by Grace Hood
(editorials@boulderweekly.com)

It's lunchtime in Boulder. At a local Chinese restaurant, East is already mingling with West as classical music plays softly in the background. James MacRitchie has just sat down to talk about the practice of Chi Kung, which is the art of using energy for health, happiness and calm in everyday life.

MacRitchie, who founded the National Qigong (Chi Kung) Association about 10 years ago with his wife Damaris Jarboux, suggests using the spelling "Chi Kung" for his practice. And while deciding on a spelling required much discussion, defining the word seems to be even more difficult. In literal translation, "Chi" means life, and "Kung" means developing—but according to MacRitchie, some of the meaning gets lost in a literal translation.

"It's like when a suitcase is too small when you try to put in this whole array of language and description, you can't get them [all] in," he says. "Something comes out of the side."

Chi Kung encapsulates the whole range of human experience, according to MacRitchie. It is involved in health and healing, sexuality—and even extraordinary human abilities like psychic activity. Practicing Chi Kung can have an impact on our life span and longevity. It encompasses the entire range of our being. And, he says, it's the missing piece of Western civilization.

As Chi Kung becomes more recognized, MacRitchie believes it will experience a surge in popularity. Since his start as a Chi Kung instructor in 1983, he says he has seen increased interest in the practice. Chi Kung is where acupuncture was 20 years ago, he says, pointing out that the number of books published on the subject increase on a yearly basis.

MacRitchie says all of this because he believes that Western culture is ready to accept a fundamental concept that Eastern and so-called "chi cultures" have long embraced. This is the notion that the body contains an energy system. The more one practices Chi Kung, the better one's energy system is, and, therefore, the better life is.

"It's the biggest thing since rock 'n' roll," he says. "And I'd go as far as say that rock 'n' roll is one more part of Chi Kung."

Young man, there's no need to feel down

This channeling of energy is going on everywhere in Boulder—even at the local YMCA. It's evening at the Mapleton branch, and there's a weekly Chi Kung/Tai Chi class in the multi-purpose room. It's empty, and the lights are turned down to set the mood. Sweat still lingers in the air from the karate class that has just left.

Cynthia Ghiron has arrived, boombox in hand, to run a weekly beginner's class. Ghiron is equally as enthusiastic as MacRitchie about Chi Kung and Tai Chi, if not more so. She agrees that describing Chi Kung is difficult. The fundamental concept has to do with cultivating the life force, or "Chi," which all of us have, she says. We inherit Chi from our parents, get it from our food and inhale it in the air we breathe. Chi is a very foreign concept to the West, she says.

Chi Kung is an all-encompassing terminology that describes the work, cultivation and development of Chi energy. While there are specific Chi Kung exercises that cultivate energy, other activities like the martial art of Tai Chi accomplish the same goal. In essence, there are hundreds of ways that one can practice Chi Kung.

In Ghiron's class, the cultivation of Chi occurs mainly through Tai Chi. As Ghiron leads the class, she uses nature images for each form. Images like "water beads rolling on lotus leaves" or "wind brushes the emerald willow" relax the mind and body. As we approach "white crane spreads its wings," the CD playing in the background begins to skip. The class successfully holds the crane posture as Ghiron fixes the CD.

While Ghiron says that many come to her classes for relaxation, she says an equal portion also come for health benefits. In fact, Ghiron works with cardiac patients in a hospital setting on a regular basis.

Paul Malinowski can attest to the benefits of Chi cultivation though the practice of Tai Chi. As the owner of a stressful property management company in Denver, Malinowski had angioplasty surgery seven years ago. It was a scary time for Malinowski, who was told that one of his main arteries was 98 percent blocked. Had it been 100 percent blocked, Malinowski says that his condition would have been fatal.

After the surgery, Malinowski took a holistic approach in his recovery plan. He improved his nutrition, started exercising more, and began looking for a way to lower his blood pressure. After doing some research, he says he was intrigued by the health benefits of Tai Chi practice.

Malinowski started practicing the forms on a regular basis. In addition to getting off his blood pressure medication, he found stress-reduction benefits from his practice. Anytime he gets stressed during the day, he can shut the doors to his office and practice Tai Chi. When he's waiting to get his blood pressure re-tested at the doctor's office, he can channel his energy through visualization of Tai Chi forms. He even says his practice over the years has improved his skiing technique.

"When we do Tai Chi, we're always told to do the moves from Tan T'ien—which is our center," says Malinowski. "When you ski, you're supposed to do the same thing, not be leaning over or leaning backward but really centered. I often think of that when I'm doing my skiing."

In addition to the health and relaxation benefits that Malinowski enjoys, Tai Chi is an art form that almost anyone can do. Unlike yoga practice, which requires holding specific postures, Tai Chi and Chi Kung enable people to adjust movements to their own body strength and flexibility. The real selling point: In Tai Chi and Chi Kung, you don't have to touch your toes.

Regardless of what brings people to the practice of Tai Chi, Ghiron believes that the practice is catching on due to the growing recognition by the western medical establishment. Part of this has to do with the increasing acceptance of alternative health treatments. A December 2000 article in Harvard Women's Health Watch described studies connecting Tai Chi practice to lower blood pressure, management of chronic pain and better balance.

What it is, what it was, what it will be

If you ask James MacRitchie about Tai Chi, he'll tell you that it is just one of the many methods people are using to cultivate their Chi and master Chi Kung. In MacRitchie's practice, he utilizes specific Chi Kung exercises in addition to acupuncture to work with Chi flow. Even though MacRitchie has dedicated most of his professional career to the study of Chi Kung and presenting it to a western audience, there are parts of the study that are still elusive—even to him, he says.

To illustrate this point, he remembers one trip up a mountain to a Chinese monastery. He had traveled to the top of the mountain because he heard a monk had an answer to a specific question he had been trying to answer about pre- and postnatal circulation of energy. After a grueling hike, there was no insight. The monk simply did not know the answer to MacRitchie's question.

This experience gets at the heart of MacRitchie's longstanding relationship with Chi Kung and how he introduces it to a western audience.

"At the bottom end, what you could say is that at the introductory level these are exercises anyone can do and learn very simply," he says. "At the top end it's so mysterious, we don't know what it is."

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