1.Why is the figure stressed in the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

The figure means the posture in the exercise of which is very important just as said by ancient practicers: Qi will be not smooth without correct posture, mind will be not quiet without smooth Qi flowing, spirit will be likely to scatter without quiet mind. Concretely speaking, there are two requirements of the body posture in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi. Firstly, the practicer should keep the head and body straight, pull in the chest and lower the shoulders, relax all the muscles with quiet and natural mind, make the breath regular step by step to better get into the state of the exercise. Secondly, make the corresponding and exact posture according to the meaning and specifications of each routine in the exercise. The practicer should do his best to exactly imitate the posture of those animals just like the tiger or the bear itself. In addition, the practicer should especially give stress on the differentiating the lifting and falling, height, being slight or heavy, being slow or abrupt of each action to make the guiding gentle, agile and get the effect of stretching the waist and body, activating all the joints for younger and longer life.

2..Why is the soul of five kinds of animals emphasized in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

The soul of the five kinds of animals means the expression and gait while the five kinds of animals including the tiger, deer, bear, monkey and bird are playing. It stresses the wholism of the combination of the body with mind and demands its integrity in the traditional life cultivation skills. The practicer should concentrate on the mind of which can keep the body healthy in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi.

Different from other kinds of Qigong, the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi mainly makes the whole body including the mind, Qi and the body itself integrated to regulate the mind, body and breath through imitating the expression and gaits of five kinds of animals. So the practicer can get into the spiritual state of making amusements and get better effect of the exercise only when he has grasped the soul of playing of the five kinds of animals with life-like imitation.

3.What can the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi do for its emphasizing the mind ?

It is narrated in the Huangdi’s internal classics that the heart is dominating the whole body including five Zang and six Fu of which will shake along with the motion of the heart. The heart in this narration means the brain. It is said that seven emotions will injure five Zang in Chinese medicine, which shows that the thinking activity as well as the emotion change will affect the function of visceral organs. Therefore, it is stressed that imitating the animals can make one consciously concentrated and effectively rid of the harmful distracting thoughts to keep the practicer calm and long life in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi.

4.How to do the routines in the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

The practicer can mind on the lower dantian part to concentrate and rid of distracted thoughts at first and gradually get into the spiritual state of each animal combining with the actions in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi. For example, you can imagine that you are one fierce tiger in the woods and stretching the paws to catch the preys when you practise the tiger routine. You can imagine that you are one deer walking around in the field and playing games with your friends practicing the deer routine. You can imagine that you are one clumsy bear turning your waist and abdomen and freely wandering in the forests practicing the bear routine. You can imagine that you are one naughty monkey in the Huaguo mountains picking the peaches or pears practicing the monkey routine. You can imagine that you are one red-crowned crane by the riverside clapping the wings and being about to fly in the sky practicing the bird routine. Make your mind move with the body and Qi with the mind to integrate the mind, Qi and body to keep the mind calm, dredge the meridians and blood circulation and nurture the visceral organs as well.

5.How to combine the breath with the actions in the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

It is required that the breath of the practicer is adjustable with the change of the actions in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi as guiding is the main style of exercise. Concretely speaking, the principle of breath combination with the actions is to inhale while lifting and opening and exhale while falling down and closing and the exhalation is after the inhalation. That is to say, the practicer can inhale when the guiding action is directing upwards or opening or relaxed and vice versa. Pay attention to regulating the breath step by step. Being in haste should be avoided in the exercise as it is said by the ancient people that exerting the Qi will result in the exhaustion and holding breath will result in the injury. Intentionally regulating the breath or holding breath is liable to cause the dysfunctional breath or obstruction breath or even the acute oxygen deficiency. That will be harmful to the body.

6.How to execute the principle of being step by step in the teaching of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

There is one process of which is from being easy to difficulty and from being simple to complicated for knowing anything according to the principle of the psychology. Some effective methods of teaching should be grasped in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi for better effect. At first, it is the method of parting the actions. That is to say, complicated actions are divided into simpler action just like the actions of the arms, limbs and the trunk at first and practise them separately and thereafter combine them again. By this way, the practicer can clearly understand the structures, directions, lines and routines of the actions and do the whole set of actions in the axle of the waist at last. Secondly, it is the exercise of imitation, which requires the beginner grasping the basic skills through imitating the action of the demonstrator for some time and thereafter understanding key points. Thirdly, the practicer should combine the breath, actions with the soul of the animals after the actions is correct and skilled and sufficiently show the spirit and meaning of the actions to consummate the integrity of body, mind and outer world. The practicer should avoid of earlier pursuit of the inner experience ahead of grasping the actions or the bad effect is liable to ensue. Above all, the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi should be done step by step to make better foundation and better healthy effect.

7.What are the main points of regulating the breath in the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

Xi means the breath by the word. It mainly occurs in the starting routine, leading Qi into the Dantian and in the break while lifting the limbs laterally in the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi and aims at controlling the scattered thoughts to connect the mind and the breath and calm down the mind by ways of consciously regulating the breath.

