QiGong

Katie FitzGerald
Emerson College

January 28, 2007

A cancer survivor closes her eyes and inhales slow, deep breaths. Her arms raise and her hands come together. She imagines gathering wheat in a field. Bringing her hands to her face, she smells the wheat. Slowly, the landscape changes to snow-capped mountains. She feels a cold breeze brush her cheek. She brings her hands together and pushes them apart, separating the mountains. She exhales and brings her hands to her sides. Her mind is clear. She sees clouds above her. The sky turns from brown to green to light blue and then back to white.

“It takes me to a different place. It is about cleaning your body out and getting rid of all the bad qi and cancers and poisons,” says cancer survivor Diane Cotting, describing the ancient Chinese exercise called qigong. She says she has practiced the exercise for several years and has seen qigong help cancer patients.

“My friend Kim, who was a runner, had lung cancer, and it was wrapped around her spinal column,” Cotting says. “When they tried to remove the cancer, they nicked her spinal column and her leg was bad. The qigong instructor was working with her on balance. She started walking slowly, and then she got back into jogging again before she died, which is huge,” she says.

Qigong is the Eastern science of human energy. Qi, in Chinese medical philosophy, is the energy found in all living things, while gong is the self-discipline required to build positive energy. The martial art known as Tai Chi is a type of Qigong. Qigong exercise divides the body into five building blocks: body, breath, mind, energy and spirit. Through a series of Tai Chi-type movements, synchronized breathing, mental focus and imagery, participants can strengthen all five building blocks.

Qigong is gaining acceptance as a conjunctive form of therapy for cancer patients. At Dana Farber’s Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies, cancer patients can participate in qigong classes as they undergo chemotherapy and other Western treatments. Ramel Rones, a qigong master, has studied qigong for over 15 years and teaches classes at Dana Farber. He hopes to scientifically demonstrate the efficacy of mind-body techniques on cancer patients.

Dr. Ursula Matulonis, medical director of the gynecological oncology program at Dana Farber, says qigong is safe and well tolerated by patients. Dr. Matulonis and Rones agree that in conjunction with Western medicine, qigong is an excellent mind-body therapy. “I don’t want to see people that don’t use me as a complementary therapy because I am a firm believer in the full package. I believe in the strength of western medicine,” he says.

Cotting, who has been a rower since college, says qigong energized her and made her strong, qualities she lost during her chemotherapy treatments and surgeries.

“When your body is covered in stitches and incisions or you’re on different medications, it is really difficult to do energetic or athletic moves. When doing Qigong, I could really feel the burn in my arms and legs by doing such simple positions as bending my knees and lowering my body. I felt like I was living in the land of the living rather then the land of the sick, which is were I felt during treatment.”

Qigong master Rones says qigong is about seeing where you are mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually and leading you to the next step whether you’re healthy or not. “During a cancer class there may be more emphasis on the mind, breath and spirit, and with a group of healthy people the focus may be on body and mind.”

Cotting says qigong classes provide a supportive environment for cancer patients.

“I ran a qigong class with six people. One girl’s hair had grown back, and two of them had on wigs. One other girl came in the room without a wig on. The other girls who had wigs on took them off because they were like, ‘If we don’t have to wear our hair, great!’ It was wild. And it was very freeing for them.”

Rones agrees that group qigong classes give people with cancer a place to share stories, and situations, and see each other improve. Most importantly, he says cancer patients taking qigong classes become an active part of their treatment and they are not letting the rest of their body that doesn’t have the cancer fall apart.

"Deeply versed, passionate and informed, Mr. Rones is a committed and caring teacher of the Asian Mind-Body arts including Qigong, Tai Chi, and Yoga." Ted Kaptchuk, Harvard Medical School, Author of The Web That Has No Weaver