Just started reading Sun Lu Tang's book, and there is mention in the beginning of Sun studying "Qing Gong" or "Lightness Skill." Any input on what this is? It struck me as something that was likely just some supplemental exercise - and for all I know it may be something shown in class.

Hi,
I don't know much about this subject, but I think I've heard it mentioned that this was a "bionic woman" style jumping ability minus the wierd sounds. I've also heard that it was trained by digging a hole and jumping out of it, digging deeper once you get it and jump out of that until you can get some real height. If you take what is probobly exxageration out of the stories (fifteen plus foot jumps), it doesn't sound so different from the type of explosive leg power that skateboarders develop.

"Lightness Skill" training involves practices like those Josh described above. Besides different kinds of jumping exercises, training also included sprint work, and running up various degrees of inclines. The purpose was to increase the strength, stamina and explosiveness of the lower body.

The pop culture idea that light skill practitioners could jump to incredible heights was popularized in martial romance novels in the nineteenth century and later in cool Hong Kong Kung Fu movies.

Qing gong or Ling gong depending on accent translates as lightness skill it has also been known under other names such as art of a thousond steps and grass top running. It can be thought of as one of the holy grails of qigong/kung fu along with delayed death touch and empty force. The training methods varry from jumping out of pits as desciribed earlier to wearing weighted tops while practicing forms running up boards placed against walls (described in Sun Lu Tangs Book) to various forms of meditation were energy is raised up to the middle elixer field and lower appatures are shut off. Running a number of steps on single breaths of air (sprinters do this today). Running over sand or paper without leaving marks. standing on bricks holding difficult stances and rooting through to the floor. There are probably hundreds more methods, not all are based on lower body muscle endurance they are all ways of making a person seem lighter be able to jump or fall great distances, or run without getting tired.

Anyone see a documentary last year about that group of French lunatics who run through cities jumping from rooftop to rooftop? I think it's called "free running".

Anyway the documentary showed some of their training and these guys where basically doing severe plyometrics - hopping one legged up all the bleechers at a stadium, two footed jumps from one concrete pillar to another etc...( not a million miles away from digging a hole and jumping out of it)

At one point one guy jumped two footed from a standing start and landed with both feet on top of a chain link fence that had to be 8 feet high. Another guy ran up the wall of an alley 2 steps,twisted, took a step on the opposite wall then twisted back and finnished up on a roof.

historical reports of lightness skill have always sounded fancifull to me - but if a martial artist back in the day had trained, as Tim said, to increase the strength and explosiveness of the lower body - then these free runners prove that he could(to a certain extent) leap very high and run up walls.

fast forward three hundred years and add a healthy bit of exaggeration re the distances involved and you have fantastical tales of qing gong.

There are three different levels of training in all things.Walking can be trained.Running, jumping, sleeping. You have obvious power/skill/attainment at the first level, later on it is harder to see how you do the things you do. At the last level of skill the things you do seem imposible. But only to those that are on the first level. A karate guy might look at a bagua fighters ability in Long bridge power and see this is a unobtainable skill, thinking to generate force big movements are necassary.

Although qing gong might be similar to what the French spidermans are doing, i don't think it's all about physical strength.

Even though there are hundreds of different training methods of qing gong, from what i've noticed, they all have one thing in common: practitioners are required to walk in circular direction.

From one source that i read once, said that practitioners needed to train like so, in order to circulate their chi in circular direction.
But i thought, "what's that got to do with being able jump higher??".

Then it hit me. Maybe this is somewhat similar to the solenoid phenomena of electromagnetism, or a lot of other theories regarding magnetism, where a force, Fo, acting in a circular path could induce another force, F, acting perpendicular to the direction of Fo.(To know more, study vector algebra and magnetism.)

This could explain how qing gong practitioners could lessen the effects of gravity onto them, making them lighter. However this is all in theory, which i wish to confirm it sometime in the future.

