Qigong books and DVDs abound on the Internet. But can you really learn proper qigong from something you read or watch? Yes and no. You can learn simple, basic movements of some forms of qigong, such as the Eight Pieces of Brocade. You can also learn the static postures of qigong, such as Standing Post Meditation (also known as Embrace the Tree and Hold the Ball). It may be a good place to start.
But to really enter deeply into the internal energy arts, one should have an experienced teacher, a master or an adept whom has already tread the path you are beginning and knows the proper signs of progress as well as the pitfalls one may encounter. Read more…
Chi, Ki, Prana, Pneuma—the names the Chinese, Japanese, Hindus and Greeks assigned to an internal energy they perceived in the body. These ancient cultures believed strongly that the universe pulsed with an unseen energy—and that it coursed through our bodies in well-defined channels that lead to our organ systems. Keep the channels open and flowing and good health prevails. Clogs in these meridians of energy lead to disease. Read more…
Tyrell Dueck, a 13-year-old boy from Canada, lay dying of cancer on a hospital bed in Tijuana, Mexico. An IV dripped laetrile, a concoction made of ground apricot pits, into his vein. He drank powdered shark cartilage dissolved in liquid. Alternative treatments that supposedly cure cancer. The treatments failed. The cancer spread from the tumor on his leg, into his other bones, and finally into his lungs. He died a couple of months after leaving the clinic and returning to his home in Saskatchewan.
Tragic—yes. But the real tragedy is that if his parents had allowed conventional treatment proposed by oncologists in Canada—chemotherapy and amputation of his leg beneath the knee–Tyrell had a good chance of surviving his cancer. A 65% chance. Instead his parents opted for unproven alternative therapies—shark cartilage and laetrile. And their boy died a miserable, and probably unnecessary, death. Read more…
I had faced—and beaten cancer—four times. I had practiced Standing Post meditation an hour a day for years, which gave me the strength to endure the pain of bone lymphoma and the incredibly withering effects of high-dose chemotherapy administered during two bone marrow transplants. Clear of cancer in 1996. Read more…
Friends and people I’ve met who have heard my story about beating bone cancer four times often ask me “How could you be so courageous? You must be very strong.”
I’ve pondered that over the last 13 years since I finally beat the disease. I’m reminded of the two different types of actors: method actors and character actors. Method actors approach a role by going deeply into themselves and finding the necessary emotions to actually live the part—from the inside out. Character actors practice the lines a playwright has written, gradually absorbing the attributes of a character—from the outside in. The first is more internal; the second, external. Read more…
What does playing sports have to do with a fight against cancer? For me, it was everything. I played high school football and was a pretty good player. Unfortunately, I wasn’t big enough to play lineman in college. So I had to let it go after my senior season. Read more…
You hear about people who beat cancer by employing alternative means—macrobiotic diets and even by employing the mind/body connection. I’ve even seen a guy with a site on the Internet who supposedly beat cancer by using qigong (energy work), the Chinese internal energy exercises that I used as a complement to chemotherapy in my cancer battles. Read more…
This is how the Hollywood version of my story goes: I was diagnosed with terminal lymphoma in 1991; I practiced Chinese qigong internal energy exercises for a few weeks and was forever cured; I went to the convenience store, bought a lottery ticket and won Powerball; and a few days later Hugh Hefner invited me to live at the Playboy Mansion. Read more…
Life is a balance scale: You have to take the good with the bad, and one would hope the scales would tip in your favor.
For a while, I thought the Devil had his thumb on the scale. True, I had survived my four bouts of cancer that had dogged me for seven years. But my wife divorced me, and I had to survive on a couple of disability checks—and pay child support. Read more…
If you walk over a bed of hot coals—and do not get burned—does this mean you are a “powerful person?” That, by doing so, you can overcome every obstacle you encounter?
This is one of the stunts personal power guru Tony Robbins employs to give his clients confidence. But it is a scam: Scientific research has shown that walking across hot coals is something anyone can do: The perspiration on one’s feet protects a person from getting burned. Apparently, it all comes down to how the firewalk is prepared: Use wood coals, as Robbins’ does, and it’s a no-brainer. Read more…
