GiCheon philosophy

GiCheon teachers liken human body and mind to a book, in which all past life experiences are recorded, both positive and negative. GiCheon followers believe that past events of our lives make us who we are in present. This past includes our history in a mother’s womb, birth, growth, education, work, actions, relationship with others. Whatever we ate, drank, saw, heard, touched, thought, said, did or undergone is documented in our body and mind. In this way, our yesterday influences our today and programs our tomorrow. However, this chain can be broken. GiCheon exercises are believed to transform the present, thus healing the past and changing the future.

Let us clarify this idea with a simple example. Let’s suppose I had a chronic inflammation of throat, that repeated itself regularly few times a year. Chronic sickness of this type spread upon my past, present and future. (As it is a chronic ailment, there is a high possibility that it will keep repeating itself in the future). Then I started practicing GiCheon. The factors that caused the malaise were corrected. Thus my present is changed: I do not suffer from the illness anymore. The effects that my past chronic illness had on the present and future are modified. In this sense my past is also changed, it does not affect the present and the future the way it did before. And I do not have a high possibility of repeating the disease in the future. Thus the future is altered as well.

According to GiCheon philosophy, the traumas, shocks and illnesses of the past can be cured. But the negative past is not rectified easily. First, the conscious effort is needed. The disciple has to willingly join in the training, with a sincere desire to reform. The desire may be to cure the illness, to recover from an emotional or physical trauma, to relieve the stress, to achieve enlightenment or just to promote general well-being. Second, the revision of the past already engraved in the body and mind is accompanied by various agreeable and disagreeable sensations, pleasure and pain.

GiCheon beginners often experience new and unusual phenomena in the body and mind. The teachers compare this process to a bottle which is suddenly being shacked. When the bottle vibrates, the liquid and its components inside the bottle are stirred. The dregs come up from the bottom, the layers of the liquid shift. Here the bottle is an analogy for the body, and the liquid – a symbol of Ki. When Ki is activated by GiCheon exercises, different and unexpected phenomena occur, both during the class and afterwards, in day-to-day life.

Unhappy occurrences leave traces in the body and soul. The remains of the past worries and disturbances have ossified within. Unpleasant feelings in the body and mind encountered during GiCheon session or later afterwards, are interpreted as manifestations, or results of previous illnesses or sorrowful events in the life of the adherent. In medical terms, it is aggravation of the previously existing ailments. They have to be manifested outward, felt in the body and mind, in order to be cured, discharged.

But what is the standard according to which the past should be remedied? What is the state to which the mind and body should be restored? GiCheon followers aspire to revive the Ki flow. The notion of Ki flow is connected to the idea of “positive naturalness”. Korean GiCheon practitioners talk about “natural circulation” using the word chayŏn (自然, Chinese zì​rán​). This word was translated as “nature” in the past, but in recent philosophical translations is rendered as “so-by-itself-ness”. GiCheon practitioners say that the home plant turns its leaves into the direction of the sun. It is natural and beneficial for the plant. For many people the similar state of “positive naturalness” is a purpose of GiCheon training.

In GiCheon, human being is compared to a lake, connected to other lakes by routes or channels. A certain amount of water stays in the lake, the new water constantly comes in, and some water leaves and goes away. As the new “water” – food, sensations, experiences, perceived words and actions of others etc. – come in, there is a constant need to “purify” the water, which is accomplished through GiCheon training. There always will be “bad water” and some stagnation cannot be avoided. But the relative amount of “bad and stagnant water” can be reduced. This is why at the first stages of the practice beginners experience strong pain and lots of unpleasant sensations. But as the time pass, the volume of the negative sensations decreases and the amount of positive sensations increases. However, the negative sensations never disappear completely.

The question that arises here is which experiences are labeled “bad” and which are perceived as good. Some Koreans state that after starting the training their capacity for drinking alcohol has grown. They define it as good. In modern Korea the ability to drink is an important social quality, especially among the older generation. People capable of consuming more alcohol can easily acquire friends and are respected. Other GiCheon practitioners declare that now they are less dependent on the alcohol and drink less. They interpret this as a positive change.

GiCheon practice has dissimilar effects on different people. Some start drinking more, others drink less. Here the question of intentionality, or the will is important. It seems to me that the training helps the student to advance into the direction she or he wishes to move. For some it is drinking less, for others it is drinking more.

The instructors explain that GiCheon training consists of first “pumping out” the bad (stagnant) Ki, in order to free the space for the good (flowing) Ki. Bad Ki is the stagnation of the body and mind. When stagnant, Ki, instead of proceeding and “flowing”, stays still. It is like motionless water, which goes bad as the time pass. This bad Ki being released is experienced as lack of comfort, cold, numbness, temporary paralysis, cold wind blowing out of the body, anger and annoyance, tickling or itching or other unpleasant sensations.

The transition from Ki blockage to Ki flow is accompanied also by pain. When Ki starts flowing in the problematic organ, we feel pain. The pain is experienced in an organ that is currently being healed. Thus pain signifies both an ailment and a cure, a problem and a solution. Here the “circulation of pain” in the body is a circulation of Ki. After “fixing” an organ to a certain degree, the pain moves on to another body part. Later it may return to the previous location for additional or better healing.

