Five-Animal Frolic
Hua Tuo lived in the second century A. D. and was one of the outstanding medical scientist in the history of China. He was the first person in China and the world to use anesthesia. The herbal anesthetic methods used in China today were inspired by the Mafei Powder developed by Hua Tuo.
Another of Hua Tuo’s outstanding achievements is the “five-animal frolic” (wu qin xi), which he developed on the basis of his many years of experience and those of his predecessors. He advocated active physical exercises, thus beginning the practice of health-care gymnastics in China. He believed that “the body needs exercise, but it should not be excessive. Motion consumes energy produced by food and promotes blood circulation so that the body will be free of diseases just as a door hinge is never worm-eaten.” Hua Tuo also pointed out that perseverance in doing exercises would “promote blood circulation” and “enhance the appetite.”
On his medical tours, he took special notice of animals’ movements – the way birds flew and beasts ran and leaped. He tried to imitate the vivid and lively movements of the tiger leaping, the deer running, the bear climbing uphill, the monkey hanging onto trees, and the bird spreading its wings to fly, thus developing the “five-animal frolic,” an ancient form of gymnastics. He not only kept up the exercises himself, but also taught them to his students, Wu Pu and Fan A.
Wu Pu practiced the exercises with his teacher for years and still had “good hearing and sight, and strong teeth” at the age of 90. The “classical exercises of changing the muscles and tendons” (yi jin jing) and “Tai Chi boxing” (tai ji quan) invented by later generations all evolved from the “five-animal frolic.”