Wu Gong

Many people, especially the young get excited when they hear “martial arts” or “Kung Fu”. When people talk about Kung Fu, they usually have movie images of fighting with “flowery punches and embroidery kicks”. This means that the moves are acrobatic and beautiful to watch, but lack combat usefulness.  Many enthusiastic kung fu movie goers look for that in a studio. 

However acrobatic movements lack the internal workings of qi, the external self-defense, and the personal growth that Wu Gong embeds in to a person.  Wu Gong embodies not only the fighting techniques of Kung Fu, but also Qi Gong, the energy work, health-promoting practices, Tai Ji Quan, meditation, and wisdom which are all related to martial arts.

Nei Gong is a term Wu Gong uses in its training. It refers to inner strength or inner workings. Martial artists who practice Nei Gong possess the inner strength to withstand attacks and have the ability to strike opponents with great speed and power from within. But that is only the martial arts part of Wu Gong. Many, as at the Wei Tuo Academy, mention martial arts when talking about Nei Gong, however Qi Gong is the majority of Wu Gong because without strong qi flow martial artists would have only physical power which is less than half the possible potential of a person.  Qi also helps martial artists heal faster after training or a fight.  This means everyone can use it to heal and maintain health from daily life to physical or mental injuries.  It is quite amazing. Qi is all around vital to life.  If a martial artist can use qi in so many ways, non-martial artists can also benefit in too many ways to count.  Qi Gong is too important to life to not practice!

When we start to better understand how qi works, we start to see Qi Gong, Kung Fu, Tai Ji Quan, and meditation are all really the same. It is essential to know that qi moves fast, slow, and in stillness. These correspond to the different practices of Kung Fu, Tai Ji Quan and Qi Gong, and meditation. To practice one and ignore the other practices prevents better understandings and better health. One doesn’t need to master all of them, but it is important to practice them.

Daily practice is crucial. Most people think that they are too busy to practice, but even 10 minutes a day does a lot of benefit to one’s overall life. One can always have a little time to practice everyday.  We just need to make it a good habit and the benefits will start manifesting in more ways than one can imagine.