Good Ki is connected to the feeling of smooth and effortless passage. Ki flow is perceived as the “refreshing feeling” or heat that “moves” inside the body, feeling of lightness and joy. Improved Ki flow causes the sweat, tears, emotions, words and actions to “show” with greater ease. Sweat and tears surface faster; emotions are revealed more clearly; words are said and actions are performed with greater straightforwardness and simplicity. This is an indication that Ki “moves” better. At the advanced levels of GiCheon practice, also afflictions “manifest” rather swiftly. Before starting GiCheon, after eating bad food, for example, I felt the symptoms the next day only. If I eat bad food now, the symptoms appear almost immediately as spots on the skin or headaches, and disappear with equal promptness. The body thus becoming more sensitive is defined by GiCheon teachers as achieving more complete Ki circulation.

The notion of Ki flow is likewise associated with warmth and softness of the skin, muscles and the whole body, with mild and flexible attitude toward life, toward others and toward oneself. GiCheon practitioner Mr. Ha Dong Ju, the doctor of Korean Medicine, summarizes the connection between “warmth/heating” and Ki flow as following: “GiCheon positions make adepts experience the function of Ki as warmth. NaeGa ShinJang position generates heat, which spreads all over the body, reaching the tips of the toes and ends of the fingers, bringing renewal and revitalization. This is like spring, when the warmth comes and brings back life and movement in nature.”

When NaeGa ShinJang position is held for a long time (one hour) or is practiced in a cold stream in winter, some GiCheon practitioners report experiencing emotional turmoil and start crying, sometimes loudly. They state that long forgotten feelings of hurt and terror they went through in the past, for example, are suddenly awakened in their hearts and released, “dissolved”. The sensations of pain, heat and “melting” of the negative emotional “baggage” together with “flowing” and “liberating”, are experienced simultaneously.

We can find some similarities between this process and modern psychology. In some kinds of therapy the patient is recalling her or his painful memories or impressions (sometimes from childhood) and the process of recollection and realization, which is painful, brings release.

In order to bring about the warm and smooth Ki flow (the good Ki), the preliminary processes are required. The bad Ki should first leave the body, as a condition for good Ki later getting in. In other words, the stagnation should be first eliminated or reduced, then the circulation will be restored.

However sorrowful events and illnesses in life cannot be prevented completely, they nest not only in the past, but in the present and future. Their releasing, or healing is required continuously. Thus distressing sensations, associated in GiCheon with restoration and letting go, driving away the bad Ki, are constantly present in the practice. But at the advanced stages of training, unpleasant sensations significantly diminish, and pleasant and positive feelings amplify. The bad Ki, stagnation, is lessening, and good Ki, circulation, is expanding.

Ki circulation occurs not only in the body and mind of a person, but in her relations with the surrounding world. In the above example we have compared the individual with a lake, which is connected by channels with other lakes. The circulation of water (Ki) is improved not only inside the lake, but in the channels connecting this lake to other lakes. The bonds of the individual to others are positively transforming and the relationships with others improve.

Some practitioners say that doing GiCheon has deepened their perception of music and developed their intuition. Painters observe that they draw better, authors note that their writing skills strengthen. GiCheon teachers explain this as a revitalization of Ki and improving of the flow connecting the individual with the universe.

In GiCheon, Ki flow is associated with circulation, good Ki, pleasant sensations, warmth, melting, softness, smooth and easy passage, flexibility, movement and life. Ki blockage is associated with stagnation, bad Ki, unpleasant sensations, cold, ossifying, stiffness, unyielding, stillness and death.

As to pain, it is connected both to Ki flow and to Ki blockage. Pain is a sign that Ki blockage is dissolving and Ki start passing. While holding the positions, Ki flow is felt as pain. After releasing the positions, Ki flow is felt as “refreshing and relaxing”. Thus Ki circulation is both pleasant and unpleasant, involving both negative and positive emotions.

The good Ki is the flowing Ki, and the bad Ki is the stagnant, non-moving Ki. GiCheon practice draws the individual into the direction of flowing, warmth and flexibility, associated with life, away from stagnation, rigidity and coldness, associated with death. But life and death are two sides of the same coin. GiCheon teachers say that every being that was born, will eventually die, and any thing that has form, will be un-formed in the course of time. GiCheon does not negate death, it contains it. When NeaGa ShinJang position is held for one or two hours, the pain is so strong that it is compared by the practitioners to death experience. The adepts “contain” the pain by willingly inflicting it upon themselves in NeaGa ShinJang. This is how they attempt to reduce the pain of their past/future illnesses. The practitioners believe to weaken the negative impact of past illnesses, and undermine future illness by preventing them or lessening their effects.

As life and death are both present in life, so are pleasure and pain, well-being and illness. Even advanced GiCheon practitioners are not free form sicknesses, the practice brings sensations of pain and pleasure, heat and cold. On the larger scale life and death, on the smaller scale well-being and illness constitute ups and downs in the spectrum of being. The purpose of GiCheon is not to avoid death, nor pain or illness, but to bring death and life, well-being and sickness, pain and pleasure, into correct equilibrium.