Qigong has captured the imagination and the scientific attention of the world. In China there is a multitude of Qigong research institutes. The need for research in the rigorous scientific method of the West, with control groups and ample statistical mothodologies has shifted Qigong research out of the traditional empirical model of the Asian sciences. A flurry of research was presented at the historic First World Conference for the Academic Exchange of Medical Qigong which was attended by representatives from 17 countries. In the United States Qigong associations and institutes are proliferating rapidly.

In the San Francisco area the American Foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine is working with Professor William Tiller of Stanford University on a collaborative research project exploring bioluminescence, expression of photons from the Qigong practitioner. The Qigong Institute of the East West Academy of the Healing Arts has a research team and a monthly scientific forum. In Southern California Qigong Universal is actively supporting the spread of Qigong teachings and the World Research Foundation is collecting Qigong information on its world wide scientific database and in its library. There is even a Qigong Association in Alabama, Chinese National Chi Kung Association, which has an extensive written and video training course and has begun to publish a magazine in collaboration with China Sports Magazine of China that has a major percentage of its content devoted to Qigong.

What is Qigong?
Qigong is one of the great myseries of the Asia. It is the most profound of the aspects of Asian medicine. It is the root of self-care, in the chinese health care system. It is the essence of the how "physician heal thy self" operates in China. Qigong is the grand overriding structure of the martial arts and is the central practice of the "internal arts". It is the current link to the ancient source of Asian shamanism and magic. And yet, with all of these qualities of the unusual and the esoteric, Qigong has a very practical role in the maintenance of health and the healing of disease.

Cultivating the Human Bio-Electric Field
The chinese character that gives us the word Qi means the human vitality or essential functional energy of life. It also means breath. Bio-electrical breath, resonating bio-electrical field and human bio-magnetic field are other translation attempts that give a rich and graphic image for the Qi. It is the Qi or life force that maintains the healthy and harmonious function of the human body's self regulating systems. It is the Qi that the docter of oriental medicine manipulates with acupuncture. It is the Qi that binds the planets into a solar system, holds the electrons in their orbital shells around the nucleus of the atom and drives the sprout upward, against 14.7 pounds per square inch of gravity, to reach for the sun.