What is the difference between Qi Gong and Nei Gong?
What we today called qi gong “qi exercises” or nei gong “internal exercises” originally came under the category of nourishing life (yang shen) techniques. Yang Shen methods were often collectively referred to as Dao Yin exercises (Guiding/Leading or Guiding/Pulling). Manuscripts known as the Yin Shu (“Pulling Book”) and the Dao Yin Tu (“Guiding-Pulling Chart”) were unearthed in the Zhangjiashan (Hubei) and Mawangdui (Hunan) tombs. These manuscripts date from the Early Han period (160 BC) and pre-date the Huang Ti Nei Jing, the seminal book which forms the basis of much of modern Chinese medicine. These early exercises are considered by some scholars to be truly indigenously Chinese exercises. The Dao Yin Exercises originally included an mo (self-massage), tu na (breathing; inspiration-expiration), also called xing qi or yun qi, and moving exercises that imitated animals or pulled on the sinews or the area of pain. Although qi is implied in this guiding and pulling, what was effectively
