Western Qigong Masters

Anybody else notice that apparently the requirements for starting a Qigong school, seminar, or instructional video are that you:

1. Are white (usually American but I see this expanding of late)
2. Are under the age of 40
3. Have long hair in a ponytail or a beard (both is even better)
4 Are capable of moving slowly
5. Enjoy wearing Chinese clothing that the Chinese people don’t even wear anymore, especially in public or on camera.

As near as I can tell, this is the full set of requirements. If you meet these, you are a Master and need to start getting the word out.

Now, I know some of these folks have Asian masters, but I have a feeling this is going to be like the advent of Karate in America. If you don’t know this story, essentially GI’s stationed in Japan and Okinawa got wind of this crazy fighting stuff some of the old natives were doing and asked to be taught it. So the Masters of this or that Ryu would agree, teach a less than thorough version of the art and then say “OK Joe. You Brack Belt” and send the Gaijin on their way. Then the aforementioned Marines would come back to the USA having been confirmed Senseis or whatever, start up a school and then combine what they learned with the near sadism that is military conditioning. Lo and behold, we have Karate in America.

Point being, considering how offensive the American attitude of “hey little guy, why don’t you show me some of that crazy stuff you’re doin’” is to Asian people, I can’t imagine that someone who had to work unbelievably hard at their art since they were a child, likely under a very strict master and probably in the context of a martial community where if you didn’t have this stuff down cold you were likely to get challenged and seriously injured because of it would willy-nilly start tossing Qigong at demanding Americans.

I was going to post some videos of this but nah, I don’t need to be a bigger jerk about this than I am already. Just go have a look on Youtube or in your local “natural healing” periodical.