The Legend of Qi

Some want stories to be true no matter what

Wu Han sat quietly, pressing the frayed edges of his robe. He’d worn it for many seasons and it was starting to show its age. The soft patch of grass where he sat was slightly damp but not uncomfortable. Han gazed out towards the pathway leading to this spot, watching for his brother to come up the hill. Whatever this news was, Sheng was eager to talk about it, and in the family, one made time for a younger brother, no matter the inconvenience.

Wu Sheng slowly made his way up the winding path to their agreed-upon spot. They’d met here many times since they were children so all he’d needed to say the night before was, “Meet me at sunrise, I have something to tell you.” and he knew his big brother would be there.

As he reached the top of the path and into their usual clearing, he smiled at seeing Han as expected. “Did you just get here?” he called out.

“No, I’ve been waiting for hours, little one!” Han replied. He enjoyed poking fun at Sheng even though they were now responsible men. Some brotherly habits seemed to melt away the years and time to stand still between them. It was as if they were still 12 and 10 years old. Such joys were rare, giving them more importance.

Sheng sighed in feigned exasperation as he sat down in front of his brother, “Ha, you always waste much time! Well, it’s yours to waste.”

“Speaking of wasted time, why did you want to meet this morning?”

“I’ve discovered something that I’ve been wanting to share with you for several months,” said Sheng.

“Months? You mean you’ve been holding back on something you now say is important for months? I thought I was your only brother. We confide in each other over everything. Now I learn that you’ve not been a good brother?!” Han’s accusation was partly in jest, but the thought that Sheng was keeping an important secret was a violation of their unspoken understanding. They’d been each other’s only confidant since they could speak. Neither parents, grandparents, friends, cousins, uncles, or aunts had been allowed into their secret world. So this was something new.

Sheng replied, “I had to make sure I was right about it. It was something no one else had spoken of and at first, I didn’t know what was happening. So I needed to see how often I could repeat it before telling you.”

“Ok, ok…what is this big secret?”

“I’ve discovered a way to cause feelings in my body. I can make it feel hot, cold, tingling, buzzing, and other feelings. It’s as if something is moving underneath the skin that I can control.” Sheng said this hesitantly as he knew how it might sound. As Han listened he could feel the urge to mock his brother, but he could also see that Sheng was sincere. So he only said, “I don’t understand. Something moving underneath the skin? What is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a sensation. But it feels like something is there. Since it moves, it feels like something other than my body but rather, something inside it. I can show you how to feel it too which is why I wanted to meet this morning.”

Now this is where Han could get interested. He was not a man who was easily fooled as he always demanded that he directly experience something before he accepted it. “Ok, what do I do?”

“Since you are sitting cross-legged, just place your hands on your knees with the palms facing up. Let your fingers relax and naturally curl.” Han did this. “Now, feel your fingertips on your right hand…now feel those of the left hand…now back to the right…do you feel something change in the tips when you feel each side?”

Han felt nothing special at first. But Sheng’s enthusiasm encouraged him to try again. As he shifted his focus from one hand to the other, he admitted there was a change in the fingertips. But it was barely noticeable and hardly remarkable. “Ok, I sense a little change when I think about each hand but it’s not what you said. It’s not something moving under the skin.”

Sheng was not deterred. “Now feel your right shoulder.” Han did so. “Feel like something is thickening in the shoulder like a small stone getting larger.” Han nodded as indeed, that was what he started to feel. “Now feel the fingertips again!” This elicited a definite change in sensation. The feeling of mild inner pressure in his shoulder vanished and the sensation previously felt in his fingertips returned, this time a bit stronger. Most interestingly, there was the sense of the sensation leaving the shoulder and appearing in the fingers. In other words, it moved!

“Ok, I felt it change from my shoulder to my fingers. What magic is this? Did you put something inside me?” Han was as intrigued as he was concerned. Had Sheng done something secretive and sinister?

“No, no I did nothing. I only told you what to do. I discovered this feeling while sitting by the river last year. I had hit my toe on a rock and noticed that the pain was worse when I thought about it. When I thought about something else, the pain was less noticeable. So later after the pain had passed, I wondered if I could increase or decrease sensations in other parts of my body. As you’ve seen, the answer was yes.”

Han thought some more. “So what is this feeling? Is it something inside me, or am I doing it myself?”

“Well, it certainly feels like something inside yet it is being done at the command of the mind. Do you remember what Father taught us about the life force? He called it Qi and said it is in all things. That must be what it is. I that we are moving Qi through our bodies.”

Han’s mind was moving quickly now. “But how do you know it’s a thing that is different from our bodies and minds that we are controlling? Truth be told, it is really just a feeling.”

Sheng had often heard his brother doubt their father. Han’s questions were frustrating and disrespectful. Had their father not brought home food every day? He had taught his sons how to hunt, fish, and plant seeds. He always had answers for their questions, had never struck them for any reason, and was worthy of their trust. If he said there is a force called Qi, then that was that. Why would he lie about it?

Han listened to these reasons and said, “Yes, Father has never let us down and I suppose there must be this invisible thing called Qi if he says so. But all I can say for sure is that I felt something in my shoulder and then my fingers. I don’t know if it’s Qi or something else.”

