SWIMMING DRAGON

For therapists, healers, and lay practitioners, this superb guide covers every aspect of the ancient healing art, from its basic functions and the energetic principles underlying its practice to a detailed history of the method and its practitioners. Most important, it offers an explicit presentation of essential qi gong methods and styles of practice, including basic postures and respiratory exercises. The author translates into Western medical language the effects of qi gong on the nervous system, heart rate, blood pressure, endocrine system, appetite, and digestion. With an enlightening summary of the relationship between qi gong and the other Chinese healing arts, and an inspired collection of quotations from traditional texts, this is a thorough representation of an increasingly popular approach to health and healing.

Tzu Kuo Shih Born in 1929 in Shanghai, Grand Master Shih represents the fifth generation of Chinese medicine doctors and qigong masters in his family lineage. He began his study of qigong at the age of eleven when he contracted malaria during the World War II Japanese bombing of Shanghai. At that time, his grand-father taught him a special qigong technique that cured his life threatening illness. When he was 19, he developed tuberculosis due to harsh living conditions and deprivation following the war. Doctors did not expect him to live so they sent him home from school to be with his family. For three months, Doctor Shih continuously practiced qigong exercises for his lungs and the microcosmic orbit meditation as he was unable to do anything else. He soon recovered completely. Doctor Shih continued his qigong studies during his youth under the tutelage of famous Taoist and Buddhist masters. He also learned Chinese medicine and acupuncture through apprenticeship with his father's brother, a well-kn