Straddling David Gorski's Line In The Sand

David Gorski's blog, "Science-based

Medicine," is a true asset to field of

functional medicine. Gorski is funny,

making his hard science topic wry,

and gaffing the snake oil salesmen

of 2012 with some academic kindness.

Of course, there are plenty of puns

utilizing the word "quack."

After you read it for some time, you can

understand how Gorski and company's

language separates itself from some

weaselword language used in quack

medicine.

For myself, I found some happiness

in the fact that Gorski doesn't consider

Tai Chi so gawd-awful, and he boldly

places Tai Chi on the opposite side of

"alternative medicine" because it is

simply a form of gentle exercise--

and gentle exercise is scientifically-backed

to benefit people, medically speaking.

I like believe Gorski likes Tai Chi:

"As I pointed out at the time, let’s say that tai chi is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that it alleviates fibromyalgia pain and stiffness better than anything we’ve yet come up with. Let’s assume all of those things are true, just for the moment: what thought comes to mind to you? I know what thought comes to mind to me. What on earth is “alternative” or “complementary” about such a finding? In reality, such findings would simply indicate that certain forms of low-impact exercise could help fibromyalgia symptoms, which is not anything particularly surprising at all, given what we already know about fibromyalgia."

Gorski points out that some clinical tests

of Tai Chi are somewhat valuable, and that

all the "woo" of Qi theory and Traditional

Chinese Medicine should not necessarily
need to be associated with such a decent

little set of isometric Chinese exercises.

But Tai Chi is not isometric. By definition,

isometric exercise is strength training,

and real Tai Chi forbids the use of strength.

That's funny too because I've been asked

many times after giving a demonstration,

"so are you clenching up all your muscles

when you do Tai Chi?" No, no, no. One

must relax the body far beyond the reaches

of clenching, pushing, pulling or any use

of strength. "There should not be a single iota
of brute strength remaining within your muscles
and bones." --Fu Wing Fay.

So in this way, Gorski thinks Tai Chi is

okay because it's just exercise that can

be broken down to its important parts,

and even mockingly replicated as a sham

control in a better-designed research study.

But he's missing a lot of info in that sequitur.

Let's get back to me and Gorski in a minute.

Let's talk about my teacher, Victor ShengLong Fu.

Master Fu is arguably the best exercise

instructor in the world. He says, "Tai Chi

is like first grade. BaGua is like tenth grade.

Most people cannot go to tenth grade without

first learning grades one through nine."

And trust me, BaGua is way over your head.

Master Fu also says,

"More than 90 percent of all tai chi is bad. What it mean—‘bad,’ that when you see someone do tai chi, they don’t follow the principles. You don’t know the principles yet, but you can look for yourself if the tai chi is good or bad. When you look, look at the waist. When the tai chi is good, (they) always turn the waist. When the tai chi is bad, the arms move but the waist doesn’t turn, or the waist only turns sometimes. That’s principle. In good tai chi, the waist always turns."

Master Fu's diligent students tend to be

amazing. They win martial arts competitions,

just as the students of both his father and

his grandfather did.

But Master Fu does not teach "Qi" theory.

He tries to be practical and scientific in his

teaching methodology. In nine years of

private study, I've never heard him frame

any lesson inside the woo of Qi (sounds cool).

He will show you how to posture your body;

and how breath deeply; and how to step
ten different ways.

But he doesn't talk about Qi.

What has trickled down from Master Fu's

high-level teachings is Healing Exercise,

a set of super-gentle, breath-centric exercises

for seniors, sedentary, injured and infirmed.

It's backed by peer-reviewed studies and
it works. We simply show people how to
help themselves.

I think David Gorski needs to meet my

friend Dr. Liu. She was a pharmacist; then

an M.D. for some 20 years; then she went

back to school to become a Traditional

Chinese Medicine doctor. Several members

of her family also share the dualistic
M.D. / O.M.D accolades. Dr. Liu's daughter
has kids attending Harvard, Princeton and

Stanford simultaneously.

If your lying eyes did deceive you,

Dr. Liu is a quack at first glance. She is 80

years old, but you would guess her at 50.

She walks funny and talks funny, so her
placebo-effect rating should be low; but
she knows everything about everything.

David Gorski and company might find it

impressive that she wrote a thesis on

herbal treatments for HIV, and demonstrated

that cellular cAMP and cCMP are analogous

to yin and yang.

Dr. Liu is the most powerful doctor I've ever

known, and I grew up in the business of

western medicine. Her prowess with

pharmacology and her implementation of
needles fixes everyone I take to her.

Dr. Liu's son won a prestigious award of

innovation in 2008 for developing a software

package that probability-diagnoses over 9000

diseases from 9500 symptoms, and offers

thousands of science-based medical treatments

from the combined knowledge of 41 M.D. specialists.

Oh yeah, it also offers thousands of Traditional

Chinese Medicine treatments, including where

to put the needles.

Back to me and Gorski. Without a single credential,

I call myself a scientist. It'd be easy for him to say

that I am not. But maybe he would lend some

tiny shred of scientific credence to my university

level study of kinesiology; or maybe to my abstract

published by the University of Salzburg for

The International Congress on Science and

Skiing. Skiing might not be David Gorski's cup

of tea, but he does live in Michigan and I know
Michiganders do ski in that miserable mess.

Applying the principles of Tai Chi to alpine skiing

created an "alternative" method of direction change

by posturing the body and turning the waist horizontally.

Panting and the use of strength are both forbidden.

I wear a tee shirt that says, "Disposable thumbs

make me specialer than most animals." Many

scientists and coaches in the alpine ski universe

think I'm a quack. But now, some Austrian

aficionados are claiming that all the World Cup

ski racers are using my Waist Steering technique.

Where Traditional Chinese Medicine shines is

functionality. Master Fu says 90 percent of all
Tai Chi is junk. It might be safe to correlate and say
that 90 percent of all acupuncture is junk too--

because there are few O.M.D.s like Dr. Liu.

I would like to see bright people like David Gorski

and company create double-blind research studies

on high-level masters like Master Fu and Dr. Liu.

I always say "the proof is in the puddin'," so if it is,

they should be able to extract that proof.