“It must be Qi. There can be no other explanation,” said Sheng, impatiently. “You felt it yourself so I don’t see why you cannot just call it Qi.”

“I suppose.” sighed Han. The word ‘Qi’ was as good an explanation as any and it gave them a way to talk about it with other people that was simple.

Weeks passed with Han and Sheng experimenting with this newfound skill. They met every day in the early morning to “move the Qi” in various ways. They each thought up ways to move the sensations around, make the feelings stronger or weaker, and even see they could sense each other’s Qi moving. This last experiment was the most exciting yet the most frustrating. They each admitted that they thought they could feel something moving just outside the surface of the skin, but could never be sure if it was real or if they imagined it. Such was the subtlety of the feeling.

But overall, they thought they were on to something. It was time to share this discovery with their parents and friends.

Explaining this to the commanding presence that was their father required some serious thought. They planned the conversation carefully so that he would be receptive to their ideas. Father was a reasonable man, but he was always in charge. Suggesting there was something he did not know required a careful choice of words and attitude.

Han, being the oldest, began, “Father, do you remember teaching us about Qi?” Han made sure he was appropriately humble in his question. “Yes, it is the energy of the world that is the difference between something alive and other things,” he said.

“Sheng and I think we have found a way to feel and move the Qi inside our bodies. Have you ever done that?” Father thought for a moment and said, “No. But I know you are both smart boys so tell me more.” This was yet another reason they so loved their father. He was always willing to give them a chance to explain things. Even when they were little and had silly childhood thoughts, he always listened and tried to help them understand things.

They proceeded to explain Sheng’s discovery, his months of experimenting before telling Han, their mutual experiments in what they now called ‘moving Qi’. He listened and thought. Finally, he said, “Boys, this is very interesting and I will have to try it myself for a while. Don’t talk about this with anyone until I tell you it’s ok. I want to be sure about it.” Was Father just humoring them or was he really going to try their experiments for himself? They didn’t dare question him on this.

Months went by and they heard nothing from him. All the while, they continued to experiment with ‘moving Qi’ in various ways. Han still harbored his doubts about what exactly was happening inside him. While it was good to call it Qi since that made it easier to talk about. Saying ‘move the Qi from one hand to the other’ was much easier than something like, ‘create a sensation in your right hand…now allow that feeling to fade while simultaneously sensing it build in your left hand…etc, etc.” So the shorthand reference to “Qi” was better. Yet he knew that it was more accurate to refer directly to it being a feeling that he was using the word ‘Qi’ to describe.

One evening, their father asked Han and Sheng to come to a special meeting of the town elders. This was almost unheard of since they were not elders. Of course, they agreed and anxiously entered the meeting place. The elders were assembled in their traditional circle and their father gestured that they come to where he stood in the center.

He addressed the elders, “I have taught my sons the secret ways to move Qi within their bodies.” He glanced at the boys with a knowing look. The boys both understood that he had to take credit for the discovery of Qi as the elders would not accept that mere boys could be the source of such knowledge. Sheng in particular was pleased that his father found a way to make their discovery acceptable to the elders.

Father continued, “I’ve told you the boys have worked with this method for several months now and can show you what they’ve learned.” With this, Han and Sheng both felt their anxiety vanish and started to explain their various experiments to the elders. Each elder in turn had questions. As the evening progressed, the elders became more interested and, in some cases, excited about the unknown potential of ‘moving Qi’.

Comments like, “I can feel the Qi in my hands!” or “There’s a definite feeling of Qi in my belly.” were common. They were assured that even though some of them did not feel anything or the feelings were so subtle that they weren’t sure if anything was happening, the sensations of Qi would increase over time.

All along, Han still was quiet. Everyone in the town from the elders on down were talking about Qi. “Can you feel the Qi?” “oh yes, I think I may have more Qi than most.” and similar remarks were common. He was amazed at how many people claimed to be skillful and at something he still had doubts about. Not that he doubted the feelings and what he could do with it. But his doubts about what it truly was.

Nevertheless, the idea of ‘moving Qi’ spread from town to town over the years and the idea of there being a ‘thing called Qi’ both within the body and in the world was becoming the accepted explanation. After all, what could be more flattering than people thinking they had tapped into the life force of the world itself and were able to move it within themselves?

Qi was now real. Some people claimed to be the superior practitioners of “Qigong” or energy skill. Exercises were created and developed, becoming traditions within families.

As Sheng and Han got older and eventually became elders, that first conversation and experiments faded into memory. But once in a while, they would recall Han’s initial questions about what they had discovered. There never had been an answer to his observation that what was actually felt was a sensation and that it had been called ‘Qi’ based on what their father had taught them. Certainly, it was convenient for communication to call it ‘Qi’. But it carried the assumption that there was such a thing, even though the word was only a description.

It did not matter. The concept of Qi within the body that could be moved had been born and its legendary powers of healing, health, martial arts abilities, etc. grew with each person saying to another, “Can you feel your Qi? I can and it will give you a long life.”

Note: While this story is fiction, the ideas it presents originate in the rare internal martial and health arts known as Daoqiquan. To find out more about how you can learn these arts, please visit the Li Family Internal Arts University. Click this button!