can have all these wonderful things, which are actually normal things, if you all really want them and work for them, not merely hope that they will happen.
Chi flow can overcome any illness and gives practitioners good health, vitality and longevity
Question 5
As my training progresses, my third eye continues to pulsate but less painfully so. I believe the vigorous circulation from Dragon Strength is helping. Prior to Penang, my focus was on the Small Universe and Cosmic Breathing.
— Stephen, USA
Answer
Small Universe will enhance whatever you do, and Dragon Strength will make it more powerful. The way you learned Small Universe and Dragon Strength was also in the right order.
One would still have very good results if he learned Dragon Strength first, then Small Universe. But if he learned Small Universe first, then Dragon Strength, like what you did, the results will even be better.
Question 6
I’ve noticed that my general intuition as well as sensitivity to energy has grown exponentially over the years. For example, whenever I am visiting Buddhist or Hindu temples, I often now feel energy and force emanating from certain statues.
Are these abilities related to the third eye?
Answer
Your third eye is opening, or has opened. In practical terms it does not matter much whether you are at the opening stage or at the opened stage. Only those who intellectualize unnecessarily worry about such issues. As an analogy, it does not matter much whether your business if picking up or has picked out. What is important is that you are earning a lot of profit and your customers have gained a lot of benefit.
The exponential increase of your general intuition and of sensitivity to energy is one of the many benefits that your third eye is opening or has opened. It is very important that you use this and other benefits for good and never for evil.
We do good and avoid evil because we are righteousness. Even if one ignores righteousness and works only for self-interest disregarding the interest of other people, it is also for his own self-interest that he must do good. If he does evil, evilness will certainly return to him. The law of karma is certain.
Dragon Strength learnt at the Dragon Strength course will enhance any art you practice!
Question 7
Is there a hidden link between our Dan Tian and our third eye? The more focused my energy is at the Dan Tian, the more my third eye seems to pulsate.
Answer
Yes, there is a direct connection between the dan tian and the third eye, though I don’t know whether there is a direct link, like a meridian or some nerves in modern scientific terms, connecting them.
The more powerful the dan tian is, the more effectively the third eye will function. In other words, if there is a lot of chi at the dan tian, the third eye will open and the person will be able to perceive things across space and time that is not normally possible in ordinary persons.
On the other hand, if a person’s dan tian is weak, his third eye will be close. Not only he has no psychic abilities, his normal eyesight will also be poor.
Question 8
Finally, at what point will I know when my third eye is finally open and the pulsation stop?
Answer
As suggested earlier, in practical terms it does not matter whether your third eye is opening or has already open. But for your curiosity, when pulsation has stopped for some time, and you are used to perceiving across space and time, your third eye has opened.
But this is not absolute. Even when your third eye has open, pulsation may sometimes occurs, just as even when your business has established, it can still pick up.
The most important issue is that, irrespective of whether it is your business or your third eye, you must always use the benefit for good and never for eveil.
If you have any questions, please e-mail them to Grandmaster Wong via his Secretary at secretary@shaolin.org stating your name, country and e-mail address.
NEW YEAR MESSAGE FROM THE GRANDMASTER
(reproduced from http://www.shaolin.org/general-3/message2016.html)
Grandmaster Wong presenting a paper at the 2nd World Qigong Congress in 1997 where he was awarded “Qigong Master of the Year”
As we move into 2016, it is worthwhile to look back over the years at what we in Shaolin Wahnam have discovered. Viewing these discoveries from a particular vantage point, some of our family members may not realise their great significance, but viewing the discoveries over many years, with reference to the general development of chi kung and kungfu, these discoveries are really remarkable, and may create history for posterity.
One of the greatest of these discoveries is to enter into a chi kung state of mind, or to enter Zen in Shaolin Kungfu, or to enter Tao in Taijiquan. Shaolin Wahnam students today are very familiar with entering into a chi kung state of mind as we perform it every time we practice, but this concept, as we understand it, is actually new. I did not know about this chi kung state of mind in my students’ days, and most chi kung and kungfu practitioners today are unaware of it.
My first introduction to this chi kung state of mind, though it was not so called at the time, was during a casual talk with my sifu, Sifu Ho Fatt Nam. My siifu told me, “If you are not relaxed and focused, you may as well not practice because you will not get any benefit.”
