There was a time when human beings did not yet separate medicine, nature, movement, wisdom and mystery. To understand how to live a long life, they looked to the mountains, the waters, the seasons, the trees and the wild animals. They saw that the bear knew how to preserve its strength, that the tiger knew how to be bold, that the bird knew how to soar, that the monkey knew how to play with the world, and that the snake knew how to disappear and be reborn.
The Five Animals Exercise stems from this ancient awareness. It is not merely a form of gymnastics. It is a school of life. One does not merely perform a movement; one enters into a way of being. One learns to rediscover within oneself forgotten qualities: power, suppleness, stability, lightness, intelligence, presence.
Hua Tuo, the legendary physician, did not merely propose exercises for the body. He passed on a vision: the human body must neither exhaust itself nor become rigid. It must move with precision. Just as a door that is opened every day does not rot, a body that is properly animated keeps life flowing. This image of movement as a safeguard against stagnation lies at the heart of the tradition.
In this version of the classic, we shall retain the spirit of Hua Tuo, but we shall replace the deer with the snake to create a more initiatory interpretation: the tiger for courage, the snake for transformation, the bear for the root, the monkey for living intelligence, the bird for freedom.
Hua Tuo belongs to that rare category of figures whose historical existence, already remarkable in itself, has gradually become shrouded in memory, legend and popular admiration. He lived at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, during a period of political turmoil, wars, the fragmentation of power and the gradual collapse of the imperial order. Traditional sources generally place him between the 2nd and early 3rd centuries AD, and present him as a physician of exceptional skill, active at a time when Chinese medicine still combined, in a single practice, clinical observation, the art of remedies, acupuncture, surgery, physical practices and methods of longevity. Major historical accounts link him in particular to the narratives of the Sanguo Zhi, the Records of the Three Kingdoms, and the Hou Han Shu, the Book of the Later Han, which constitute the principal ancient sources for his biography.
What strikes one first about the figure of Hua Tuo is that his medical genius is presented not merely as a knowledge of diseases, but as a profound understanding of life itself. He does not view the human body as a machine separate from nature, but as a moving, sensitive, fragile system, capable of becoming blocked when it remains motionless and of restoring itself when it regains the right movement. In ancient accounts, he treats patients using needles, medicinal substances and surgical procedures, but also through a form of physical education. This lends his figure a surprising modernity: he is at once a doctor, a movement therapist, an observer of physiology and a master of prevention.
Tradition also credits him with the use of mafeisan, an anaesthetic preparation mixed with wine, which is said to have enabled surgical operations with reduced pain. Ancient texts present him as a pioneer of anaesthesia in China, although modern historians remain cautious, as the exact formula for mafeisan has not been preserved and the extent to which the story has been embellished by legend remains difficult to gauge. It is nevertheless significant that Chinese memory has associated Hua Tuo with a bold form of medicine, capable of opening the body, treat deep-seated illnesses and push boundaries rarely imagined in antiquity. Britannica recalls this reputation for surgery and anaesthesia, whilst noting that certain anecdotes, such as that of Guan Yu playing Go whilst having a wound treated, probably belong more to the realm of heroism and literature than to verifiable history.
But if Hua Tuo has remained alive in the memory of qigong practitioners, it is not solely because of his surgery or remedies. It is above all because he is associated with the Wu Qin Xi, the Five Animal Exercises. In this field, his name has become the symbol of a form of medicine that does not merely combat illness once it appears, but which teaches how to preserve vitality before it declines. The fundamental text preserved in the Sanguo Zhi reports that he passed on to his disciple Wu Pu a method called 五禽之戲, the “Five Animals Exercise”, comprising the tiger, the deer, the bear, the monkey or gibbon, and the bird. The same passage explains that this practice serves to ward off illness, to loosen and strengthen the limbs, and that it takes the place of daoyin, that is to say, a method of guiding, stretching and harmonising the body.
