Issue 65 - Tse Qigong Centre

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like and do you feel comfortable? All of which are prettysubjective questions.From experience and from talking toother martial arts enthusiasts, many teachershere do not ask for payment – cue alarmbells and fanfare heralding one’s entryinto the web of guanxi. The standardphrase that people use is that theyjust want to be your ‘friend’, whichtranslates as ‘I have plans foryou’. If someone lets you payfor teaching they are doingyou a big favour, heave a bigsigh of relief and give themthe money - you are beingpartially released fromsome of the obligations ofguanxi. I ended uptraining with someone Iliked, who is unusual inthat he is verystraightforward andhasn’t treated me muchdifferent from hisChinese students, all ofwhom pay a small fee.The irony of course is thatwhen people arestraightforward in this wayyou’d be happy to help themif they asked a favour of you.My point about guanxi iswhat we would call ‘emotionalblackmail’ is a part of everyday lifein China and you have to be strongand clear in yourself to deal with it.“Guanxi iswhat we would callemotional blackmail”Often if someone is kind to you there’s a reason, and if youcan be manipulated you will be. The following is a scenariothat has repeated itself many times since we’ve been here:somebody you’ve never met, or only met once or twice,suddenly appears and offers you a gift, you do not want toaccept it but they are very persistent, they will lose face if yourefuse, if you accept it they will at some point appear on yourdoorstep asking for a favour (in our case English Teaching)which is their right since you accepted a gift from them. Doyou : a) Refuse the gift in the first place and let them loseface; b) Agree to teach their son, daughter, cousin, cat, dog,gerbil, etc. English; c) Act insane in the hope that they will allgo away; or d) Acceptthe gift but tell them you’re too busy andgive them a gift in return. Of course, theproblem is more complicated when theDean of your Department pulls the samestunt. Being confronted with this problemon a monthly, if not weekly basis, I find ithard to resist drawing analogies withpushing hands.That said, when you do form a real friendship withsomeone it is amazing what doors open and the extent towhich people will go out of their way for each other. In thesecases friendship often ends up approximating to familyrelationships with old friends often referring to each other astheir ‘brother’ or ‘sister’. In conclusion I would say that I havecome to value the clear guidelines and boundaries of the TseQigong Centre and the sense of family that anyone who hasbeen a member for any length of time feelsBy Peter AnderssenQi Magazine Jan/Feb 2003 page 41
Humanity refers not only to mankind but also to the positive characteristicsexhibited by people, like compassion, kindness, and tolerance etc. Qigong fostersthese qualities, along the path to health, so practice benefits society as a whole.Humanity vs. TechnologyQi MattersIn today’s world of technology and‘pentium processors’ there are toomany people who feel morecomfortable communicating withcomputers than with other humanbeings. As we become as cold andunfeeling as the machines we operatewe are in danger of losing our humanity.Communication is a human skill,necessary for survival. It is dependent noton common language but an open heartand mind. In recent years less attentionhas been paid to educating children abouttolerance (of others), courtesy, andrespect etc. As the future generationsgrow up closed and selfishly motivatedtrue communication is lost.Ancient peoples lived simply,cared for one another, and were in directcommunion with nature. They werewiser, more intuitive, and more evolvedon a spiritual level. Overcrowding in thebig cities and increased crime rate breedscynicism, suspiciousness, intolerance, andaggressiveness, leading us further awayfrom our innate human nature. We failto grasp many things on the subtle levelas our minds are too cluttered.The brain is a great antenna whichcan receive ‘messages’ and‘information’. Despite progress in spacetechnology, quantum physics, andgenetic cloning etc. science is stillrelatively young; today it still onlyexplains a small percentage of the brain’scapabilities and