Kung-Fu. Daoyin past and present...

Daoyin, massage, acupuncture and herbs are the main components of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) but of them all, Daoyin are the oldest. The practise of Daoyin exercises corrects body posture whilst eliminating negative emotions and pathogenic factors (‘Binqi’ in Chinese). The use of Daoyin has always been very important in Chinese health care. 1. THE earliest DAOYIN We need to go back to the times of Chinese tribal culture to find the earliest use of the word Daoyin. Literally the word ‘Daoyin’ means ‘to guide’. In fact, ‘Dao’ and ‘yin’ both mean ‘to guide’; together they form the poetic description of this type of exercise. In the Yellow Emperor’s Huanti NeiJin, the word Daoyin is often connected with the words ‘an’ and ‘jao’ (massage and bone-setting) resulting in the term Daoyin AnJao, which refers to all three therapies. The earliest references to Daoyin can be found in books written during the time of emir TangYao, more than 4,000 years ago. At that time many tribes lived along the Yellow River that runs across Central China. The estuary often became silted up, causing frequent flooding, with the result that, due to the high humidity level, many people suffered from rheumatism. To fight this and other illnesses, emir TangYao popularised some exercises called Daoyin or DaWu, which at that time referred to prostration as a kind of gymnastics or dance. Strong social control demanded that the prostrations had to be done daily in front of a person whose social position was higher that one’s own: every day the son had to prostrate in front of the father and the father in front of the grandfather. After emir TangYao’s death, people did prostrations in front of a wooden relic on which his name was engraved. From then on prostrating to honour the deceased became a habit. Even today, the Chinese population of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore continue to follow this tradition: on special occasions such as New Year or other festivities, the dead are honoured by doing prostrations. 2. Daoyin Evolution 2,000 years later, Daoyin were evidently popular again. The Daoyin techniques had evolved a lot and during the War Kingdom Period of the Zhou Dynasty (475-221 BC) Daoyin reached a professional level with Daoyin specialists, the so-called Daoyin Shi. In the book Huanzhi is written: “Wrestling, blowing, breathing in and breathing out, walking like a bear, stretching like a bird, all of this is the work of the Daoyin Shi”. The technical aspects of Daoyin were also part of the teachings of many famous philosophers such as GuanZhong, ZhuangZhou, and LaoTze. Daoyin became so popular that people liked to show that they were practitioners. They would buy small jade stones, engrave the text of the exercises on them and carry them on their belt. The following picture is an example of a text engraved on such a jade stone. In 1973 a painting on silk depicting Daoyin was found in a burial site dating from 168 BC. It is named after the place where it was found: Ma Wang Duai. Forty-four realistic pictures were excavated from that burial site, representing men and women, old and young. Next to each figure, the name of an illness was written in Chinese characters, 31 of which could be restored. 3. The five animals Daoyin HuaTuo (145-208 AD) was a famous physician during the Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) because he successfully used an herbal tea as an anaesthetic for brain operations. He was also the founder of the well-known Daoyin: the five animals Daoyin or WuqinXi. The five animals are tiger, deer, bear, monkey and bird. The Daoyin movements imitate the movements of these animals. The history book “The Third Kingdom Wei” tells the story of WuPu (one of HuaTuo’s students) who practised the five animals Daoyin daily. When he was 90 years old he still had all his teeth and a full head of black hair. 4. Books on the subject of Daoyin Technical books were written on the subject of Daoyin. The earliest ones date back to the Jin Dynasty (265-420 AD). At that time people were not only writing about the techniques, but also started to discuss the underlying theory. The most prominent ones were the Taoist doctors Ge Hong and Tao Hong Jin and the monk Ziji. GeHong (284-364 AD) wrote: “It is not important that a Daoyin has a name, is imitating something or is engraved in jade. What is important is the technique and the essence of what is really practised. Stretching and contracting, bending and lifting of the head, stepping, lying down, resting or standing, walking or stepping slowly, screaming or breathing - everything can be a Daoyin.” Tao Hong Jin (502-557 AD) describes in “Stay Healthy and Live Long” (Yang Xing Yen Ming Lu) the Daoyin of his time and earlier times, from a medical stance. The book discriminates between Daoyin (self-massage included) and breathing exercises. It has also an introduction on the six breathing techniques, later known as the six sound exercises. The monk Ziji, founder of the Tiantai faction (538-597 AD, Chen Sui Dynasty) gave an overview of the different Daoyin systems of his time and earlier times, from a Buddhist point of view. One of his important theories was about ‘the five regulations’: sleeping, eating, body position, breathing and mind. During the Qigong movement (starting in the 1980’s), articles often mentioned three of his five regulations – body position, breathing and mind – in an attempt to prove that there was a link between modern Qigong and the ancient exercise systems. During the same period, doctor Chao Yuan Fang, in his book “The Cause and Symptoms of all Diseases” (Zhu Bing YuanHe Run) also wrote a lot about the use of Daoyin in treatment. 5. New publications after the Mongolian invasion 800-900 years ago, China was occupied by Manchuria during the Jin Dynasty and Mongolia during the Yuan Dynasty. Because of the war, there was no stability, and also the climate was not right for the Daoyin to develop further. Even afterwards books about techniques from this period are in fact just telling stories. Once printing was mechanised (Ming Dynasty 1368-1614 AD), many books were published on a large scale. One of the emperors of that time, Zhen De, backed the publication of a kind of encyclopaedia of Taoist texts, the TaoZhuong (Taoist sutras). Suddenly various exercises became part of Taoism. Many writings about Daoyin were added to the Taozhuong. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many books were published with different editions of the YiJinJin (literally “moving the muscles sutra”) and the BaDuanJin (literally “the eight miraculous brocades”). Nowadays they are still very popular; these are very good stretching exercises but the many stories of their origin are derived purely from imagination. The development of people who practise regularly passes through 8 stages: from the activation of the dantian (the energy centre in the abdomen), to the elimination of binqi (pathogenic factors), the opening of the five energy channels, the activation of the three circulations (the small, large and left-right circulations) and the awakening of latent mental functions. Conclusion The function of Daoyin is to correct the body posture and to expel binqi. In 1992 an international meeting took place, discussing diseases connected with the spine. During this meeting people reported a link between 40 diseases and the narrowing of space between the inter-vertebral discs in the spine. We think that in fact there are many more. From Dr Shen Hongxun’s double vicious circle theory we know that the origin of spinal column problems are a longstanding poor body posture and the accumulation of binqi. Thus it is clear that postural problems need to be addressed, and Daoyin are an excellent way of doing this. Therefore we think that the ancient technique of Daoyin will become very popular over the next few years. It could become a primary choice for treating many diseases, and may well come to take up an important position in the field of medicine. 17 / 04 / 2008