The first time I read about the term, chi kung state of mind, was from the great chi kung master of China, Sifu Yen Xin. He mentioned that entering into a chi kung state of mind is crucial in chi kung training. He explained that it was a new term, probably coined by him himself, and in the past this mental state was known as “entering silence”. It dawned on me that in other cultures, the same mental state was described as attaining a heightened level of consciousness. I also recalled reading some chi kung literature that the mind, not energy, is the most important factor in chi kung, though it literally means “energy art”.
The skill to enter into a chi kung state of mind was developed by me over many years. When I first taught chi kung to the public, I did not ask students to enter into a chi kung state of mind. But when I found the skill useful, I not only taught it, I transmitted it.
One main reason why I could improve my teaching methodology tremendously, sometimes beyond recognition, is because I teach about a hundred classes a year, whereas most other teachers teach only a class or two. In other words, a typical chi kung teacher teaches his students a particular chi kung exercise one or twice a year, but I teach the same exercise a hundred times. This gives me a lot of opportunities to improve my teaching methods.
Entering into a chi kung state of mind is fantastic. Now students at my Intensive Chi Kung Course can generate a chi flow within the first hour. My early students took about 4 to 5 months to generate a chi flow. Most other practitioners cannot generate a chi flow at will regardless of how long they may have practiced chi kung.
Besides speeding up the attainment of our students, entering into a chi kung state of mind also enables them to accomplish unbelievable high-level results. In a regional course of Massaging Internal Organs of just 4 hours, even relative beginners can direct chi to their internal organs to massage them. In a regional course of Bone Marrow Cleansing, within 4 hours even relative beginners could direct chi to flow at different levels and derive various wonderful benefits. Others outside our school, even when they are sympathetic to us, may find it hard to believe.
How do we know our students could direct chi to their internal organs or to whatever level they wish? In the respective courses, they reported form their own experience that they could do so. In principle, it is like asking someone sitting on a chair how he knows he is sitting on a chair. He knows from direct experience. Only those who have never directed chi to their internal organs or to whatever level they wish, would ask such a question.
In kungfu training, two of the greatest discoveries, and which our students benefit immediately, are to develop internal force and to use kungfu for combat. These two attainments are actually the two pillars of kungfu training. In other words, all kungfu training, if it is done correctly and successfully, is geared towards developing force and combat efficiency.
Again, as developing internal force and applying kungfu for combat are so common in our school that those who are not exposed to other kungfu schools may mistakenly think these kungfu accomplishments are the norms. Although we are not unique in having these abilities, they are certainly very rare. Most kungfu practitioners today, including some masters, do not have internal force, and do not know how to use kungfu for combat.
One of the crucial factor that enables me to discover methods that enable our students to develop internal force and to apply kungfu for combat was differentiating between skills and techniques. This itself was a remarkable discovery. In my students’ days, I did not know the difference between skills and techniques, Most kungfu practitioners today, including masters, do not differentiate between skills and techniques.
The techniques used by all kungfu practitioners to develop internal force and to apply kungfu for combat are genuine. But most practitioners (outside our school) do not have the necessary skills, and they are unaware of it. Those who persist in the techniques for many years and eventually succeed, become masters, and they form a very small proportion of the starting population. The others fail, or give up half-way.
From our perspective, the most important discovery is to transfer our chi kung and kungfu training to enrich our daily life. We do so purposefully and systematically, and I am very happy that we have been very successful.
Previously I thought that the biggest group of people who wrote to thank me would be those whom I helped to cure from so-called incurable diseases. But this was not so. The biggest group of people, by a very big margin, who wrote to thank me were initially healthy. They thanked me for sharing our arts that enabled them to enrich their lives as well as the lives of other people.
Like other discoveries, this discovery was, and is, not common in kungfu circles. Many past masters, despite their high chi kung or kungfu attainment, did not lead happy lives. Some of them, due to their training, were more efficient in their work than had they not trained chi kung or kungfu, but unlike us they did not consciously apply their chi kung or kungfu training to enrich their lives.
Today’s situation is worse. Many chi kung and kungfu masters are sick, physically or emotionally, and some have to take medication on a routine basis. A world known surgeon told me some shocking news — more than 75% of his patients were top martial artists, and their most frequent treatment was hip replacement. These top martial artists practiced their arts as hobbies, which ware meant to give them pleasure!
We in Shaolin Wahnam are indeed very lucky. We have good health, vitality and longevity — though some of you may have to wait 30 years to confirm this benefit. We have mental freshness and mental clarity as well as spiritual joys, irrespective of religion, like being peaceful and happy.
