Yinyang & Qigong

Recently I've been interested in Qigong, a therapeutic form of exercise that has been practiced (like everything else here) for 5000 years. Rather than simply saying "exercise is good for your health," and leave it at that, the practitioners of qigong delve deeper with their physiological theory. And this is where yinyang comes in.

Like most people, I have only a vague notion of yinyang, and it comes mainly from obscure references in Kung Fu (Season 1 is incredible). A book my friend gave me on qigong goes into yin and yang, their relationship and how that effects the body.

It is difficult to define what yin and yang are, so I'll give a few examples of what things are classified as yin and yang respectively. Night, rain, the cold, and not moving are yin while day, clear skies, heat, and activity are all yang.

I used to think that the relation between yin and yang was one of opposites with the yang being all good things and the yin being bad, but heat is obviously not good. In fact, the yin and the yang are supposed to be always balanced. Their relationship has four natures:

1) Antagonism or Opposition （对立）-This is characterized by yin and yang constraining and struggling with each other.
2) Interdependence （依存）-Without yin there would be no yang and vice versa.
3) Waxing and waning （消长）-As the amount of yin exceeds equilibrium quantity, yang will reduce to compensate.
4) Transformation （转化）-Under certain conditions, yang can become yin. This is different from (3) because it is not accompanied by automatic counterbalancing. Transformation normally results in illness.

Understanding whether one's illness is caused by excess yang or too little yin determines how to treat it. Finally I've figured out why Chinese people always tell me to avoid spicy food when I have a certain type of sickness, called shanghuo上火. Spicy food is yang-natured and when you shanghuo you already have too much yang, so should avoid eating anything that would make the imbalance more severe.

Qigong provides a means of exercise that keeps the body in balance as long as it is practiced properly. Qigong is still widely practiced and I see about thirty or so 60+ year olds doing it every morning in Huangchenggen Park. There are no statistics to back me up, but I think that activities like qigong and taiji contribute to Chinese people's longevity. (Although the average life expectancy puts China behind 102 countries. Macau, HK and Singapore are at the top, however.)

You can check back with me in 60 years to see if I'm right, provided I keep it up.