
The Chi Kung/Qigong Association of America
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In November of 1996, a small, but significant, gathering took
place in Boulder, Colorado.
A conference entitled "Chi Kung/Qigong: Developing Energy-Cultivating
Life" was presented by The Chi Kung School at The Body Energy Center.
Produced by Jim MacRitchie and Damaris Jarboux, it brought together a group
of teachers and practitioners from around the country who, over the last
four years, have been engaged in a dialogue to create a viable national
association.
The presenters were Jesse Dammann, Russell Des Marais, Roger
Jahnke, Damaris Jarboux, Mark Johnson, Richard Leirer, Hong Fei Lin, Jim
MacRitchie and Gunther Weil. Shantike Lammanno, Thompson Chen and Ellen
Raskin had intended to come, but due to circumstances, could not. Initially
another half-dozen well-respected teachers had been invited, but did not
end up participating for various reasons.
The conference was a wonderful weekend of presentations, workshops,
training and discussions, attended by large numbers (for this small mountain
town) who braved adverse Winter conditions to get there. On Friday and Saturday
it took place at The Masonic Temple-joining the Taoists and the Masons.
On Saturday evening, we gathered together in the Law Offices
of Berkley Freeman, our legal counsel, signed the papers and presto, created
"The Chi Kung/Qigong Association of America", a 501(c)(3), nonprofit
corporation. We drank American champagne. The three others not able to attend
in person "signed-on" later.
The Objects and Purposes of the Association
are:
a. To promote and disseminate the understanding and appreciation
of the principles and practice of Chi Kung/Qigong and Asian Body-Energy
development and cultivation in the USA and internationally.
b. To work to establish and integrate Chi Kung/Qigong into
the mainstream of education, medicine, health, healing, sports, recreation,
entertainment, mental health, social services, eldercare, industry, commerce,
personal development, consciousness training, spirituality, social evolution
and the general public awareness.
c. To create a forum and network for the community of practitioners,
teachers and students of Chi Kung/Qigong.
d. To establish, represent, promote and maintain a presence
of Medical Chi Kung/Qigong in the Health-Care community.
e. To work on behalf of, and for the greater benefit of, all
humankind and the global population, to help relieve human suffering, restore
national sanity and promote the pursuit of both personal and communal happiness.
f. To give citizens a wider access to the Chi Kung/Qigong
self-healing, self development and personal transformation arts, and thereby
to facilitate "health self-reliance" and personal empowerment.
g. To provide educational and training opportunities for students
and practitioners, and affiliated health professionals with regard to Chi
Kung/Qigong.
h. To establish Chi Kung/Qigong standards, guidelines and
basic requirements of training and competence, and the certification of
practitioners and teachers.
i. To unify the classical and contemporary branches, schools
and traditions of Chi Kung/Qigong, and assure that the understanding of
the essence of Chi Kung/Qigong is transferred from the "East"
to the "West".
j. To recognize, explore, create, and establish the unique
forms of American Chi Kung/Qigong.
On Sunday morning, the conference was held in Boulder Community
Hospital... so the first act of the first national Chi Kung/ Qigong Association
took place in a major county hospital-joining Chi Gong with the Western
medical establishment; proving beyond doubt that the Tao works in strange
ways.
The conference was enthusiastically enjoyed by everybody present,
and was a great success.
So, how did this all come about?
What happened?
Following a series of phone discussions between the above
provocateurs between 1993 and 1996, a range of options were explored. It
was agreed that the best and most effective way of launching a national
organization was to send in a "special team", a combination of
Kelly's Heroes, The Wild Bunch and The Marx Brothers and Sisters, to "Just
Tao It", kick the ball, get the game started, create the best organization
we could using our collective intelligence... and then invite everybody
to join.
We figured that most organizations of this nature were legally
and formally pretty much the same (standard stuff with a few particulars
thrown in) and that the important work began when everybody was sitting
around a table, in person, together.
The alternative to this method was too ghastly to comprehend...
years of consultations with every possible interested party involved; forests
of documents and photocopies; $1,0000s of dollars in air fares and phone
calls getting everybody together; innumerable hours as everyone negotiated
their position; painstaking diplomacy; all of the needs and wants and objectives
and special interests and visions all worked together into a document that
would most likely look identical to the one that any lawyer could get out
of a standard law book off the shelf. (I seem to remember this happening,
once or twice before, to some other organizations).
We had a different plan which got to the same end, and saved
four or five years.
Our plan...
1. Fall 1996. Gather the initial group together in one place,
at a small local conference.
2. Sign the documents and create a National Association, and
appoint ourselves, as the incorporators, to the "Initial Board of Directors".
3. Summer 1997. Hold a public national conference, as widely
announced as possible, and invite anybody with the faintest interest in
Chi Gong/Qigong to attend.
4. Those people who met the criteria of "voting member"
(criteria unavailable at this time of writing, but to be available at the
conference itself) to gather in a large room together.
5. The Initial Board of Directors to perform their first (and
last) item of business-RESIGN! (stand up, bow,
and walk off the platform)... leaving a completely empty stage, and thereby
opening the floor for voting of a new democratically
elected Board of Directors--selected from, and chosen by, the gathered
membership.
6. The new, formally-elected Board of Directors and Executive
Officers, will then address its first item of business-discussing, accepting,
changing, adding to, and eventually...ratifying the Bylaws.
What could be more equal, fair, even, participatory, democratic...or
American?
There is only one thing remaining to make this plan an astounding
success, and launch Chi Gong/Qigong and The Tao into the mainstream of America-YOU.
To take part-as an attendee, member, teacher, or participant,
YOU have to be there. To vote, YOU have to show up. To make this happen,
YOU have to participate.
- ...if you want to be a player, and help create and shape one of the
most important, effective, and exciting organizations for introducing Chi
Gong/Qigong into the west...
- ...if you want to participate and contribute your Chi/Qi, to everybody's
benefit...
- ...if you want to become a Charter Member of this most worthwhile endeavor
- ...if you want to join the club and community of practitioners and
students...
- ...if you want to get the best Chi/Qi in town...
- ...if you want to take part in The Woodstock of Chi Gong, and be able
to tell your grandkids about it...
YOU have to come to Minneapolis/St. Paul on the weekend of
18th, 19th and 20th of July. We invite you to join us.
Be There. Jimi and Janis will (in spirit).
We look forward to hearing from you and meeting with you.
- Best Wishes,
-
- James MacRitchie
- Interim President
-
- Russell Des Marais,
- Interim Secretary-General
-
- For further information:
- The Chi Kung/Qigong
- Association of America
- c/o Three Rivers Crossing Center for Qi-Gong & Traditional Chinese
Healing
- 569 Selby Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102
- Tel: 612-291-7772
- Fax: 612-291-7779
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