I wish all our Shaolin Wahnam family members and all our guests good health and happiness.
Wong Kiew Kit
1st January 2016.
Grandmaster Wong demonstrating a chin-na technique
OVER-TRAINING AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT
(reproduced from http://shaolin.org/general-3/over-training.html)
Students could generate an energy flow within the first hour of my Intensive Chi Kung Course
Over-training has become a serious issue in our school. It is important to recognise it and to know what to do when it occurs.
Firstly, it is helpful to understand our working definitions of these terms.
Over-training means a practitioner has trained correctly according to how an exercise should be practiced, but the benefit is too powerful for his physical body to bear.
In this sense, overtraining is different from wrong training. Wrong training is when a practitioner has not practiced an exercise according to how it should be practiced. Hence, he has no benefit or he has adverse result.
Strictly speaking, or to split hair, if a practitioner has no benefit, we can cali it incorrect training. The training is not wrong, but incorrect. Therefore he has no benefit. This is the case of most chi kung practitioners.
If a practitioner has adverse result, it is wrong practice. It is not only incorrect, it is wrong. Therefore he has adverse result. This is the case of many kungfu practitioners who sustain internal injury in their sparring.
To split hair further, we can refer to over-training as wrong training. But for our purpose here, we shall differentiate the two. The remedy is different. To overcome over-training, we reduce the training. To overcome wrong training, we correct the training.
Hence, we have four types of training — correct training, incorrect training, wrong training and over-training.
Over-training may result in over-cleansing. The former is the cause, and the latter is the effect. As an analogy, you may earn a lot of money, then you become wealthy. Earning a lot of money is the cause, becoming wealthy is the effect.
Over-training may also result in over-building and over-nourishing, but these are not explained here so as not to confuse you.
How do you know you have over-trained. One good way is that you experience over-cleansing. Before this happened, you might experience strong benefits. Then you feel tired and sleepy. Sometimes you may feel anxious, fearful or angry. This happens when your negative emotions are flushed out of your body faster than you find tolerable. Sometimes you have rashes, pimples or are smelly.
There are a few ways to reduce over-training, which will in turn reduce over-cleansing. Please take note that there may be a time-lapse between the two.
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Reduce the time of training.
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Reduce the intensity of training.
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Expend your energy in wholesome activities.
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Stop training for some time.
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Perform negative actions.
If you train for half an hour a day, reduce it to 15 minutes. If you train everyday, reduce it to once in two days. But as our training time is short, and we enjoy our training, a more useful method is to reduce the intensity of our training.
An excellent way to reduce the intensity of training is not to enter deeply into a chi kung state of mind. Please take note that even when we do not want to enter deeply into a chi kung state of mind, because of our habitual training, we will still be in a deep chi kung state of mind compared to most other practitioners.
Another way is to focus on your form, or purposely think of your form. This will distract you from your mind level.
Spend time on wholesome activities. Go hiking or swimming. Play football or enjoy music. Roll about on the ground and jump about in the sky. Perform kungfu sets or sequences, focusing on form, not on chi flow, internal force or mind power. If you haven’t got a girlfriend (or boyfriend). get one, and focus on making her happy on a date.
Stop training for a few days, or even longer. Use your training session to spend quality time with your parents. Read some good books, like “The Way of the Master”.
You may even perform negative actions, like tensing your muscles or intellectualising during your training. But perform some gentle energy flow at the end of the training session to clear out negative effects.
It is worthwhile to know that over-training is relative. What is normal correct training to a healthy person, may be over-training to someone who is sick. What is normal correct training to a master may be over-training to a student.
It may also not be easy for some of you to realise how effective we have become in our training. The following facts may help you in the realisation. They are facts, not opinions.
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If a practitioner in another school can generate a chi flow after 6 months, it is good result. (I took more than 17 years.) Students who attended my Intensive Chi Kung Course took less than an hour. Roughly this means our students are about 180 times more effective.
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If a practitioner in another school can develop internal force after 6 months, it is good result. (I also took more than 17 years, and I was already known as a kungfu genius.) Students who attended my regional courses like 18-Lohan Art and Bone-Marrow Cleansing experienced internal force in a few hours. This means our students were about 180 times effective.
