Like the "Eight Brocades the "Five Animal Play" belongs to the oldest forms of qigong.
Although this cycle has been standardized by the sports institute of the university of Beijing, there are many different versions.
The "Five Animal Play" traces back to the Eastern Han-Dynasty (22 - 220 AC.) and the physician Huá Tuó 華佗 († 208), who deduced the principles of his qigong exercises from the characteristical behavior of tiger, deer, bear, ape and crane. Yet he is considered to have based them on an even older system, which took the bear's earthiness, the tiger's power, the bird's airiness and the snake's limberness as models for a humans best characteristics.
Emplified by the deer's stamina and the ape's agility, the "Five Animal Play" offers one of the physically most demanding but also most humorous and exciting cycles of qigong.
Although this cycle has been standardized by the sports institute of the university of Beijing, there are many different versions.
The "Five Animal Play" traces back to the Eastern Han-Dynasty (22 - 220 AC.) and the physician Huá Tuó 華佗 († 208), who deduced the principles of his qigong exercises from the characteristical behavior of tiger, deer, bear, ape and crane. Yet he is considered to have based them on an even older system, which took the bear's earthiness, the tiger's power, the bird's airiness and the snake's limberness as models for a humans best characteristics.
Emplified by the deer's stamina and the ape's agility, the "Five Animal Play" offers one of the physically most demanding but also most humorous and exciting cycles of qigong.
The Five Animal play
copyright matthias wagner baden-baden impressum
wǔ qín xì
