DaXuan QiGong Manual PDF

[Le Professeur]

In every practice, there comes a moment that each of us has experienced. The class moves forward, the movements follow one another, the teacher walks between the rows, correcting a knee, straightening a neck, placing a hand on a back. We follow, imitate, and apply ourselves. Then, at some point, a question crosses the mind, often without ever being put into words: why are we doing this? Why place the weight at the centre of the foot rather than on the heel? Why such insistence that the shoulder must not rise? Why must we be so careful not to hold the breath? The question passes, the class continues, and we postpone the moment of understanding until later.

This text seeks to address that moment, and what becomes of it when we finally take the time to answer it. For there is an immense difference between a student who reproduces movements and a student who knows where those movements are leading. The former may practise diligently for years and never move beyond the form. The latter, through the very same movements, gradually discovers that every detail has meaning, that every instruction relates to another, and that everything they have been asked to do since the very first day traces out a path. The form is the same; what changes is the way the student looks at it—and that way of looking transforms everything.

Da Xuan Qi Gong is an ancient, profound, and remarkably coherent method. Its former name says it all: the Nine Circles of the Eight Methods for Attaining the Natural. Nine circles, because the method unfolds in three parts, each comprising three practices. Eight methods, because each of these practices has eight levels of understanding. And one goal, which is neither strength, health, nor even mastery, but the Natural—what the Taoist tradition calls ziran, “so of itself.” One can practise Da Xuan without knowing any of this and still gain a great deal from it. But one can also practise it with understanding—and then another kind of practice begins.

The school transmits a principle that everyone should keep in mind: the movements of Da Xuan Qi Gong were given so that the practice could be understood, and the practice has kept the movements alive. Everything is contained in that sentence. The movements are not an end in themselves; they were given in order to foster understanding. If we stop at the movements, we remain on the threshold of what they were intended to open. If we seek to understand, the movements begin to speak. It is precisely to this understanding that the concepts of Da Xuan invite us, and it is to make that understanding accessible to every student that an entire manual has been devoted to them.

The first thing that strikes us when we enter into the concepts of Da Xuan is their coherence. Nothing is left to chance. The method is built like a house, and it soon becomes clear why it begins with the foundations. The first part, which the school calls Da Xi, the Great Breath, is concerned with establishing the base: an upright and relaxed structure, an educated faculty of sensation, and a unified body. It cultivates three qualities that appear simple—sensing, rooting, and unifying—which, over the years, are revealed to contain almost everything. The second part, Da Shen, the Great Spirit, teaches us to exchange with the world: to bring in what comes from outside, to reach out towards it, and then to allow the boundary separating inside from outside to fade away. The third, Da Xuan, the Great Mystery, leads towards freedom: intention relaxes, force expresses itself and then subsides, until movement finally arises of its own accord.

Form, exchange, liberate. These three words are enough to cast light on everything. The student who knows them understands where they are and where they are going. They understand why they are not yet being taught to radiate out towards the universe while they are still trying to find their balance on two feet. They also understand that this search for balance is not a thankless stage to be rushed through, but the foundation upon which everything else will rest. Tradition expresses this through an unforgettable image: a tree extends its branches only in proportion to its roots. Da Xuan puts it in its own way when it states that extension is the expression of rooting, carried as far as possible.

This coherence lies not only in the order of the parts. It also lies in the way each quality rests upon the others. Rooting, the school says, comes from balance, and balance comes from the right meeting of relaxation and strength. Relaxation itself is defined as the ability to listen to changes and not fall behind them. Each concept calls upon another, and together they form a tightly woven fabric in which pulling one thread moves the entire weave. This is what makes knowledge of the concepts so valuable: it allows us to see the whole pattern, rather than merely the individual threads.

Da Xuan also possesses a depth that extends far beyond physical exercise. Behind each practice stand the great concepts of Chinese thought: Yin and Yang; Heaven, Earth, and Man; the five spirits that inhabit the organs; the trigrams of the Classic of Changes; and the original breath received at birth, which we must learn to preserve. Sensing, for example, is not merely sensitivity in the hands: it is a complete map of perception, descending from the skin towards the source and expanding from oneself towards others and the world. Rooting is not merely a matter of the feet: the school makes it a means of dispelling fear, and includes within it trust in the master and faithfulness to the tradition. Unifying is not merely a matter of the tendons: according to the teaching, it is the dissolution of the ego.

Once this is discovered, the practice takes on a different colour. The simplest movement becomes imbued with a meaning that transcends it. We no longer stand in quite the same way once we know that the posture represents the search for our rightful place between Heaven and Earth. We no longer close the hand in the same way once we have understood the image transmitted by the school: holding a bird firmly, but without suffocating it. We no longer breathe in the same way once we know that the breath of the first part descends from the surface of the body towards its deepest root. Concepts do not replace the movement; they fill it.