Many people outside our school may concede that we are more effective. They may think we are 2 times or even 3 times more effective. Translated into income, if they earn 2000 dollars or euros a month, they think you earn 4000 or 6000. They will not imagine we are 180 times more effective. If it is just 10 times, you will earn 20,000 when they earn 2000.
To have an idea of how much one should train so as not to over-train, I have suggested that he can get just 30% of what he got at an intensive or regional course with me. That would be enough for his purpose of overcoming illness or contributing to good health, vitality and longevity. In case you think that 30% is too little, let us work out how much benefit it is. If an average person earns 2000 euros a month, as you are 180 times more efficient, you will earn 38,000 euros. If you get 30% of that, you will earn 11,400 euros a month. Translated into chi kung benefits, if an average person practicing chi kung gets 2000 units of benefit a month, you will get 11,400 units, which is a lot of benefit.
Wong Kiew Kit
16th January 2016
Students at a 18-Lohan Art course performing Double Hooks
SELECTION OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS JANUARY 2016 PART 1 BY GRANDMASTER WONG KIEW KIT
(reproduced from http://shaolin.org/answers/ans16a/jan16-1.html)
Holistic Health Cultivation Centre, Kuala Lumpur
Question 1
I discovered the Shaolin arts and philosophy, and I am strongly attracted to the original traditional Shaolin lifestyle. Although my age is 59, I like to gain strength, solace, flexibility, health and fitness and spiritual health, and longevity and vitality at old age.
I am a physician in cardiovascular medicine and general medicine. I encounter a lot of fear, anxiety and stress in my patients.
So, it is good and wise to acquire Shaolin training myself and develop myself in order to help others for a very long time. I am convinced that Shoalin Kungfu, qi gong and Zen will help. I am aware of the holistic principle and combat form and meaning of the movements as well as universal energy.
Could you recommend to me where and how I can have the best and genuine Shoalin training? How do I start?
Please take into account that I am just starting and a beginner. I will read all your books in advance to get maximum information. I am also aware of the need to persevere.
At present I am reading your book, “The Complete book of Shaolin”. The other books will follow. But I understand that one doesn’t learn from a book, one learns from practice, instruction and repeating even blindly.
— Dr Joe, Netherlands
Answer
It is inspiring that you intend to have good health, vitality, longevity, mental freshness and spiritual joys (irrespective of one’s religion) starting at 59. Indeed many of my students over 60 told me that they were healthier and fitter than they were at 30.
It is also inspiring that you wish to give confidence to your patients. When you are proficient in chi kung, you can teach your patients some simple chi kung exercise to give them confidence and increase their energy level as a supplement to the normal treatment you give them.
I would take this opportunity to explain that when you teach your patients simple chi kung exercise, you must not teach them at the same level that you practice, because doing so would cause them harm rather than benefit. You must teach them at a much lower level that is suitable for them.
Will you have harm instead of benefit if you practice at a high level? No, you will not. You will have more benefits.
Why is this so? This is because you attend my courses not only to practice chi kung at a high level but also learn remedial exercise to overcome harmful effects if you unknowingly make mistakes. But your patients do not have these benefits. So you only teach them at a low level of chi kung that is safe for them even if they make mistakes unknowingly. When you meet me in person, please remind me to show you about teaching and performing chi kung at different levels.
I would also take this opportunity to explain that what many chi kung instrucrtors teach nowadays is not chi kung but gentle physical exercise although they and their students use chi kung techniques. This statement is made in good faith, and not meant to belittle these chi kung instructors, who are usually kind and have good intention, but they themselves may not realize this important fact. Similarly, many Tai Chi instructors and students today do not realize that what they teach and practice is not Tai Chi Chuan, which is an internal martial art, but some external Tai Chi forms although they use genuine Tai Chi Chuan techniques.
Gentle physical exercise does not give confidence and increase energy level. That is why many chi kung practitioners today are still weak and sick because actually they practice gentle physical exercise, and not chi kung, which is meant to make practitioners strong and healthy.
To attain these two aims:
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To have good health, vitality, longevity, mental freshness and spiritual joys for yourself
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To be able to teach simple chi kung exercise to your patients, if you want, as a supplement to your usual medical treatment so that they can be confident and have more energy
I suggest the following option.
Attend my Intensive Chi Kung Course. Continue to practice on your own at home. It is sufficient if you practice just about 15 minutes daily. If you can, join a regular chi kung class taught by one of our certified Shaolin Wahnam instructors. If this is not feasible, you can practice on your own at home.
You should be able to achieve the two aims above in about 6 months.
