External Qi Gong


External Qi Gong is traditional Chinese therapeutic method employed by some practitioners of TCM to treat their patients. The doctor performs some exercises to amplify his or her own Qi and then "expresses" it into the patient. There is an uncanny resemblance in this practice to the Christian practice of "laying on of hands." Energetically, they may be more similar than most would admit. However, practitioners of External Qi Gong also go through a certain amount of training in Traditional Chinese Medicine so they know exactly where to put their hands, and why.

There are a thousand different ways to express Qi into another individual. There are a thousand ways to teach, learn or practice external Qi Gong. The experience that I've had represents the practice of Taoist Master Share Lew of San Diego, California, and Carl Totten of the Taoist Institute of Los Angeles. (Located in North Hollywood.)


Expressing Qi into another is a little like turning your arms into hoses and your fingers into nozzles. You can point a finger at an acupoint, or hold your palm over the afflicted area, touch, massage, or just think your Qi into the body of another.

In Chinese medicine we tend to either sedate excess, or tonify deficiency. However, the experience I have with external Qi Gong suggests that when you're in doubt, expressing Qi into a patient has more of a regulatory effect than a tonification effect. In other words, I simply express the Qi into the patient's meridian and let their body decide where and how it is used. I tend to enter the meridian by holding the most distal point on the channel. On women, you'll grab onto the finger or toe on their right side. For men, you'll take a hold of their left finger or toe.

In my experience, the best way to treat the Qi within a channel is to hold the distal end of the channel with one hand and then pass the other hand over the length of the channel feeling for anything that doesn't feel like a good even flow.

In the case of the Spleen Channel, you grab hold of the big toe with one hand, then slowly run your other hand over the length of the meridian. Distance from the body doesn't really matter once you get good at it, but when I learned we passed the hand over the body at a height of about 5 inches.

Healthy Qi flow will feel either slightly warm or slightly cool. Deficiency will feel cold, or perhaps you'll lose the sensation altogether even though you know you're still over the channel. At that point, it would be wise to express Qi into the area, probably it is at an acupoint.

So if you feel cold, you warm it. If you feel heat, you can pull off the excess. This can be done by energetically scooping the sensation of heat away from the point.

You may feel, at one point, an energy pushing your hand away. This could be due to the patient's discomfort with your hand passing over that point. It might be sensitive to touch due to trauma. Or it might indicate a point of stagnation of Qi, or a point of excess. You treat it like you would any pathology in Chinese medicine. You sedate excess, and tonify deficiency. Cool off heat and warm cold.


Qi Gong masters are a dime a dozen in Southern California. Everybody claims to know what they're talking about. I claim to have had enough experience with external Qi Gong to share with you what I've learned. I haven't brought the dead back to life, nor have I cured AIDS. But the question was asked, and so I answered.

-al.(AcuCom@aol.com)


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