Guest guest Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 Hi everybody I've been lurking around this list for a while, but now Attilio has asked us to introduce ourselves, so... My name's Tony Brawn. I'm a TCM practitioner in England, qualified in acupuncture in 1979, studied TCM and herbs in the 80s, and qigong and tuina in the 90s. I'd like to add my two-pennorth to the 'What is Qi?' discussion, if we haven't already moved on from that. To define is to limit (by definition), and I get uneasy when we try to define qi in terms of biochemistry, for example, because then how can we talk about the qi of a place, or a painting? I'd rather talk about qi as 'relationship', without having to state what it is that's relating. So for example, we know that the eyes and the sinews (and dreaming, and the Spring) are in relationship, and when we get technical we call that relationship 'liver qi'. This seems to me to be our special strength in CM - that we are always looking to understand how one thing relates to another, not just how to stop something happening. And I think your Congressman might understand that that's what people want - a sense of how it all fits together. Of course we'd also have to persuade him that the methods that emerge from understanding qi are effective (and cost-effective) medicine, but that's another question. BTW, I like the way this list includes the struggle to keep ephedra available in the US with wrangling about defining qi, all as one topic! (Hi, Kate - nice to see you're lurking out there too!) Tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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