The phrase attributed to Hua Tuo is deeply profound. In it, he explains that the human body needs movement, but that it must not be pushed to excess. Movement allows food to be processed, keeps the blood and internal circulation flowing freely, and prevents illness from arising. He compares the body to a door hinge: because it moves regularly, it does not rot. This image has become one of the most famous in the entire Chinese health tradition. It encapsulates in a few words the essence of preventive medicine: life is movement, but this movement must be measured; immobility breeds stagnation, but excess exhausts; health arises from a proper balance between activation and preservation.
This vision is crucial, for it places Hua Tuo within a lineage older than himself. The Five Animals Exercise did not emerge as an isolated invention. It belongs to the ancient world of daoyin, the practices of ‘guiding and drawing’, in which one mobilises the body, the breath and intention to nourish life. In ancient texts, we already find images such as ‘moving like a bear’ and ‘stretching like a bird’, expressions which show that animal imitation was part of a physical culture predating the classical codification of the Wu Qin Xi. The Mawangdui documents, discovered in a Western Han tomb, also bear witness to a world of physical practices, stretches, therapeutic movements and postures inspired by living creatures. The documents provided serve as a reminder that several researchers view these ancient exercises as a precursor to the Five Animals Exercise.
Hua Tuo’s originality, if we follow tradition, therefore probably lies not in having invented the idea of imitating animals from scratch, but in having organised this ancient practice into a simple, memorable and therapeutically oriented method. The tiger, the deer, the bear, the monkey and the bird are not chosen as symbolic decorations. Each represents a way of moving, a quality of breath, a state of mind, and a particular relationship to strength, flexibility, weight, lightness and attention. This method assumes that human beings, by observing animals, can rediscover natural laws that they have lost through fatigue, a sedentary lifestyle, mental tension or the excesses of civilisation.
The choice of the word 戲, often translated as “play”, is also essential. It does not merely refer to a mechanical exercise. It evokes living play, embodiment, the active, almost theatrical imitation of an animal quality. From this perspective, the practitioner does not merely perform the movements of the tiger; they awaken within themselves the tiger’s resolve. They do not merely copy the bird; they seek the bird’s space, openness and lightness. They do not simply mimic the bear; he rediscovers the bear’s grounding, slowness and stability. The “play” is therefore not superficial. It is a deeply profound pedagogical method: one learns by becoming something other than one’s usual self, in order to rediscover a greater part of oneself.
The account of Wu Pu, a disciple of Hua Tuo, lends this method an exemplary dimension. The texts state that Wu Pu practised his master’s teachings, that he treated many people, and that he retained, into very old age, good hearing, clear eyesight and strong teeth. The message is clear: the method is not merely curative, it is preservative; it acts not only in emergencies, but over the long term; it demonstrates that the regularity of correct movement can sustain vitality throughout one’s entire life. Ancient sources do not allow us to verify every biographical detail, but they convey a very clear medical ideal: the good doctor is not content merely to save the sick; he also teaches how to stay alive.
This image of Hua Tuo observing animals must be understood with subtlety. In ancient China, observing nature was not a romantic or decorative act. It was a method of knowledge. The animal revealed a function of life in its most direct form. The tiger demonstrated gathered power, decisiveness, the leap, the seizure. The bear demonstrated mass, stability, a deep connection to the earth. The monkey demonstrated liveliness, adaptability, curiosity and playfulness. The bird demonstrated openness, suspension and elevation. The deer, in classical tradition, demonstrated elasticity, attentiveness, grace and vigilance. These animals are not merely external models; they are bodily archetypes.
This view of the animal also ties in with a medical concept: the human body is not merely an assembly of organs; it is a system of rhythms, tensions, relaxations, openings, closings, rises and falls. In this sense, each animal offers a different way of correcting human excesses. When man becomes too mentally heavy, the monkey restores his liveliness. When he becomes too scattered, the bear restores his centre. When he loses his courage, the tiger restores his strength. When his heart closes, the bird restores his space. When his internal lines stiffen, the deer restores his elasticity. In a symbolic adaptation where the snake replaces the deer, this final principle becomes that of shedding, undulation and silent transformation.