In conclusion, perhaps the mastering of qing gong does not only involve the physical training aspects of the lower body, but the chi aspects of it as well.

Usually Qing Gong training starts in the early teens and one part is to also were a weighted suit covering almost the whole body. In one case, the suit was worn for 3 years.

There are a host of other relatively simple exercises but its been said that to start the training after age 16 is already too late.

I was once working on a construction site and witnessed an eletrical "mishap". a worker was standing in a pudle of water when an exposed wire from the outlet was dropped into the puddle. this guy shot straight up into the celling (a normal 10 ft celling) this got me wondering how that was possible. I asked my brother who is an electrical engeineer and he said that it was due to explosive and sudden whole body muscle contraction. i wonder could this be related?

Extraordinary events and/or people can produce extraordinary results. As to the rest of us, best to rely on competent instruction, common-sense, hard work and physics .

Unless we have volunteers to stand in a large puddle beneath a power-line as one of my friends works for the hydro company? ;-}

I once saw a documentary that showed some stuff about the history of stunts in cinema. Douglass Fairbanks (I think, playing Sinbad?) did a run up one side of an arch, round the top and down the other side. That's an impressive amount of centrifugal force! All of the modern stuntmen and camera guys said that the stunt wasn't possible, but as they didn't have the technology to do the stunt with trick photography back then, the only logical explanation was that he must have done it.

In addition to wind sprints, explosiveness of the lower body can be greatly increased through Olympic weightlifting.

http://www.kungfulibrary.com/

"As far as the Breath - Qi is concerned, it must not only make the man energetic and his movements natural, permeate the four extremities and impregnate one hundred joints of the human body; due to special practices the body must become light and capable of doing high jumps so that the man could climb a cliff or get over an abyss."

Lightness skill is not necessarily that but a byproduct. The modern equivalent are the skyscraper trades (bricklayer, glassworkers, foundation trades, etc) who work on the tall buildings whoa re able to maneuver without the slightest hesitation. They do not call it 'lightskill' but it can be considered. The same for some basketball players who seems to defy gravity by 'floating' towards the basket, etc.

true...but ive been reading up on some of this and there are some special training to make the body acctually lighter...like for example some techneques in iron shirt fill up between muscles with air...or chi....yang floats yin is like just blowing up a balloon it still falls...but slower. if theres supposed to be some kind of chi exercise that makes you lighter...maybe it has something to do with that.

"ive been reading up on some of this and there are some special training to make the body acctually lighter"

So you're saying if you are standing on a scale and start doing your "chi exercise" your scale weight will actually start to decrease?

If you can do it, the amazing Randy has a million dollars for you.

I know how to win the 1000000$! I will practice qigong while on the scale for a couple of weeks (no eating or drinking, and with occasional bathroom breaks). I dare the scale not to tip, and by god I will achieve lightness skill! Man, am I smart or what?

Helps if you take a laxitive.

lol that would help...but i heard of another technique...that involves muscle control and different movements while in the air to keep your momentum and appear to float a little higher.

but i dont know...i'll have to find more on all of this.

i did however just see a little flash show of two monks, one holds a stick while the other on jumps on it, and the stick doesnt even move...the caption said "skill of a light body".

There is a whole array of training that is referred to as "Ching Gong," or lightness skill.

Practically all of them involve intense exercise designed to increase the power of the legs and hips. Examples are jumping in and out of holes dug in the earth, as your ability to jump increases, you dig the whole a little deeper; running and jumping with weights attached to the legs; running while wearing a weighted vest; balancing on objects during footwork drills; running up inclined boards, as your speed increases the angle of the board is made steeper...

One interesting method I learned from Liu Xinghan in Beijing, specifically for Baguazhang footwork. You arrange bricks is a circular pattern on the ground, with the bricks lying flat. Walk the circle around the bricks until you can move quickly without looking down, and without missing a brick. You then turn the bricks up on their sides and repeat. When you can step quickly from brick to brick without causing them to tip over, you stand the bricks on end.