The creation of World Health Qigong Day

The first World Health Qigong Day will be held globally on August 13th, 2017, with more than 40 countries and regions across the five continents participating in it. The slogan of this year’s World Health Qigong Day is Let Me Teach You Health Qigong.

On that day, under the leadership and coordination of the IHQF, the member organizations of the IHQF will organize those Health Qigong enthusiasts to hold a series of activities at 10 am of their respective local time. Therefore, the activities will last for a whole day from the east hemisphere to the west hemisphere, constituting a picture in which the oriental and occidental cultures reflect and shine mutually. This year, Beijing and New York will be the main venues of the first World Health Qigong Day, with other places where other member organizations are located being the parallel venues. In Beijing, we will choose a place with distinctive importance to build platforms for the Health Qigong enthusiasts to showcase their vitality, and attract more young people, white collars and sports fans to participate in Health Qigong.

According to Mr. CHANG Jianping, the Director of Health Qigong Administrative Centre of GASC and President of Chinese Health Qigong Association, the aim of setting up this event is to let people from around the world better understand Health Qigong, and to create a more positive atmosphere for the long-term development of it. The Second IHQF General Assembly decided to designate the second Sunday of August each year as "World Health Qigong Day".

The connotations of the World Health Qigong Day Logo

In order to make the World Health Qigong Day more popular with the people, and draw the IHQF even closer to the member organizations and the Health Qigong enthusiasts, the IHQF entrusted a studio to design the logo for the World Health Qigong Day. The final version of the logo has already been decided through voting by the Executive Board of the IHQF. Here we formally introduce the logo to the whole world.

The Logo will also make it easier for the member organizations to carry out promotions for Health Qigong. The logo of the World Health Qigong Day keeps the original image and flavor of the IHQF logo. The dragon and the phoenix symbolize Yang and Yin respectively, therefore the combination of dragon and phoenix connotes the balance between Yin and Yang in Health Qigong, as well as the refinement for both body and mind in traditional Chinese culture. On the other hand, the dragon and the phoenix symbolize strength and tenderness respectively, therefore the combination of dragon and phoenix connotes the balance between hardness and softness, as well as the unique concept of combining motion with station in healthcare.

The simple but modern curves, painted with the three primary colors of red, yellow and blue, surround the logo of the IHQF. The whole image is meant to symbolize the concept of harmonization as well as the harmony among haven, earth and human beings. Meanwhile, the three colors also represent an ancient concept in Taoism, that is The Three begets all things of the world, thus covering and uniting all the member organizations of the IHQF, making joint efforts to create benefit for the physical and mental wellness of the human society and to build a harmonious world.

The logo of the World Health Qigong Day applies five colors which correspond with the five elements in traditional Chinese culture. White represents gold, blue represents water, green represents wood, red represents fire, and yellow represents soil. Altogether, they constitute a perfect eco-cycle in which gold begets water, water begets wood, wood begets fire, fire begets soil and soil begets gold.

The great popularity of Health Qigong

In 2016, the State Council of China released The "Healthy China 2030" Blueprint and The National Fitness Program(2016-2020). It was mentioned especially in these two documents that, the government will give support to the promotions of Health Qigong, in order to improve the wellness of the general public and carry forward the traditional Chinese culture. As of 2016, the number of Health Qigong stations in China was more than 30,000, with the number of practitioners in these stations exceeding 1.2 million, the total amount of Health Qigong practitioners in China was above 4.36 million, the amount of Health Qigong instructors was more than 200,000, the amount of countries and regions where Health Qigong has been developed reached 56, and the amount of Health Qigong practitioners abroad exceeded 2 million.

IHQF (Health Qigong Federation International) is a non-profit international organization composed of the national and regional organizations. Its purpose is to "unite and play a member of the association of Health Qigong Association, promote and develop the exchange and cooperation between members of the association to promote and improve the physical and mental health of the people of the world."