Chinese medicine/Increasing energy

[pilgrimsunwukun]

It seems it's hard to get discussion on dosages of herbs on training formulas; there's lots of books out there that have training formulas like Shaolin and Taoist Herbal Training Formulas, Formula books like Bensky's book, Reid give some formulas and I believe Henry Liu has a cool new book on a wide gamut of Chinese medicine and herbs and formulas and..........diet.

Maybe there can be some palaver on ways to increase energy; and there's many types of Qi.

Self-care is a major component of Chinese medicine and diet is big. Scholarly Warror by Deng Meng Dao (SP?) has some excellent, cheap and simple recipes for increasing chi, blood, etc. Many oriental grocery stores have simple herb mixes that are added to soup, congee that are tasty helpful after a hard training day. If you have a cold, flu, or are sick those packets may tonify, strengthen the problem, so they're not to be taken at that time.

How many out there ever moxa zu san li, qi hai, or guan yuan?

Doing Qi gong, like the body exercise is also great for increasing energy; just like tai chi, 8 brocades.

There's so much to know and just enough time to do a little.

Pilgrim

[herb ox]

I believe you can't go wrong by tonifying the spleen - the spleen is one of the most important 'organs' in Chinese med, and is responsible for combating fatigue, creating blood (well, it helps anyways) and transforming dampness. If the digestion is strong, then the qi will be strong. My most respected professor likes to say "eat less at meals and the spleen qi will strengthen". Ever feel tired after eating a large meal? There ya go. Congee is one of the best ways to strengthen the spleen.

As for moxa, I do moxa zusanli (st36) - the ancient texts say, regarding men over 35: "to preserve health into old age, one should never let sanli run dry" referring to the ancient practice of creating a weeping burn wound on that point which is covered and kept clean. I don't quite take it that far, but I will needle the point and apply moxibustion to get that deep penetrating heat.

peace

herb ox

[mawali]

In today's society, Chinese medicine (we need to define first) will provide limited benefit. The herbal preparations are often msllabelled and sometimes drugs are added to the natural plant herbs, OR there are plant substitutions that are substandard replacements and therefore you get a bad product. Chinese QA (quality assurance) protocols are sorely lacking so best to get the best company that produces the 'purest' prepared medicine.
Moxibustion is good to excellent.
The qigong portion may be off but people need to do other actiivty to get the best ROI associated with the totality of Chinese medicine!
If you know what you are doing through experience and learning, then you can potentially make the soups yourself and adhere to principles linked to yangshengong.