One must, however, remain historically precise. The oldest sources, such as the Sanguo Zhi and the Hou Han Shu, confirm the name of the method, the list of the five animals and its use as a daoyin practice, but they do not describe in detail the choreographies practised today. The first more concrete descriptions of the movements appear later, notably in the Yangxing Yanming Lu, attributed to Tao Hongjing, which presents much more archaic forms, sometimes close to the ground, involving movements on all fours, suspension, bending, stretching and arm flapping. The documents provided clearly highlight that we possess no direct images of the exercises of Hua Tuo and Wu Pu, and that modern forms are the result of a long tradition of transmission, successive reinterpretations and reconstructions.
This absence of a preserved original choreography does not diminish Hua Tuo’s importance; it actually makes him all the more interesting. What has come down to us from him is not merely a fixed sequence of gestures, but a living principle: the body must be maintained through natural movements, active enough to dispel stagnation, moderate enough not to exhaust one’s vital energy, vivid enough to engage the mind, and regular enough to transform one’s health. This is why the Wu Qin Xi has been able to survive in many forms. Modern documents note that there are today many versions of the Five Animals Exercise, sometimes very different in their movements, organ correspondences or intentions. This diversity is to be expected in a tradition that has spanned nearly two millennia.
The figure of Hua Tuo also carries a tragic dimension. Ancient accounts link him to Cao Cao, the great warlord of the late Han dynasty. According to tradition, Hua Tuo is said to have treated Cao Cao’s severe headaches, but his independence, his refusal to become a doctor entirely subservient to power, or even his patient’s political mistrust, are said to have led to his imprisonment and death. Accounts vary, and legend has become intertwined with history; yet Hua Tuo’s end is almost always portrayed as that of an exceptional physician crushed by the powers that be. This dramatic death further reinforces his image: he who knew how to preserve life was not preserved by his own time.
In the Chinese collective memory, Hua Tuo has become more than a doctor. He has become a figure of the ‘divine physician’, a model of therapeutic skill, and his name has remained associated with paravertebral acupuncture points known as Hua Tuo Jiaji. Even when the historian carefully distinguishes between facts, embellishments and heroic tales, one thing remains indisputable: Hua Tuo embodies the ideal of a medicine that views the body as a whole, that seeks the root cause, that dares to intervene when necessary, but that also knows that the highest form of medicine is perhaps that which teaches people not to fall ill.
To present Hua Tuo as “the doctor who observed life” is therefore to restore him to his true stature. He is not merely the man who is said to have invented a series of exercises. He is the symbol of a medical perspective that begins before illness, in the observation of movement, breath, the animal, the season, age, energy and fatigue. He understands that health is not a static state, but a sustained flow. He understands that life is sustained through alternation: work and rest, tension and relaxation, opening and closing, grounding and elevation. He understands that the human body must be trained through vivid imagery, because the mind follows a tiger, a bear or a bird more readily than a medical abstraction.
This is why the Five Animals Game remains deeply inspiring today. It reminds modern man that health does not begin with complexity, but with a return to simple principles: moving every day, breathing mindfully, not pushing oneself to the point of exhaustion, allowing the body to sweat lightly, awakening the limbs, freeing the joints, cultivating the joy of movement, and rediscovering natural strength. Hua Tuo still speaks to us because he does not separate medicine from life. He does not merely say: “treat the illness”. He says: “observe what lives, imitate what is right, move before you stiffen, maintain circulation, and let the body become light again.”
Thus, in real history as in legend, Hua Tuo remains the figure of a complete physician. He heals, he observes, he passes on knowledge, he prevents, he teaches. He regards animals not as curiosities, but as silent masters. He sees in the tiger, the bear, the monkey, the bird and other forms of life the answers to human imbalances. His most precious legacy is perhaps not a particular technique, but this fundamental insight: nature already knows many things that the sick person has forgotten. The role of the master, the doctor and the practice is to help them remember.