Then there is the goal—the Natural towards which everything converges. We must take the time to appreciate how unexpected it is. A method so demanding, so structured, and so rich in correspondences does not hold virtuosity as its ultimate horizon, but rediscovered simplicity. The scale that the school calls the secret of true practice rises from the beginner who is preparing, through the practitioner, the officer, the minister, and the king; above the king, who unifies, it places the sage, who forgets. At the summit, there is no level at all: there is the Natural. To understand this is to understand that all the work has only one purpose: to return us to what we should always have been.

Why, then, does every student need to know these concepts? One might object that the practice is sufficient unto itself, that the body learns better than the mind, and that too much theory risks burdening the mind rather than freeing it. It is a serious objection, and the Taoist tradition itself is wary of words. But it confuses two things: the accumulation of knowledge, which can indeed weigh us down, and the understanding of meaning, which lightens us. The school has a very apt formula for this: within intention, thirty parts knowledge and seventy parts focus. Knowledge does not replace presence. But without those thirty parts, the remaining seventy do not know where to settle.

The first reason is the simplest: to understand is to practise better. A student who knows why their weight must rest over the centre of the arch of the foot no longer does so merely out of obedience, but out of conviction; they remember it when practising alone at home, where the teacher is no longer present to correct them. A student who knows that strength must come from the back rather than the shoulders can feel the moment their trapezius muscles contract and learn to release them. Correction becomes internal. And this is where internal work truly begins: when the student no longer needs to be told what is wrong because they can feel it for themselves.

The second reason concerns sensation itself. Many sincere and diligent students exhaust themselves by trying to feel. They strain their attention towards their hands, hold their breath, and wait for something to happen. Nothing comes—or they eventually imagine what they had hoped to feel. The concepts of Da Xuan release them from this trap. They teach that perception must be allowed to arise rather than sought after; that sensation begins where the flesh is thin—in the hands—before spreading throughout the body; and that attention must first be carried to the tips of the fingernails before being directed towards the horizon, so as not to fall prey to fantasies. These simple indications can prevent years of wandering.

The third reason is the prevention of errors. A misunderstood internal practice can go astray in many different ways. Rooting can be mistaken for pressing down, causing us to become heavy rather than rooted. Tendon strength can be confused with muscular development, causing us to become tense rather than unified. We may try to push energy outwards and create nothing but stagnation. We may seek to dissolve without first being anchored and become disoriented. Finally, we may try to be spontaneous and end up manufacturing spontaneity—the very opposite of what we seek. Each of these errors is known to the tradition, and Da Xuan answers each one with a clear principle. Those who know the principle can recognise the error before it takes hold.

The fourth reason may be the most beautiful: the concepts make the student autonomous without making them solitary. Autonomous, because they can practise alone with discernment, adapt a session to their condition that day, understand that on an evening when they are tired it is better to begin by drawing in, in order to revitalise themselves, and that on a morning when they are full of energy it is better to begin by extending, emptying before filling. But not solitary, because these concepts belong to a school and a lineage. In learning them, the student enters a shared language—the language spoken by those who came before and that will be spoken by those who come after. They understand their teacher better, and the teacher can take them further.

There is another, subtler reason, connected with the very pace of progress. Da Xuan is a long path. The school speaks of eight months to a year before a real transformation of the structure takes place, of six to ten years of training, and of at least eight years before approaching the most advanced levels. Without a map, such a length of time can be discouraging: we cannot see where we are going, we doubt that we are progressing, and we grow weary. With a map, the same path becomes fascinating. We recognise the stages, understand why one precedes another, and can measure the distance already travelled. The relationship between form and intention becomes a living point of reference: nine-tenths form at the beginning; equal parts form and intention at the experienced level; nine-tenths intention at the advanced level. Everyone can see where they stand, without vanity and without discouragement.

Finally, the concepts open the practice onto life as a whole. Da Xuan expressly intends this: its structure is simple so that its qualities can overflow into everyday life. But for a quality to overflow, we must first be able to recognise it. A student who has understood rooting rediscovers it in a difficult discussion, where they remain centred rather than allowing themselves to be swept away. One who has understood exchange rediscovers it in the way they listen and give. One who has understood letting go rediscovers it in moments when they must accept what lies beyond their control. The practice hall then becomes a school of life—which is precisely what the tradition has always intended it to be.

The Da Xuan Qi Gong Manual was created to meet this need. It is not a collection of exercises, and that is its first distinctive feature. It contains no description of movements, no sequences to reproduce, and no photographs of postures. This choice is deliberate. Movements are transmitted from body to body, in the practice hall, under the teacher’s watchful eye, and they lose what is essential as soon as they are fixed on paper. What the manual brings together is everything else: the principles that give the movement its meaning, the qualities it seeks to awaken, the correspondences connecting it to the breath, the organs, and the spirit, the stages through which one passes, and the logic that makes those stages into a path. The why and the towards what, far more than the how.