Please see my courses and time-table on my home page. Please apply to the respective honorary organizer as soon as possible.
You can attend my Intensive Chi Kung Course without any prior chi kung experience. But if you wish to learn Shaolin Kungfu or Tai Chi Chuan from me, you need some prior experience. You can first learn some Shaolin Kungfu or Tai Chi Chuan from any of our certified instructors, or from any competent instructors outside our school. Then attend my Intensive Shaolin Kungfu Course or Intensive Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) Course.
Question 2
I’d like to respectfully ask you for your advice. My wife has developed Alopecia Areata in 2012/2013 which probably progressed into Alopecia in 2014. It started during the first pregnancy in 2012 with few small bold spots on her head and she had finally lost all hair on her body in summer 2014, before our second baby was born
The hormonal changes were compounded by stress at work and lack of sleep.. Doctors told us that the disease is simply incurable and the only choice is the wig.
I hope chi kung could be a miracle cure for my wife, as the disease has likely been caused by hormonal changes in her body. Chi Kung could be the only chance to overcome the condition.
— Marian, UK
Answer
I am sorry to hear about your wife’s condition. But the good news is that she has a good chance to recover if she practices genuine, high-level chi kung.
Please note there are two dimensions in the term “genuine high-level chi kung”, namely the chi kung practiced must be genuine, and it must be of a high level.
For various reasons much of chi kung practiced today all over the world is not really chi kung but gentle physical exercise although practitioners use genuine chi kung techniques. Many people may be puzzled by this statement. How could their practice not be genuine chi kung when they practice genuine chi kung techniques?
They will have a better idea if we use a more familiar example of Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan). Genuine Taijiquan is an internal martial art, but most people today practice it as an external dance-like form without any internal or martial aspect. But these dance-like practitioners use genuine Taijiquan techniques. They only can perform the external form of the techniques, but they do not have the skills to perform these techniques to develop internal force, and they also do not have the skills to apply these techniques for combat.
It is the same as chi kung. Most people only practice the external form of chi kung techniques, but they do not have the skills to use these techniques to generate an energy flow. Energy flow is the essence of chi kung. It is the energy flow that gives chi kung benefits, like overcoming illness and promoting good health, vitality and longevity. Merely performing the external forms does not give these benefits.
In other words, no matter what chi kung techniques your wife practices, and no matter how beautifully and for how long, if she cannot generate an energy flow, she will not be able to overcome her health problem. So, it is not a question of which chi kung exercise is good for her, but how effectively she can generate an energy flow. For this, she has to learn from a competent teacher.
Without energy flow, practitioners perform chi kung techniques as gentle physical exercise. It is energy flow that makes the practice as chi kung, which means energy art.
The second point is that the energy flow must be powerful enough to bring result. Even if the chi kung is genuine, if the energy flow is weak, which means the chi kung is of a low level, it may not be sufficient to help your wife overcome her problem. Your wife must practice high-level chi kung under the supervision of a competent teacher to overcome her hormonal imbalance and eventually to have normal hair growth.
There are three options for your wife to choose from:
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Seek chi kung healing from the Holistic Health Cultivation Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Your wife is guaranteed to be cured within a year, or else she can have her money back. But she must attend daily healing sessions at the centre.
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Your wife can learn chi kung from our instructors in UK. Please see our List of Instructors for information.
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Attend my Intensive Chi Kung Course where she will learn how to generate an energy flow. She has to continue to practice on her own after the course. Please apply to my secretary for registration. Please see my home page for more details.
Amongst many benefits, practice kungfu gives us confidence
Question 3
We understand that the child of 4 is more like a baby in development. Therefore we are not sure he will understand instructions for “Lifting the Sky”, etc. In such an instance how would you proceed to encourage chi flow?
— Sifu Tim Franklin, UK
Answer
Here are various ways to help those who may not be able to perform chi kung exercises themselves, like the child, to have chi flow to overcome their health problems.
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You can channel chi to him.
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His parents can learn chi kung from you, and then channel chi to him by stroking the child about half a foot from the child’s body from head to limbs, and from centre to extremities 2 or 3 times a day but not at noon.
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You can transmit chi on water and let the child drink it.
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You can transmit chi onto some suitable object, like a coin or a tiny pad, and let the child wear it on its body. Depending on the chi stored in the object, it may have to be renewed once a week or once a month.
Shaolin Wahnam Kuala Lumpur 