Amira El-Naqeeb breathes with the world on World Tai Chi and Qigong Day Settled into the beautiful green spot beside the lake in Al-Azhar Park in Cairo, a group of people of all ages and from different walks of life have gathered to take part in World Tai Chi and Qigong Day. Started 12 years ago thanks to an initiative led by Bill Douglas and Angela Wong-Douglas of Kansas City in the United States, the day aims to introduce people worldwide to the benefits of Tai Chi and Qigong for health and well- being. "What if human consciousness were focussed en masse for a 24-hour period not on fear and desperation, but on an intention for personal and global healing," the day's founders asked. On the last Saturday of April each year, starting at 10am sharp in the earliest New Zealand time zone, Tai Chi and Qigong practitioners and instructors gather to practise their activities. This year, people from more than 65 nations, including Egypt, are doing the same, all with the intention of raising consciousness and bringing healing to the world as a whole. Meeting some of the practitioners this year, one was struck by their diversity. Here, a 12--year-old child stood next to a 50-year-old woman, each coming to the Al-Azhar Park to breathe together with millions of others worldwide. As with many other mass events, the energy of each individual adds to the energy of the whole, and from here came the idea of making the day truly global under the slogan "One World... One Breath". Tao instructor and certified Qigong healer Mohamed Eissa organised this year's event in Cairo, starting the day by explaining the benefits of Qigong exercises. "Everything depends on your mental status, the way you accept the exercises, and your degree of concentration," Eissa said. Most of the exercises depend on abdominal breathing, helping those practising them to breathe in and out and letting the entire body go with the flow. After a few minutes of such exercises, one feels a calming effect that gives way to a sensation of being afloat. "Abdominal breathing is a deep- breathing technique that has a calming effect on the internal organs of the body," Eissa explained, before going on to incorporate gentle movements with the breathing. "Qigong means working on the body's meridians, and breathing is a way of removing emotional and physical toxins," he said. After each exercise, Eissa stopped and took questions, especially from those who were newcomers to the technique. The event took around two hours, and at the end of it there was a palpable feeling that tension in the back and neck had eased. I was curious to know about other newcomers' experiences: was this just true for me, or did they also feel some positive impact? Twenty-two-year-old Manal Mohamed said that she had come to the event in order to expand her knowledge about energy practices in general. "I have always believed in the impact of energy and aura and how our magnetic field is influenced by our surroundings. However, I never believed that these things would affect me in particular," she said, adding that one particular exercise had helped her in ridding herself of stress. "I have a bad temper, and after the exercise I felt a numbness in my hands and a ticklish sensation, as if some sort of energy was flowing out of my hands. I felt much more relaxed," Mohamed said. According to Eissa, Qigong is based on Chinese medicine, and the aim of the international day is to educate people worldwide about medical research that has revealed the health benefits that Tai Chi and Qigong can bring. A further aim is to encourage people to embrace a global vision of health and healing that defies geopolitical boundaries, thus explaining the international day's slogan. Regarding the choice of Al-Azhar Park for the day's exercises, Eissa said that the human body contains components that exist in nature, among them iron and magnesium, which are found in the earth. "The more we are present in nature, the better. The sun is also a vital source of energy," he said. Another person attending the event was Mohamed El-Shinnawi, a fourth- year medical student who had in the past been sceptical about some of the technique's claims. This was his first time practising the activities involved at the event, and he was not sure that he could pick things up easily. However, El-Shinnawi's interest in the techniques had grown after he started to practise hypnosis. At the end of the day, he found the exercises easy to do and felt greatly recharged. Tai Chi and Qigong events are free and open to the public, part of the healing intention behind them. "This is the second year in a row that I have participated in the World Tai Chi and Qigong Day on behalf of Egypt," Eissa said. Moreover, the World Tai Chi and Qigong Day also began as part of a larger Global Consciousness Project after research at Princeton University in the US found that during times of great stress human consciousness can focus to such a degree that it can affect the operation of computers around the world. Examples of such stress included the death of Princess Diana in 1997 and the events of 11 September 2001. Further details may be found at www.worldhealingday.org.