The first one is to regulate the breath in the starting routine. It is done as follows: to pull in the chest, expand the back with relaxed and quiet mind, lower the shoulders while inhaling, mind on the Dantian, slowly and by turn raise and abduct and press down the arms. Take the shoulder as the axle, lower the shoulders and raise the elbow with palms upward while letting Qi downward and then press inward the palms to make one round. It aims at regulating the breath and relaxing the mind and body to get faster into the exercising state. For those practicers with slower entrance into the exercising state, concentrating on the Laogong acupoint or breath is feasible with eyes fixing ahead, combining the actions of the arms with the breath, regulating the breath rhythm to make it fine, regular, deep and long and continuous.

The second one is to lead Qi into the Dantian of which is used to concentrate the mind on Dantian and make the actions combined with the breath to regulate the breath and relax the muscles and joints to get ready for the disclosure of Gong as the practicer will be a little tired and need to return the state of natural relaxation with consecutive change between the actions later after accomplishing the whole set of routines with some extent of intensity and exercise load.

The third one is to regulate the breath while lifting laterally of which occurs for four times and separately locates in the break among the five routines. It aims at bridging and transforming action among the different postures to regulate the breath and relax the body as well as connect the next routine. It is required that the practicer should keep the mind calm, the body relaxed and lone and deep breathing.

8.Compared with the jogging, friendship dancing, senile discotheque, what is the difference for the effect of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi on improving the aged respiratory function?

The practicer should breathe along with the lifting, lowering, opening and closing of the actions and do his best to make the breath deep, fine, regular, and long in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi. The depth of the breath is especially stressed in the exercise. The action is very slow with moderate oxygen consumption and lung ventilatory capacity in unit time in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi. This style of deep and slow breath is helpful to improve the efficacy of pulmonary ventilation. The research shows that the breath frequency is mildly reducing, tidal volume is obviously reducing, oxygen percentage in the exhaling air is decreasing and no change is observed for oxygen consumption in each minute in quiet state for the subjects after the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi for six months. It indicates that the breathing style of the subjects change obviously with the breath depth increasing and the efficacy of pulmonary ventilation improving in quiet state. The lung capacity of the practicer is obviously heightened as the deep and slow breath can boost the strength of inspiratory muscles as well as expiratory and assisting expiratory muscles to some extent after the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi for six months.

Although the deep and slow breath is required in the exercise of jogging, friendship dancing, and senile disco, but the extent is smaller than that in the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi as the former have greater intensity and faster rhythm. The deep and slow breath can play an obvious role in improving the lung ventilation and pulmonary ventilation capacity for the aged people as it markedly reduces the relative ratio of anatomical dead space in the respiratory tract and increases the gas exchange rate between the pulmonary alveolus and capillary blood around the pulmonary alveolus.

9.Is it effective on the rehabilitation of lung diseases of the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

Yes, it is. The deep and slow breath as well as the slow and continuous actions can markedly reduce the resistance in the respiratory tract and pulmonary alveolar pressure to increase the lung ventilation in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi. It can avoid the possibility worsening the emphysema due to the exercise for the patients of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Therefore, the practicer afflicted with COPD can form the deep and slow breath through the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi, which can play some role in ameliorating the lung ventilation function, and reducing the occurrence of cor pulmonale and decreasing the case fatality for the patients of COPD.

10.Why can it improve the immune function of the middle and aged people for the lone-term exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

It relates with the characteristics of regulating the mind of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi. It is validated in physiology that the mind and thinking activity can dominate the autonomic nerve system and control the visceral activity by ways of central nervous system of the brain. The exercise of long-term regulating the mind can strengthen the ability of the brain modulating the autonomic nerve and glands and improve their secretive function and regulate the secretion of hormones, which can affect the distribution of T subgroup in the peripheral blood.

One important spiritual effect of the Health Qigong is to improve the emotion stability and relieve the nervousness and boost the happy extent. It requires that the practicer should rid of the harmful emotion change and distracted thoughts and get into the mind state of imitating the animals to guard off all the harmful stimulus in the outer world in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi. That the mind state is different in different routine can improve the spiritual appearance and transform the psychological state and relieve the nervousness and mental stress and keep healthy mind for the practicer. The test shows that some indices such as obsession, depression, anxiety, hostility, horror, paranoia and psychosis are markedly ameliorated after the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi for six months, which indicates that it is effective on improving the psychological health and immunological function as well as regulating the balance of immune for the middle and aged people.

11.How can the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi effect on the psychological health for the middle and aged people?

The research shows that the scores of some factors reflecting the psychological health of the middle and aged people are ameliorated and the extent is better in female practicers than in male practicers after the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi for six months. The degree of mind health amelioration is better in the group of 50-60 years old than in the group of 61-70 years old. The degree of concentration ability amelioration is better in the group of 61-70 years old than in the group of 50-60 years old.

12.How can the practicer get the best effect in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi?

It’s up to the individual condition of personal practicer. Generally speaking, the instructor should make individualized directions and the practicer should do the individualized exercise. The exercise load can be adjusted based on the height of the postures, the action amplitude, and the action speed. For personal practicer, it can be adjusted according to one’s own constitution with effective prevention from the overstrain or wound due to overload of exercise.

In addition, its obvious characteristics is to entirely regulate the posture, breath and mind and keep quiet and relaxed state for the Health Qigong. It is required that the practicer should get into the mind state of each routine with relaxed body and mind and being free of any distracted thoughts, enjoy the happiness imitating the animals with natural combination of the breath with the actions in the exercise of the Health Qigong Wu Qin Xi, which will strengthen the body and make the practicer happy.