Isabel Calpe Rufat

Qi Gong

Original title:

Qi Gong. Práctica corporal y pensamiento chino

About the book:

Qi Gong

Qi Gong (Chi Kung) is a Chinese corporeal discipline whose origins are age old, based on the free circulation of qi, the breath of life that animates all things according to Chinese cosmology.  Destined to preserve health and prolong life, it was practised by the Taoist sages, the masters of Confucianism and Buddhist monks. It is, furthermore, a basic discipline of the Chinese martial arts as well as a branch of its traditional medicine, an inner way deeply rooted in the Chinese culture brought to the West by the Chinese masters who fled from China during the Cultural Revolution.

As an art of living, Qi Gong is a path aimed at developing the human qualities and undergo inner transformation. A path of return to the Primordial Oneness. In the book, reference is made to Chinese history, culture and thought, going deeply into cosmological and anthropological notions. From an intercultural perspective, the author explores the principles of Qi Gong as a corporeal discipline  - pointing out different parallels that exist between Chinese thought and different branches of knowledge such as embryology or physics – as a therapeutic discipline and as art of living.

About the author:

Isabel Calpe Rufat's interests embrace both cinema and anthropology. She has a doctorate in Social Anthropology, has carried out research at the Universidad de Barcelona and the Paris Ecole d'Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. She dedicated several years to researching into Qi Gong, and her doctoral thesis was on this Chinese practice.