 QI is a very very difficult concept or character to translate and there are many different ways that people have translated it both Chinese as well as people who are foreigners or translators and their entire doctoral theses Designed to try to attempt to translate this concept. Now in this video I want to share something about what I think is the most essential idea behind the concept of Qi and why sometimes I don't even think we should translate it But I hope this helps you. Hey, it's Dr. Alex Hain Chinese medicine doctor and licensed acupuncturist author of the health book Master the day now. I've included two very important links below this video The first is for a free guide for daily rituals that can help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine If you sign up with your email there below you will also be notified how to become a patient of mine Either locally or online via telemedicine now even in modern Chinese you have characters or words like Tianqi Which means literally sky or heaven Qi and it just means weather Even say things like who Chi like to breathe out like exhale or see Chi So even in daily colloquial everyday life Chi does not necessarily have a very mystical connotation and the problem is that it's not often translated by Different varying people the same way. I mean I myself have mentors who describe Chi as just gas and I have mentors who think Chi is literally the energy of the Chi of Qi Gong masters and There's a lot of disagreement there often is not a lot of unification on what this fundamental concept is in Chinese medicine First thing is that the character Chi itself when you break down etymology of it. What it really is is steam Coming off rice So it has this implication of being something that's a little bit more rarefied than the material right like steam and wind They're real things, but they're not tangible things and I think that's where you get into trouble where we try to understand Chi as a concept It often is used to describe things in the body that are real, but maybe not tangible Maybe it describes physiological processes. Maybe it describes subjective sensations like an emotion I can subjectively feel an emotion. I can feel anxious in my stomach Are there many exams that a physician could give you that could tell you measure that in some way? I'm not sure it would probably be difficult. Now another concept here Another character is the character for wind which is feng now the wind character has this character inside of it Chong which means like a bug or an insect and then the radical for illness and It's interesting because it has bug within illness So it has this idea, you know like a very Chinese medicine concept is protecting yourself from wind You read it in all the classic ancient texts physicians the inner classic they all talk about this And you hear that like don't get affected by the wind and it sounds very pseudo scientific It sounds like in the Middle Ages where people were like the sickness the sick cover your face It's the sickness and they didn't know where it was coming from But they knew maybe there was something in the air or and they were it was an ancient attempt at describing germs and one of my mentors Best described this and helped me the most when he said that wind is anything that invades the body from the outside So it makes sense that these ancients would have put a bug in the sickness radical It's like almost like literally because they catching a bug So they understood this on some level whether or not they knew was due to bacteria and viruses obviously not But they you know individual physicians observed that things were caught from the outside Now one final concept that may help you understand Qi is that she can be understood as the intermediary behind a higher level What's called Shen or people translated a spirit a very rarefied thing? I'll just call it that and the physical form of the body Qi being the intermediary between what's immaterial and what is material now? I don't know how modern people translate Shen I don't know if people link it to electrochemical processes I don't know if people link Shen to electromagnetic processes Related to the fields coming off of like the heart for example. I don't know how a modern person would study and analyze that I'm sure there are treatises on that. I'm not that interested it's just to illustrate that Qi is a level between what is very immaterial and The physical form which is very material like my skin. So what is in between that right? Maybe you're working a hard day at work and you're getting a little anxious You're getting stressed out your boss gave you a new project and you notice you get a little bit of that lump in your throat You're feeling a little bit short of breath. You're feeling like anxiety That some people would call that a Qi level illness, right? It's your mind Just your nervous system just generated this physiological response, but it's not physical, right? You don't have a lump growing on you You don't have something you don't have a rash coming off you you just feel a lump in your throat and Your breathing has changed You could consider that the bridge between the consciousness in between the material a Qi level illness And that's very important in Chinese medicine because you can then predict what will happen as a material illness later and Conventional medicine has no way of treating this in between Which is why the Qi concept is very in very very important in Chinese medicine Because patients are often when they are in this middle Qi level they often get misdiagnosed They are told to go to a shrink They're often put an antidepressants because this is not easy to treat what you cannot measure How can you manage that or treat it, right? But in Chinese medicine you can and we have very old treaties He's talking about what is what level and how to recognize this kind of illness now one final concept not to confuse you anymore One great physician described This as Qi he described a panic attack 2,000 years ago And he said the patient feels like there's Qi rushing up into the chest and the throat and they feel as if they're going to die So what is Qi there? Is it some mystical energy or is it describing a physiological process of a panic attack? maybe it's describing hormones neurotransmitters and it's describing the subjective sensation of Stuff rushing up What that stuff is I don't know if you know biomedicine well physiology you could tell me but they're often describing Processes that have an effect but are not material. So Maybe this video left you with more questions. I don't really know what she is and I think to some people it's just a concept and Other people it's a real thing that a Qi Gong master could shoot a laser out of Shoot a laser out of their hands at you. I don't know. I've never seen that So I would love to see it. But Qi as a concept I've given you a few examples and I hope that helps to spell maybe some of the mysticism behind it and Give some concrete examples of what it is. Alright guys So think of Qi as an intermediate level between the rarefied the immaterial and the very physical very material Of course, if you want to follow up the link below this video is for a free PDF I put together on 40 of the rituals that can add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine And if you'd like to become a patient of mine as well Either locally or online via telemedicine if you add your email below You'll see the info for my clinic and how to contact me. Alright before you go watch these two related videos right on over