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Guo Lin Chi Gong:
Energy Exercises For Cancer

Guo Lin Chi Gong: FAQS

  1. How hard is Guo Lin Chi Gong to learn?
  2. How effective is Guo Lin Chi Gong in fighting cancer?
  3. Where Can I Find A Teacher For Guo Lin Qiqong?

1. How hard is Guo Lin Chi Gong to learn?

I've found that people pick up Guo Lin Chi Gong exercises very quickly. I taught these movements to a T'ai Chi class of seniors, and they caught on to the movements within an hour or so. Their main focus of Guo Lin Chi Gong is a special type of meditative walking. And while there are a number of these walking styles that are part of Guo Lin Chi Gong, the basic walking style is the core style and it is very easy to learn. This walking style is slow with a breathing upon walking of "two breaths in and one breath out". People picked this up very quickly, and within 15 minutes or so we were all doing the basic Guo Lin walking together. There are also opening and closing exercises to do before and after walking, and people caught on to these quite quickly as well and had no trouble learning. My theory is that Guo Lin purposefully made these exercises easy to learn so that people who were perhaps not feeling well physically due to cancer would still be able to learn the exercises fairly easily.

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2. How effective is Guo Lin Chi Gong in fighting cancer?

This is a hard question for me to answer. The only person I've personally met who used Guo Lin Chi Gong to fight her cancer was my teacher Chen T'ai T'ai. Her story was pretty strong - she was given two years or so to live after being diagnosed with a brain cancer the size of a "duck egg". As part of her recovery they taught her Guo Lin Chi Gong in the hospital. She told us that in China people know that Guo Lin Chi Gong "cures" cancer, and so she was very interested in learning it. She began to practice 6 - 8 hours a day, and when I met her she was quite sprightly 8 years after being diagnosed - and told she was cancer free. She feels strongly that Guo Lin Chi Gong is the reason she is now alive and cancer free.

I have also seen interviews with a number of people who also feel that Guo Lin Chi Gong was responsible for their recoveries - on the T.V. special "The Heart of Healing". This was where I first heard about Guo Lin Chi Gong, and these people's stories were very powerful as well and really got me excited about the idea of exercise as a way of healing from cancer. Just the idea that this might help was very empowering to me since this was something someone diagnosed with cancer could do for themselves.

There have also been some "studies" published in China showing an amazing rate of success for Guo Lin Chi Gong with cancer - they claim a 90% rate of success (which is anything from no growth of the cancer to having the cancer become undetectable). I certainly take this kind of "study" with many grains of salt, but I do find them interesting nonetheless.

One important difference for many people in China using Guo Lin Chi Gong, however, is that they practice the exercises in Cancer Recovery Groups. These Cancer Recover Groups also provide all sorts of social opportunities for cancer patients - they meet for parties, social events, and trips - and each of the teachers of Guo Lin Chi Gong is a survivor who has used Guo Lin Chi Gong in their recoveries. So it is impossible for these people, who were the survivors highlighted in the "Heart of Healing", to say what portion of their recovery is due to Guo Lin Chi Gong and what portion to the social support that the Cancer Recover Groups provide. I will say, though, that my teacher, Chen T'ai T'ai, has always practiced these exercises on her own and feels that Guo Lin Chi Gong solely is responsible for her continued survival.

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3. Where Can I Find A Teacher For Guo Lin Qiqong?

The one question I often get is how to find a teacher for Guo Lin Qiqong. Unfortunately, as of now I don't know of anyone teaching Guo Lin style Qiqong in the U.S. What I would recommend instead is trying to find a good resource in your community for any style of Qiqong. While Guo Lin style has become synonymous with cancer in China, there is no reason why you couldn't get benefits from practicing any style of Qiqong.

If you can't find a local teacher, here is a Qiqong program my accupuncturist/Qiqong practitioner, James MacRitchie (who founded the U.S. National Qiqong Association), has put together and made available on the web - the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

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Disclaimer: This sort of energy exercise can be used as an addition to any cancer recovery program. But it in no way should be used to replace any cancer therapy prescribed by your physician. We offer no explicit nor implicit opinion on the effectiveness of practicing Guo Lin Chi Kung for those with cancer. It is just our wish to provide information on this so that those interested can have a resource for learning this style.

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