First, the reader will find a framework. Before entering into the method itself, the manual takes the time to establish the great concepts of Taoist thought that underpin it: the Dao and the Natural, non-action, Yin and Yang, the Three Powers, the Three Treasures of essence, breath, and spirit, the five spirits housed within the organs, the meridians and cinnabar fields, and the history of Dao Yin from the manuscripts of antiquity to the Qi Gong of today. These pages are not displays of learning for their own sake; they give students the words they previously lacked to understand what they are experiencing.

The reader will then find the method itself, part by part and practice by practice. Each quality is explained in depth, together with its degrees, correspondences, images, and pitfalls. We discover why Sensing is the gateway to all internal work, why rooting dispels fear, why the unification of the tendons allows the emotions to flow more freely, why we must learn to draw in before learning to emit, why dissolution must always be followed by a return, and why free form can arise only after a stable structure has been established. Entire chapters are devoted to points requiring vigilance—the errors that everyone makes one day and that are best recognised early.

The reader will also find everything that runs throughout the method: the three modes of breathing accompanying the three parts; the education of intention as it gradually relaxes into attention; the therapeutic dimension of each practice; the place of the emotions; the way to attune one’s practice to the seasons and the ages of life; the role of the master and the community; and the connections linking Da Xuan to the other internal arts. A concluding section brings together the key concepts, places the great classical texts alongside the maxims of the school, and proposes a course of study through which everyone can locate their own path.

Finally, the manual concludes with a perspective of which many students are unaware: the Da Xuan we practise is only the first of six variations. The other five retain the same architecture—foundations, exchange, and liberation—but direct it towards healing, where one learns to descend into the deepest part of oneself and then to heal through the hands; towards application, where sensation is allowed to pass through without ever stopping within oneself; towards letting go, where walking in a circle calms the mind and releases blockages; towards opening to the universe, where one learns to ask, receive, and wait for the echo to return; and towards the Mystery, which can be transmitted only from person to person. Discovering this perspective changes the way we regard the foundation. We understand that it is not a stage to be left behind, but the ground upon which every variation continually relies. The better we understand where the path leads, the more carefully we attend to our first steps.

How should such a book be used? Certainly not by reading it straight through in order to know everything, and then putting it away. Rather, it is read as one returns to a travelling companion. We consult it to shed light on an instruction that had eluded us; we reread a chapter after a session in which something opened; we rediscover the meaning of an image the teacher mentioned in passing. It is written in simple language, without unnecessary jargon, and every Chinese term is explained. It does not claim to replace living instruction, and says so clearly: what will always be missing is the right moment when the teacher provides the key. But it enables us to arrive at that moment prepared, receptive, and ready to receive.

One might fear that such a work would turn the practice into a purely intellectual matter, and that the student, by knowing the map too well, might forget to walk. The manual itself answers this concern in a manner that perfectly expresses the spirit of Da Xuan. It recalls a saying from the Zhuangzi: a fish trap serves to catch the fish, and once the fish has been caught, the trap is forgotten; words serve to grasp meaning, and once the meaning has been grasped, the words are forgotten. Concepts are a fish trap. They are not the fish. But without a trap, the fish slips through our fingers.

For there is something profoundly Taoist in this way of learning. We begin with form, because we must begin somewhere. We seek to understand it, because understanding makes it alive. Then, one day, the understanding itself becomes so intimate that we no longer need to think about it: it has passed into the body, the breath, and the gaze. The school says that after we have learned the form, the form teaches us. We might add that after we have learned the concepts, they teach us how to see—until the day comes when we see without having to think about it.

Every student therefore has everything to gain from knowing the concepts of Da Xuan Qi Gong. Beginners will find in them the meaning of what is asked of them and the patience to do it well. Experienced students will find the keys to qualities they are beginning to feel but cannot yet name, as well as a guide to the errors they can no longer see. Advanced practitioners will find an overview of a path whose greater part they have already travelled, together with the horizon of the variations that extend their journey. And those who teach, or who will one day teach, will find a common language through which they can, in turn, transmit what they have received.

There is, finally, a simpler reason—perhaps stronger than all the others. To know the concepts of Da Xuan is to honour those who transmitted them. These ideas were not invented merely for ornament; they are the fruit of generations of practitioners who searched, made mistakes, found their way, and wished to spare those who came after them from having to rediscover everything alone. Every image—holding a bird, thickening the air, bracing, wood floating on the river—is a gift from someone who understood. To receive these gifts attentively is to enter this chain of transmission and accept that, one day, we too may become one of its links.

Let everyone, then, open the manual—not to look for formulas, but to find meaning. Let them keep it close at hand, return to it after practice sessions, and discuss it with their practice partners and teacher. Above all, let them return to the practice hall, place their feet on the ground, feel the weight settle over the centre of the arches, allow each knee to follow the direction of the corresponding toe, release the pelvis, and let the crown of the head rise. The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet, says the ancient classic. With the concepts of Da Xuan in mind and heart, that journey becomes an adventure whose destination we know, and every step already carries the flavour of the Natural towards which it leads.

Da Xuan Qi Gong Manual, more than 140 pages
Thirty years of teaching this Nei Gong, distilled into a single manual.
€350 — Available now.
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