Dr Roger Jahnke - What is Qigong ?

I want to talk to you a little bit about, um, I want to get into a little bit about the Qigong and the, and the power of Qigong. And for folks that don't know, I mean, there's a lot of folks that don't know about it, right? They may see it or they may see a video on it and that type of thing. So talk to me a little bit about how you got involved in Qigong and then the power of it to be, um, such a healing modality for, for, and you know, and you can bring in the breath in that as well. Sure. So, uh, let's go to, let's go to cultures and, um, if we go back in history a ways, what we find is that, uh, humans, uh, let's go back, you know, 5,000 years, there's a robust human activity in China. There's robust human activity in India. There's robust, uh, human activity in the, um, Middle Eastern, uh, you know, the Tigris and Euphrates, uh, and all of that, uh, Africa, Europe, North and South America are robust and, and, and very active, uh, with, um, the, uh, original people of those nations. And so if we ask the question, what is the medical system that was developed by all of them? Uh, we would say that it would be something like shamanic medicine, meaning the medicine to the, the, um, ultra civilization of the region. So before China worked its way through all of the, uh, fiddle faddle that had to happen to create a large China and, and, and, you know, and even until very recently, Europe was just a bunch of different countries, uh, and they all had their shamanic roots that go back to, um, the, uh, you know, the Vikings and the Celts and so forth. And the drew, you know, the Druids and all that North and South America, all of that, they all have a medical system based on the same idea. And that is that the body is in a relationship with nature. It's an expression of nature. It's in a relationship with nature. And of course, one of the things that nature is doing all the time is giving us a show. Uh, it's a solar show and it's a lunar show and the solar show basically gets divided into seasons. I'm going to ask, answer your question, but I think it's really important for people to understand that these, uh, prehistoric, if we say history starts around 5,000, then these people who are 10,000, 30,000, a hundred thousand years ago, they were all having the same experience of, wow, these days are really getting long. And then later, wow, these days are really getting short. And then there's a place in between the longing and the shorting that we call the equinox. And these, these days are kind of the same length of night and the day is around the same length. And so we ascribe seasons to those four conditions, short days, long days, and then two rounds of even days coming in and going out of the winter or the summer. So four seasons, then you have full moons. Well, there's 12, typically 12 full moons in a year. If you divide things up in certain way and use a certain kind of esoteric counting, you get that, uh, there were 13, uh, new, there were 13 full moons in a year. And often there are, um, and, but that's not where we're going right now. Right now we're looking at is, well, what is the pattern of the moon? Because we would say to ourselves, uh, when should we do this? And then instead of looking at our iPhone and, um, looking at something called December and January, we would look at the moon and say, uh, okay, this looks like we're probably in the new moon right before the beginning of spring. And so that's good because, uh, what's going to happen is things are going to start thawing out. We're going to see green stuff coming out on the trees and so forth. And, um, we're going to celebrate that. And we'll celebrate that somewhere right around the time when the day and the night are the same length, because that's what happens on the spring equinox. And so we can say, you know, I'll meet you, uh, at the hot spring at the foot of the largest mountain that we both can see, um, on the new moon, uh, that is as close to the, uh, equinox as possible. So it, it gave us a calendar for planning. So the fact that the human system is in the same environment as let's say the tree that loses its leaves, then gets flowers on it, then makes fruit. And then we can eat that fruit. Well, we happen to be in the same region. We're experiencing the same openings and new moons. So in the mind of the original people, we are nature and the expression of nature, whether you want to spiritualize that and put it into something called God, uh, or if you want to just say God is nature. And so then the whole idea would naturally be that if we live in accord with nature, we're probably going to be fit. And of course, you know, 10,000 years ago, everybody was exercising. Hunters were exercising, warriors were exercising, women were caring, you know, to any women who are sensitive to this. Please know that I am a feminist. I don't say that women carry water because of the fact that men shouldn't be doing that. You know, there's, there's nothing about that here and let's just stay with it. But everybody was exercising and everybody was celebrating these seasons and everybody was dancing and moving around in celebration and rituals to celebrate births, deaths, graduations, coming of age, marriage, all of that stuff. So there's a lot of, we can say there's a lot of partying going on. And these parties are, you know, where you stay up, not every one, but some of these parties you stay up all night and you dance yourself into a frenzy and you have downloads of intuition to guide you for the next steps that you're going to make. And then because you've lived in this environment for some time, you know what that plant is and what that plant is and what that plant is because your, your grandmother told you. And, and, and so this whole idea of the foundation of the medical system is it's not medical at all. It's the health, it's a health care system where people care for their health. And of course, you've noticed that we don't spell health care with space between the two words anymore. We only put the word health and care together, which is really not a health care system at all. It's a financing system for the medical industrial complex. So now to your question is like how, what happens when a culture has been around, the human gene is 3 million years and the ability for humans to build a fire is over 1 billion years. And the people who were previous to humans, which we call monkeys, apes, chimpanzees, and so forth, did they, or did they not communicate with each other? Well, of course they communicated with each other. So since the beginning of the human gene, we have