At least with acupuncture there is something our limited vision can see – the needles. Many of you reading this may have heard anecdotally about how Acupuncture has helped someone with something. 

For example: I will never forget the wonderful smile this French woman had when we were walking down a serene path in the New Zealand countryside and she was telling me the story of how Acupuncture helped her period pains. Every month like clockwork when her period would come around she would have severe period pains. Obviously this sucked so she sought out treatment. After an acupuncture treatment her period pains were obliterated and she has been pretty much period pain free ever since. How kool is that.

Within the meridian system there are specific points from where to place the needles. When the needles are in the body this can help unblock stuck or stagnant energy, increasing energy flow and this in turn can alleviate a problem in the body that was being caused by insufficient Chi. Some peoples illness is being caused by lack of energy flow so more energy flow and boom, problem solved. Like a plant that is totally ok but just needs some water, this can be all it takes. Instead the western medicine model, instead of trying to add more water first would pump the plant full of hormones, chemicals and who knows what to treat the symptoms of a lack of water, instead of just watering the plant!

With Qi Gong you are not seen as a patient to be cured, you are seen as student on their learning and healing journey. With Qi Gong you can recreate similar effects found from Acupuncture. Instead of using needles to clear blocked energy, you use energy. For some people they will prefer this because it is a non invasive form of treatment. You can go to a Qi Gong healer much in the same way people go to Reiki for healing. However the main focus of Qi Gong is to train people to be able to heal themselves. You will learn different techniques and movements. The effectiveness of how much energy you can channel into yourself will be determined primarily by how much you can focus.

For example – in my Golden Handshake Qi Gong practice – you don’t need to put the body in any crazy kinda positions, all you do is move your hands around your body and focus on the visualisations and sensations same for the Tai Chi Ball. The more you focus, the more powerful this technique is. Qi Gong is a natural stepping stone after we get good at meditation. I would always advocate for people to develop a strong focus muscle first with a focused meditation technique like body scan meditation and then this focus translates perfectly into Qi Gong. Also it’s useful to know what happens to the body when Qi moves and the body starts to heal.