Five years ago, G’s father had pancreatic cancer and G happened to be watching a special on health called “The Healing Heart”. At the end of the show was a segment that just floored him. It was on the Beijing Cancer Recovery Club – and these people, instead of being passive in their fight with cancer, were out everyday walking, moving, and breathing in a very special way which we used to hear as chi kung. G also searched the internet and found some of the info by searching kung fu cancer.There were people all over Beijing getting together every morning to practice these seemingly simple forms of exercise to fight their cancer. These groups were run solely by cancer survivors who had used this form of exercise. In Beijing alone, there were almost 3,000 people in these cancer recovery clubs, and besides the exercise they also scheduled group trips, met for yearly anniversaries of members survival, and generally supported each other in their fight.
The basis of the groups daily exercise is a form of Chi Kung called Guo Lin Chi Kung. You may not have heard of Chi Kung, but you probably have heard of its increasingly well known cousin T’ai Chi. Chi Kung is similar to T’ai Chi in that it is a general term for movements or meditations invented by the Chinese that help to strengthen and regulate the internal energy, or “chi”, that the Chinese believe is the basis of health. By performing these seemingly simple movements or meditations the Chinese believe that you can maintain and recover your health. So Chi Kung is really the Chinese way of staying healthy, and everyday early in the morning they meet by the millions in parks across China to practice this basic, but powerful, self health technique.
