This essay is drawn from published discussion. It cites classical Chinese books, the words of others, or academic argument, and is meant as cultural reading on the traditional cultivation of life. What it says about the body, and about what practice may do, belongs to the sources quoted or to the original speaker. It is not a medical promise or clinical advice from the people who operate this website.
According to a report from the China Wushu Academy, in October 2024 Professor Hu Xiaofei of Beijing Sport University, after being invited to London, England, and Glasgow, Scotland, went to Normandy, France, and Stuttgart, Germany, to teach.
Seven Days in France
This was the third year’s course of the French branch of Hu Xiaofei’s International Daoyin Health Academy. Those wishing to obtain intermediate teaching credentials had a further twenty hours of advanced training. Over seven days sixty-nine people from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere took part, with more than three hundred person-times of experience. Of these, thirty-six had studied three full years at the French branch and obtained sixth duan in Daoyin health formulas and intermediate teaching credentials.
The schedule was: 18 to 20 October, Daoyin health Formula for Fortifying the Spleen, including Daoyin techniques for fortifying the spleen and strengthening muscle, standing for fortifying the spleen, and walking for fortifying the spleen. 21 October, Zhang Guangde’s Forty-Nine Meridian Moving Exercises. 22 October, Strengthening the Body and Assisting the Lungs Fitness Method. 23 October, The Qianlong Emperor’s Methods of Cultivating Life. 24 October, teaching skills.
Two Days in Germany
The German event was organized by cosmos Taiji. Over two days thirty-eight people took part, about eighty person-times. Among the trainees were physicists, doctors, university professors, and a film director. On 26 October they practiced Strengthening Body and Health Ba Duan Jin; on 27 October, Strengthening the Body and Assisting the Lungs Fitness Method. The report writes that some had practiced qigong for twenty years and still attended as earnestly as beginners.
Two Matters Spoken of in Class
Hu Xiaofei used movements to show how, by sinking the shoulders, dropping the elbows, loosening the waist, and drawing in the buttocks, one completes the posture. He stressed that practicing Daoyin is not only moving the body, but also training the capacity to regulate intention. As the saying goes, “Bodhidharma came from the west with not one written word; all depends on the heart’s intention in practice”: on the surface one speaks of qi, in fact one trains intention, and intention is even to be placed first. Holding intention at a certain place is so that the mind may loosen and stray thoughts lessen, and thereby ease the tightness of daily life and work.
He also spoke of the Daoyin health prescriptions he had created: taking ancient and modern Daoyin as basic elements, organized by the elements of modern exercise prescription. At that time they were divided into three parts: foundational Daoyin health practices, seasonal Daoyin health prescriptions, and symptom-directed Daoyin health prescriptions. The original text says this system addresses the causes of modern civilization diseases, and rests on the Chinese medical principle of sovereign, minister, assistant, and envoy in composing formulas and on the theory of modern exercise prescription, seeking to advance health, prevent illness, regulate and rehabilitate, and extend the years. This is his discussion.
At the end the report writes that over four years academy trainees had come from more than ten countries, more than five hundred people. The trainees thanked this training and hoped to continue passing Daoyin health cultivation onward in Europe.