My introduction to qigong came over twenty years ago when I skimmed Ken Cohen’s “The Way of Qigong” at a bookstore. The first book I bought was “The Way of Energy” by Lam Kam Chuen and I started the standing exercise; but didn’t seem to derive much benefit. Thereafter, I began receiving a lot of advertising about Chunyi Lin’s Spring Forest Qigong and purchased it. I did SFQ for a while. The system became repetitious and I was not getting much value from it. Over the years, I’ve acquired many qigong books and DVD’s (over 100), among them Lee Holden, Marisa Cranfill, Ken Cohen, Robert Peng, Pedram Shojai, Suzanne Friedman, Effie Chow, Garri Garripoli, Yang Jwing Ming, Mao Shing Ni, David Dorian Ross, Mingtong Gu, Scott Cole and Zhao Jin Xiang. Some are better than others, but most offer something. Eventually, I settled into consistently practicing Lee Holden’s & Marisa Cranfill’s (both students of Mantak Chia) systems. There are references on TDB that Lee Holden is “elementary” and “Americanized” qigong. While these assertions may have merit, no method is useful unless used regularly. I’m fascinated by Taoism/ Qigong and there applications and potential.