The Five Animals Exercise did not appear in a vacuum. Long before Hua Tuo, ancient China was familiar with practices involving stretching the body, guiding the breath, imitating animals and dancing to release blockages. The Mawangdui documents, discovered in an ancient tomb, already depict Dao Yin exercises, with figures evoking animal movements, stretches and gestures designed to relieve pain and nourish life.
One can imagine these ancient practitioners watching the bear rise, the bird spread its wings, the monkey leap, the tiger turn its head, the snake slither through the grass. They were not seeking to copy outwardly, but to understand a law of life.
The animal does not cheat. It is entirely itself. The tiger does not doubt that it is a tiger. The bear does not apologise for its weight. The bird does not ask permission to fly. The monkey does not separate intelligence from play. The snake does not speak of transformation: it sheds its skin.
This is what makes these practices so profound. The animal becomes a mirror. It reveals what human beings have lost through an excess of thought, fear, fatigue, social control and rigidity. Practising the animals means rediscovering a truth older than opinions.
This version of the Five Animals Game is based on five fundamental forces.
The Tiger represents courageous power. It teaches us to move forward, to seize the moment, and not to flee from our own strength. It awakens the life force, decisiveness, and the ability to stand firm in the face of adversity.
The Snake represents transformation. It teaches undulation, patience, silence, and shedding. It does not always fight head-on; it transforms the situation from within.
The Bear represents stability. It grounds us, connecting us to the lower back, the bones, and the right balance. It soothes, reassures and grounds. It makes the body a place of comfort.
The Monkey represents liveliness. It awakens intelligence, playfulness, adaptability and the ability to change quickly without losing one’s centre. It heals mental heaviness.
The Bird represents freedom. It opens the chest, lifts the spirit, lightens the breath, and gives a sense of space. It reminds us that human beings are not made merely to survive, but to rise above.
These five animals form a complete path. The tiger provides strength. The snake provides transformation. The bear provides the foundation. The monkey provides intelligence. The bird provides inspiration.
Together, they tell a story: I rediscover my power, I shed my old skin, I strengthen my roots, I awaken my spirit, I rise towards something greater than myself.
The tiger is the first call. It emerges from the mountain like a force that no longer seeks permission to exist. It is not brutal out of stupidity; it is whole. Its gaze does not waver. Its body does not doubt. Its stride asserts: I am here.
In human health, many weaknesses stem from the loss of this strength. We withdraw, we hesitate, we make excuses, we hold our breath, we become spectators of our own lives. The tiger comes to awaken what has fallen asleep.
To practise the tiger is to rediscover physical courage. Not theoretical courage, not grand words, but the courage that flows down into the legs and hands. The courage to breathe more deeply. The courage to straighten one’s back. The courage to feel the strength in one’s fingers. The courage not to surrender the body to fatigue.
Mythologically, the tiger is often a guardian, a protector, an animal of the west, a white force, a presence that drives away troubled influences. In an inner reading, it guards the boundary between what nourishes and what destroys. It teaches us to say no. It teaches us to emerge from confused weakness.
The tiger says: do not be violent, be alive. Do not be aggressive, be present. Do not seek to dominate, but stop disappearing.
The snake is the master of silent transformation. It needs no noise to be powerful. It moves by undulating. It senses the ground. It knows the narrow passages. It wastes nothing.
Where the tiger asserts, the snake transforms. Where the tiger attacks the door, the snake finds the crack. Where the bear settles, the snake moves. It teaches that health is not just a matter of strength, but of the ability to change.
The snake carries a vast mythology. In many traditions, it is linked to the earth, to deep waters, to secrets, to healing, to medicine, to rebirth. It can be frightening because it touches what is hidden. But that is precisely why it is precious: it descends where we do not wish to look.
In this version of the Five Animals Game, the snake replaces the deer as the animal of flexibility, but it adds the shedding of skin. It is no longer just about stretching the body; it is about leaving behind what has become too small for us.
The snake says: do not force the transformation. Prepare for it. Breathe into it. Let the old peel away. Move forward silently, but move forward truly.
