This article accompanies the previous article, About Tai Chi and Qi Gong, and provides additional material on the Qi Gong methods taught by Master YeYoung. Master YeYoung lives in Sacramento and can be reached by phone at (916) 285-0806 or by email at d.yeyoung@sbcglobal.net.
Qi Gong techniques are generally applied to the two
categories: Healing Functions and Martial Functions. The former
cultivates physical health and spiritual well-being, such as
spiritual awakening, while the latter
emphasizes a superior physical
ability, such as breaking a large rock or thick iron pole with bare
hands or feet.
Qi Gong techniques are also divided into two general categories: dong gong, or dynamic qi gong, and jing gong, or meditative qi gong. Dynamic qi gong includes physical movements. The entire body moves from one posture to another or a posture is held while the four limbs move through various positions. Tai Chi is an example of a dynamic qi gong, juxtaposed with meditative qi gong, where the entire body is still, and the qi is controlled by mental concentration, visualization, and precise methods of breathing.
Like Tai Chi, there are a few styles or schools of qi gong. Every Qi Gong technique, whether standing, moving, or sitting and meditating, shares three common principles: Tiao Shen, regulating or alignment the body, Tiao Xi, regulating or refining breathing, and Tiao Xin, focusing the inner awareness to consciously coordinate and direct the mind; and balance yin yang and the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Their names range from animals to legendary figures, mountains to plants, and philosophical ideas to human organs.
YeYoung Qi Gong methods adhere to the traditional Chinese healing (vs. martial) methods, focusing on the teachings of unbroken lineages through physical empowerments and oral transmissions. The techniques of Qi Gong taught at the Arts of YeYoung Tradition are now available to Westerners for the first time, in detailed postures, and are coordinated with breathing techniques to enable you to focus on the working of your inner world and subtle body. It arouses qi from slumber, and quickly builds up Dan Tian, or a “qi reservoir” in your body.
This course is suitable for any age or fitness level. It is easy to learn and you can quickly gain a recognizable sense of, and a feeling for, qi. In the standing and dissolving process, it teaches you to dissipate energy blockages. You will learn how to:
This dynamic course teaches you to move and direct qi at will to any point in your body, and absorb and project your qi with your hands to penetrate the fourteen main acupuncture meridian channels in your body. It helps link the physical and energetic activities of the internal organs to the spine and the joints, and utilize qi in healing, sports, and martial arts. You will learn how to:
This course teaches a higher level of breathing. At this level breathing is coordinated with Tantric mantras in which the joints, cavities, spinal vertebrae, glands, and muscles simultaneously expand or contract with each breath/sound vibration. You will learn how to:
In YeYoung Qi Gong Meditation, the focus is on developing a clear, tranquil state of mind, deep inner awareness and harmony with nature. One focuses on conscious production of mental images and visualizations, rather than images that arise spontaneously during dreamlike or visionary states. In the meditation, visualization is trained through imagination and volition. By using the creative power of the mind, visualization stimulates subtle human glands, sharpens awareness, and corrects health problems. Visualization functions as a faculty that gives you access to an intermediary world; a world between the realm of unfathomable and hidden mystery, and the world of sensible and gross forms. It unifies the two complementary sides of human nature—intuitive wisdom and practical knowledge. You will learn how to:
Master YeYoung is a teacher and scholar on China and Tibet. Born into the Royal Family of the Ming Dynasty, he
was raised in the Literati Tradition of literature and poetry, painting and calligraphy, and the Chinese esoteric practices of I Ching, Feng
Shui, divinati
on, and Qi Gong meditation by his grandfather, a revered Taoist Sage and I Ching Master, and his father, a Taoist
Master and Chinese medical doctor. Master YeYoung received the exclusive Chen Family Tai Chi teaching from Kong Tong Master Chi Youren, and the grand master, and the tenth lineage holder Chen Zhaokui of Chen Family. He also received the lineage teachings and transmissions of the high Tantra practice from the Tibetan Sakya Khon Family, and the Confucian Nei Gong medicine school. He is now the Patriarch of YeYoung tradition and the lineage holder of Kong Tong school, the Eleventh Generation Master of the internal transmission of Chen family Tai Chi, the lineage carried on and taught by Chen Changxin, Chen Fake, and Chen Zhaokui. After the 1989 Tianamen Square Massacre, Master YeYoung resigned his job as a university professor in Asian Humanities in China. He and his wife, Pema, spent nine years taking long retreats in Tibet and China before they settled in Sacramento, California, three years ago. His mission is to make the knowledge he has acquired accessible to his students.