functions. Westernscience has only recently concluded thatthe pineal and pituitary glands (locatedwithin the frontal lobes of the brain) arelinked to psychic phenomena, such astelepathy and ESP, while Daoists wereaware of this ‘precious square inch’(known more commonly as ‘Sky-eye’)many thousands of years ago.Mental telepathy is considered ahigh level of human skill. It is possiblebetween minds generating highfrequency waves, and those which areopen (honest), calm and clear. For mostpeople purest mental energy is blockedby desires and ambitions, or dishonestyand machinations, etc. In daily life themind is overused at work, then furtherdistracted by stimuli such as television,computers, the internet, and videogames, or else decimated by drink anddrugs, which is why the majority ofpeople never tap into the brain’s ‘hiddenpotential’ or even acknowledge itsexistence. The more this potentialbecomes lost over generations the moreit is compartmentalised into the realmsof the supernatural.Modern life is geared towardmaximum comfort and convenience, andso the masses are becoming increasinglylazy, portending a future health crisis.People prefer to drive around endlesslyin circles just to park closer to the entranceof a shop rather than walk a few extrayards. Capitalising on the public’sindolence one U.S. company hasintroduced a diet pill called ‘Exercise In ABottle’, and for $899 you can purchasea chairwith a built-in refrigerator in one armrestand telephone in the other (for orderingpizza delivery !), and massager. One intwo Americans are overweight, and onein three are obese. This is also due tothe lack of Qi within synthetic ‘foodtechnology’.The human body can adapt to allkinds of situations and possesses apowerful healing mechanism which canheal every illness under the rightconditions. Ancient peoples across thecontinents lived well over 100 years ofage. They did not die prematurely fromcancer or organ failure, but naturally, ofold age. Most diseases we face todayare from 21st Century living conditions:overcrowding, higher stress levels,radiation-emitting gadgets, poor dietaryhabits, pollution etc. Asthma barelyexisted 100 years ago and carpal tunnelsyndrome was unheard of, but now witheveryone using computers, seizures in thehands are commonplace.Apparently now over 10 millionAmericans suffer from ‘social anxietydisorder’, defined as “an intense andoverwhelming fear and avoidance ofsocial situations”. The ‘scientific’ cure is,of course, a pill which induces sweating,yawning, tremors, flatulence anddiarrhoea; the very things which aredeemed unacceptable in social situationsand ridiculed, thusdefeating theobjective.Despite constantachievementsin the scientificmaterial world thescience of‘humanity’ seemsto be in recession.There are currentlywell over 500organised hategroups in Americaalone, a neo-Naziresurgence inGermany, andglobal racism. Thehuman race remainsdivided by skin colours, cultural traditions,religious beliefs, language, and classstructure, and we are losing ourconnection with nature itself, the veryroot of our existence. At the end of theday we are not so much human beingson a spiritual path as spiritual beingslearning what it is to be human.Incorporating technology has become anecessity but we must not forget what itmeans to be humanby Adam Wallace.adam@qimagazine.compage 42 Qi Magazine Jan/Feb 2003
Page 2 and 3: Cover: Grandmaster Ip Chun at the I
Page 4 and 5: POBox POBox POBox...Time for Change
Page 6 and 7: Ma, you will still be using strengt
Page 8 and 9: traditional Chinese clinic, you cou
Page 10 and 11: The more that you look at the detai
Page 13 and 14: AcupointMassage forSpine Painand Di
Page 16 and 17: The five elements help us to unders
Page 18 and 19: Chinese Horoscopes for 2003This yea
Page 20: The 9 th and 10 th of November 2002
Page 23 and 24: traditional Chinese opera, lion dan
Page 25: Darryl Moy & Simon Bedford gave a d
Page 28 and 29: I suppose, like myself, you have vi
Page 30 and 31: Each number has its own specialener
Page 32 and 33: Fig 6 Fig 7 Fig 8BenefitsThis movem
Page 34 and 35: 7. Pulling Sprouts from the FieldHi
Page 38 and 39: Basic SelfLow Knife AttackDefence v
Page 40: Feng ShuiAn oddly shapedmirror will

Issue 65 - Tse Qigong Centre

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