In a health practice, the snake is the intention to untangle. To untangle old tensions. To untangle accumulated fears. To untangle the body’s habits. To untangle a fixed identity. It does not wish to break. It wishes to liberate.
After the tiger’s power and the serpent’s transformation, the bear brings everything back down to earth. He is the walking mountain. He does not seek to seduce. He does not wish to appear light. He accepts weight as wisdom.
In a world that values speed, the bear teaches slowness. In a world that values appearance, he teaches density. In a world that scatters attention, he teaches massive presence.
The bear is deeply therapeutic because he reassures the entire system. His medicine is simple: come back down. Return to the feet. Return to the pelvis. Return to the bones. Return to the belly. Stop living solely in the head.
Modern texts on the Five Animals Play remind us that the method works not only on the muscles, but also on mental calm, organic balance, vitality and longevity. The bear embodies this dimension in an exemplary way: it does not seek to rise; it nourishes the foundation.
The bear says: you cannot rise if you do not know how to ground yourself. You cannot change if you have no roots. You cannot heal if your body does not feel safe.
To practise the bear is to tell the body: you can settle down. You can stop running away. You can become home again.
The monkey is the animal of intelligent movement. It is not content merely to be quick; it is curious. It watches, listens, changes, tries, hides, returns, catches, offers, almost laughs at the excessive seriousness of humans.
In practice, the monkey is essential because it prevents tradition from becoming heavy. Without the monkey, discipline can become rigid. Without the monkey, depth can become dark. Without the monkey, the method can lose its joy.
The monkey reminds us that health needs play. A body that no longer plays grows old before its time. A mind that no longer plays becomes a prisoner of its problems. Play, here, is not superficiality. It is openness. It is intelligence in motion.
The monkey is also the animal of adaptation. When one path closes, it finds another. When a branch breaks, it grasps a new one. When danger arrives, it does not debate: it changes.
The monkey says: stay alive. Do not confuse seriousness with depth. Do not confuse restlessness with liveliness. Learn to change without losing yourself.
Its medicine is precise joy. Not excitement, but the clear mind that rediscovers the pleasure of movement.
The bird comes at the end like a promise. Having rediscovered the tiger’s strength, the snake’s transformation, the bear’s grounding and the monkey’s intelligence, the human being can open up.
The bird is the deep breath. It is the sky within the chest. It is the possibility of not remaining trapped in one’s tensions. It reminds us that we do not practise merely to be less ill, but to become freer.
In the Five Animals tradition, the bird is associated with openness, elevation, lightness and spiritual freedom. The texts present the Five Animals Exercise as a practice that unites movement, meditation, mental calm and inner transformation; the bird is one of its clearest symbols.
But the bird must remain grounded. If it seeks only to rise, it becomes an escape. The true bird knows how to settle. It knows how to land. It knows how to take flight again. It unites earth and sky.
The bird says: open your heart, but do not scatter yourself. Breathe more deeply, but stay centred. Lift your spirit, but keep your feet in the world.
Its medicine is space. Where the heart was constricted, it creates an opening. Where the breath was short, it creates breadth. Where the spirit was confined, it points to the sky.
The Five Animals Game is not just a series. It is a map.
The tiger answers the question: where have I lost my courage?
The snake answers the question: which old skin must I shed?
The bear answers the question: where are my roots?
The monkey answers the question: where have I lost my joy and my living intelligence?
The bird answers the question: towards which sky does my heart wish to open?
These questions alone are enough to transform the practice. We no longer merely move our arms and legs. We enter into a conversation with ourselves. The body becomes a book. Each animal opens a chapter of our own life.
There are days when we need the tiger because we have allowed ourselves to become weakened. Days when the snake is necessary because we sense that a transformation is ready. Days when only the bear can bring us back to calm. Days when the monkey saves the spirit from sadness. Days when the bird gives the heart fresh air.
The structure then becomes simple and profound: power, transformation, stability, liveliness, freedom.
We can speak of Hua Tuo as the doctor who observed animals not to dominate them, but to learn from them.
