Qigong exercises strengthen the flow of energy in the body. This quickly results in a decrease in stress, improvement of physical and mental health, a higher ability to concentrate, a better condition and an increase in creative energy.
Chi Neng Qigong – Zhi Neng Qigong – is a Chinese form of meditative motions that helps to develop your full potential as a person. Development in all conceivable respects; first of all we focus on our health. A healthy body and a healthy mind are the basis on which we can further realize our abilities.
With practicing Chi Neng Qigong you become familiar with the energy flows in your body, recognize and clear blockages and learn to use your energy more efficently. Learn to relax and to perform movements without using muscle power.
Improve your attention, bring focus deep into your body instead of focusing on the stimuli you receive from outside. Learn to look inside and discover harmful patterns in your lifestyle and learn to let these go.
Restore the contact between your mind and your body. Your body send a lot of signals to the brain, but when the brain is distracted it fails to register. When you actually learn to listen to your brain you can prevent getting sick.
Chi Neng Qigong is both practical and simple as well as deeply philosophical. The practical element is based on ancient Chinese Qigong forms. The most effective elements were selected from these, resulting in a simple but extremely effective form of Qigong.
The philosophical element is rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Taoism, but also in contemporary scientific insights.
Qigong helps you to:
Achieve better health by increasing your ability for self healing.
Learn to recognize and eliminate conditions before they can harm you.
Make your body supple and strong.
Reduce stress. Learn to recognize patterns that cause you stress and then let go of these patterns.
Balance emotions and regain control over your life.
Accept the inevitable and thus find peace and balance. Embrace impermanence.
Integrate Qigong into your life and everything you do obtaines a meditative value.
The meaning of the word Qigong
The word Qigong means: spending a lot of time, effort and attention on developing your full potential.
Everything is Qi. Qi is energy containing information
Qi condenses into matter but all matter eventually evaporates back into Qi.
Gong is the effort and time you spend on practicing a certain skill.
Skills can be developed and sharpened in every possible area. A good baker has Gong-Fu for baking bread. Through years of experience, he knows by touch exactly the right amounts of flour, water, salt and yeast to mix, knead and bake.
Gong-Fu (or Kung-Fu) therefore does not only deal with skills as a warrior but any and all skills.
Neng means wisdom. So Zhi neng Qigong means something like: a path to obtaining wisdom.
Focus
When practicing Qigong, you start working on strengthening and improving the flow of your Qi. It is important to concentrate well and turn your attention inward. Your concentration goes to your movements and what they release within your body and mind. You train your skills in feeling your energy flows, attracting Qi and ultimately also in releasing blockages in your Qi flow.
The method improves and strengthens the vital life functions and when you reach a higher level you learn to control and manage these functions.
In general, our attention is directed outward, to what happens outside our own body. We also do this in most sports. In tennis, football etc. our attention is focused on a ball and we manipulate the movement of the ball.
In Qigong we focus on practicing movements without a goal outside of ourselves and the Qi is not converted into force to perform the task of hitting the ball but to strengthen the Qi flow within our own body.
Meditative movement
Qigong is meditative but we do not concentrate on emptying the head. Instead, our concentration lies on the execution of the movements and the feeling of the Qi flow that the movements generate. In doing so, we become aware of the exchange of our bodily Qi with that of everything around us; the earth, nature and above all the universe.
The attention is not only directed far inwards but also alternately far outwards. The aim is to come into contact with the constant expanding and contracting movement that your own Qi field makes and to strengthen that. In this way, you ultimately arrive at a spiraling open and closed movement that you can always focus on when necessary and that helps you to perform all possible life functions and tasks that lie outside of yourself.
Dr Pang Ming
Zhi Neng Qigong was introduced in the 1970s by Dr Pang Ming. Dr Pang Ming, now well into his 80s, is a physician trained in both Chinese and Western medical science.
Dr Pang studied many of forms of Qigong and distilled the most effective movements from them. Zhi Neng Qigong is easy and quick to learn, unlike other Gong forms such as Tai-chi – Taji.
Zhi Neng Qigong is considered by doctors in both Western and Chinese medicine to be one of the most effective forms of Qigong.
Zhi Neng Qigong is suitable for all ages. Because the movements do not require extreme flexibility or a strong cmplexion, it is ideal for older people. But youngsters and children also gain better general health and a greater ability to concentrate through these exercises.
Qigong is complementary
You do not practice Qigong as an alternative to medical treatment but as a supplement to it.
Your body and mind are strengthened; something that your doctor will also notice. Only in consultation with your doctor you reduce or stop taking medication.
Qigong helps, among other things, to decrease side effects of medication.
Mu-Long Qigong
Leen Steen is a Chi Neng Qigong instructor certified by the Chi Neng Institute Netherlands www.chineng.nl and teaches Qigong in his own practice in Rotterdam Blijdorp.
Classes in English start in september 2025 on wednesdaynights!
Mu-Long Qigong is the name of my practice. Mu-Long means wooden dragon. The dragon is my star sign in the eastern zodiac and my element is wood.
Mu-Long is therefore not a separate form of Qigong. I teach Chi Neng Qigong with an occasional excursion to traditional martial arts Qigong and Taji.
N.B. Chi Neng and Zhi Neng mean exactly the same thing, only the spelling differs. The spelling with a Z is used worldwide, but the Chi Neng Institute has deliberately adopted the spelling with a C. That makes the pronunciation a little easier. Zhi Neng Qigong is pronounced as Chi Neng Chi-Koeng.
If you think that Qigong, like yoga, is almost exclusively practiced by women, you are wrong. At Mu-Long Qigong we can proudly say that 30% of our students are men.
Qigong Quotes
Good health does not mean disorders are absent but that one has the strength to live with them.
Acceptance of your illness leads to silence, silence is the opposite of fear.
Every person is in a learning process, and is not bound to a fixed form, we are not static.
When nothing goes right…go left!
Be the change you want to see in the world (Ghandi)
Be stronger than your excuse
The presentation of a Chi Gong teacher is never bound to a fixed form; there is always a continuous learning process
Be Chineng
If you are ill and you want to ‘get’ better, you placeyour healing in the future. Therefore, change your striving into the will to be and stay healthy.
FEAR IS EXPENSIVE
LOVE IS REAL
CHOOSE WISELY
‘To be constantly busy:
this is where the brain differs from all other principles in nature. In nature, all activities are precisely aimed at regaining the state of rest.