been communicating with each other. At what point did we develop esoteric language? And what I mean by esoteric is formulated language with nuances so that a person could say, I have a headache and I know that it's not because of the fact that I worked hard because I have headaches on a regular basis. So what should I do? And then the doctor doesn't say, you know, I'm going to write this down. You go and get this drug from your pharmacy. What the doctor says is, you know, let's track this down. Let's see what's going on. Let me feel your pulse. Let me look at your tongue. Check your, you know, your, shall we say, dexterity and coordination. That's one of the great things about what we hear early in our study of Chinese medicine is that the doctor diagnoses the person without asking them what's bothering them. And so when we go to the, I as a doctor did this for 35 years, I would greet the person in the waiting room, invite them into my office, have them walk in front of me so that I could see their energy and their gait and the level of pep or absence of pep that they have. When they get into my office, I don't ask them. I don't say like, why are you here and what's your problem? I say, you know, what's your favorite thing? You know, what are you excited about these days? And then I get to hear the sound of their voice and the pace of their words and the extent of their vocabulary. And I can even lean forward while they're talking and watch when their mouth opens to formulate certain words to see their tongue because Chinese doctors look at people's tongues and the color of their skin and the sound of their voice. You know, is it a, is it a, is it like a singing sound or is it more like a sighing sound? And there's just all of this incredible information that can be gathered about a person's, shall we say, constitutional makeup. And so then what does the doctor do? Probably reminds the person about some basic things like getting enough rest and hydrating. I'm drinking Golden Monkey tea from China. And, you know, how are you getting along with your family? And is there somebody that needs to say something to somebody to be able to get to the point where you feel comfortable about being in the family and having things work out? So then all of those societies have circles and people sit in circles and they are invited in the presence of other people to share their feelings. And so they have a kind of a natural tendency to a kind of homespun, grandma-driven psychotherapy which can bring a person who's getting isolated and frustrated back into a connection with some, you know, dialogues that help with all of this stuff. Okay, so what about what else? Well, you know, you could do well if you could quiet down. So now we're talking about meditation and then you say, oh, I've been so worried. You know, the kids, you know, the other tribes are looking like they're going to, you know, be angry at our tribe or whatever. I'm worried about what's going to happen. And then the doctor says, well, yeah, that's true. But, you know, in the presence of that, we know that when that bad thing isn't happening, that it's a good time to prepare for that bad thing, not by worrying, but by cultivating the capacity to keep yourself steady and vital and resilient and capable and ready for anything. And so then the person says, oh, but I don't have time. We say that all the time. These days, apparently, we do have less time than ancient people. There's lots of information on that. And we were supposed to have more time. A lot of missions were supposed to make our lives into leisure, which could be happening, by the way, with AI. But the point there is that the doctor or the shaman or the high priestess or the medicine woman or whoever it was that this person was consulting him to maximize their well-being would say, well, OK, so the easiest thing is right before you go to sleep, do a bunch of breath work and rub your body. Just tap on points and rub your body. So that is a time that every human being isn't doing something else. They're just getting ready to fall asleep. And it's the same with the next day in the morning. Who jumps right up? And so we usually wake up and then we kind of something, something, and then we get up. And usually the something, something is worrying about the things that we should have done and things that we have to do. And so then they say, well, could I just take a little time to do some breath practice and tapping on these energy points before I get up? And so then the person says, well, of course I could do that. So there's no drugs. There's no surgical procedures. There's just this beautiful sharing about the things that a person might have forgotten to do. And the final point is that Qigong puts breath practice and body posture and movement and mind clearing, call that meditation and self-applied massage into a little package called Qigong. So Qigong is basically a part of this health maximization process. That was invented by the Chinese. But then the people in India, they invented it. They call it yoga. And different people in different cultures call it, you know, in the Native American and so forth, they have the medicine wheel and the peace pipe and, you know, all that stuff, declarations and communicating with God. So what I'm saying is that there's an archetypal model of medicine, and it's not based on disease. It's based on mobilized internal functional resources. And if we ask the question, what is Qi? Then the best answer is that Qi describes the optimal presence of functional capacity in any system. So if we talk about the solar system, harmonious Qi in the solar system is that the Earth continues to go around the sun in the pattern that it has been, you know, plus or minus a little something for a really long time. And so what about the Qi of a tree? Well, you know, the Qi of a tree is that it raises nutrients from the ground and expresses it in the leaves. The leaves gather the sun, and then, you know, they put out oxygen, by the way. They take in carbon dioxide, and they put out oxygen. And so that is the Qi of a tree. Well, what is the Qi of my brain? Well, the Qi of my brain is the level of function of my brain. So if my brain is functioning pretty well, then I would say that my brain Qi is robust and harmonious. And so Qi Gong means to work with and develop the skill to work with the Qi, which is really a way of saying we could use the language of the Western world of saying the capacity, developing the capacity, developing the skill to work with the optimization of functional capacity. And so Qi Gong is any kind of functional optimization process.