We can speak of Wu Pu as the disciple who understood that a secret is worthless if it is not practised every day.
One might speak of the bear as a silent old master: he offers few explanations, but when he sets foot down, everyone understands.
One might speak of the tiger as a temple guardian: he seeks no war, yet no one dares enter with impure intentions.
One might describe the snake as a hidden initiate: it disappears for a long time, then returns with a new skin.
One might describe the monkey as a sacred child: it disturbs people who are too serious because it knows that life is wiser when it remains playful.
One can describe the bird as an immortal: it has known the earth, but it has never forgotten the sky.
These anecdotes bring the teaching to life. The student does not merely memorise instructions; they enter a world. And when a practice becomes a world, it becomes much easier to love.
Why does the Five Animals Game remain so relevant today?
Because modern man often lives cut off from his natural instincts. He thinks too much, moves too little, breathes poorly, becomes mentally exhausted, loses touch with the ground, forgets how to play, and closes his heart.
The tiger restores his decisiveness.
The snake restores his ability to change.
The bear restores his connection to the ground.
The monkey restores joy.
The bird restores space.
The practice need not be complicated to be profound. It must be regular, sincere, and lived with intention. Modern sources emphasise that there are now many versions of the Five Animals Game, sometimes very different, because the tradition has been passed down over a long period and has taken various forms depending on the school. This allows us to understand that a version featuring a snake is not a historical claim, but an inspired variation, faithful to the spirit of observing living beings.
The most important thing is to retain the heart of the method: imitate to understand, move to release, breathe to harmonise, play to come alive again.
The Five Animals Game is an invitation to become whole again.
It does not ask you to believe. It asks you to try. To walk like the bear. To breathe like the bird. To look like the monkey. To dare like the tiger. To transform like the snake.
It is a book of the body. A book that is opened not only with the eyes, but with the feet, the hands, the breath, the spine, the attention, the courage.
In this version, the five animals form an inner phrase:
I rise with the tiger, I transform with the snake, I ground myself with the bear, I awaken with the monkey, I soar with the bird.
And this phrase can become a practice, then a discipline, then a way of life.
The real aim is not to pretend to be an animal. The real aim is to rediscover, through them, what human beings have forgotten about themselves: natural strength, deep flexibility, calm stability, joyful intelligence and freedom of the heart.
It should also be noted that, in our School, the Five Animals Exercise is not understood as a fixed choreography. It is not a matter of learning a sequence of movements that is externally codified, nor of reproducing a standardised form with angles, positions and movements rigidly imposed. The practice is based on intentions of internal alchemy, on precise energetic methods, on qualities of movement, on particular steps, on specific ways of circulating the breath, engaging the body, expressing strength and allowing the unique spirit of each animal to emerge.
Each animal is therefore not a figure to be copied, but a power to be awakened. The tiger, bear, monkey, bird, deer or snake—depending on the version practised—are not merely decorative postures; they are ways of being, directions of Qi, types of strength, bodily rhythms and inner states. Based on these principles, each person must find their own form. The form is not absent, but arises from within. It emerges when intention, breath, step, structure and energy come into harmony.
This is a key point for understanding the difference between the ancient practice and modern adaptations. Contemporary versions of Wu Qin Xi have often become rigid, neat, pedagogical sequences—sometimes very useful for the general public, but far removed from the original spirit. They feature fixed choreographies, symmetrical movements, and ordered sets that are easy to teach in a group setting. Our approach lies elsewhere. It seeks to return to the source: not to the standardised external form, but to the living principle that preceded the choreographies.
From this perspective, the Five Animals Exercise must be understood as one of the oldest forms of Qi Gong, perhaps the oldest structured method still known by a specific name. Here we are at the origin of a practice of health, movement, animal observation, Dao Yin and internal alchemy that predates modern codifications. Its essence lies not in the external beauty of a sequence, but in the ability to transform the body, awaken the breath, circulate energy, nourish life and rediscover the natural forces that animals have always embodied.
