The Twelve Daoyin Exercises: Zhang Guangde’s Health Qigong form

This is a history and practice article. How the form was made, who made it and what its movements are called are documented in the web pages of China’s Health Qigong Management Center and in its official verse summary of the form. The official textbook exists in Chinese and English editions, but we know it only from publisher and catalogue listings. The ideas behind the movements come from traditional Chinese medical theory, as the Center itself says. There is little research on the form; we describe it separately and say how far it goes.

Author: Raymond Hackland · Last reviewed: 21 October 2026 · Reading time: about 13 minutes

In short

What this is: An introduction to Health Qigong · Daoyin Yangsheng Gong Shi’er Fa (健身气功·导引养生功十二法), the Twelve Daoyin Exercises: the one official Health Qigong form built from Professor Zhang Guangde’s work. It covers how the form came out of the 2009 round of new Health Qigong forms, how its twelve movements were drawn from Zhang’s own system, what the movements are called, what the official verse says about practising them, how the form relates to classical daoyin, and what research has and has not looked at. It is the second article in our series on Zhang Guangde; the first is Who was Professor Zhang Guangde?

What the evidence says: The form’s history is well documented in official sources. The research is thin. We found two studies in English that used this form on its own: a non-randomised study of cancer survivors and a small randomised trial in a drug rehabilitation centre. Neither compared the form with a randomised group that did no exercise, and both relied partly on self-reported outcomes. Two other trials used movements from the form inside mixed routines, and some Chinese studies are pooled with other exercises in larger reviews. None of this tells us what the form itself does.

What it means for your practice: The Twelve Daoyin Exercises are a modern form, compiled as a university research project from 2009 and released in 2010, drawing on a system Zhang built from 1974 onwards. Their names and imagery are classical, and their theory is that of Chinese medicine. Knowing this lets you enjoy the form for what it is, a carefully composed sequence with a long cultural memory, without taking its traditional descriptions as tested effects.

What tradition says

Label for this section: 📜 Documented history, unless marked otherwise.

How the form was made

In 2001 China’s sport administration founded the Health Qigong Management Center, which compiled four standard forms in 2001–2003: Ba Duan Jin, Wu Qin Xi, Yi Jin Jing and Liu Zi Jue. Our article Health Qigong: how China’s standard forms were made tells that story. Zhang Guangde was not among the main leaders of those four teams [10].

The Twelve Daoyin Exercises came with the next round. In May 2009 the Center reported that five new forms were being compiled as research projects of the General Administration of Sport, carried out by four universities: Beijing Sport University, Tsinghua University, and the Shanghai and Wuhan institutes of physical education. The five were Shi’er Duan Jin, the Twelve Daoyin Exercises (导引养生十二法), Taiji Yangsheng Zhang, Mawangdui Daoyin Shu and Da Wu. According to the notice, all five followed “the inherent laws of qigong” and the principle of uniting the three regulations (of body, breath and mind), and they combined massage, daoyin and visualisation methods. The Center expected to release them later that year [1].

The notice does not say which university made which form. The Center’s introduction to the finished form does: it says the Twelve Daoyin Exercises are one of the new forms organised by the Center, that Beijing Sport University carried out the research, and that the form “carefully selected” 12 movements from the more than 50 Daoyin Yangsheng Gong routines that Zhang had created and promoted since 1974 [2]. Zhang himself wrote about his part in “compiling, practising and teaching” it [4], and the Center’s notice on his death in 2022 names this form first among his contributions [5]. We have not found a list of the other members of the Beijing Sport University team.

The textbook appeared in May 2010, and from 2010 the Center ran national training courses to spread the five new forms [2, 18, 19]. The Center’s introduction to the form, posted in August 2012, presents the package: a textbook, a CD and a DVD covering the form’s origins, characteristics, basics and technical points, meant as the standard teaching material for practising Health Qigong in China’s national fitness programme [2]. An English edition followed in 2014, published by Singing Dragon under the name of the Chinese Health Qigong Association, with a DVD and CD; a paperback edition appeared in 2018 [8].

The form is on the Center’s 2020 list of officially promoted Health Qigong forms, and still on the updated list of 2026 [6, 7].

The twelve movements

The Center’s verse summary of the form, published in 2017, lists the movements in order and gives each a short verse on its meaning, the steps, points to watch, and its “main effects” in the language of Chinese medicine [3]. The English translations below are our own working glosses of the Chinese names.

Preparatory posture (预备势)
1. Qianyuan qiyun (乾元启运), “The great origin sets things in motion”
2. Shuangyu xuange (双鱼悬阁), “Two fish hanging in the pavilion”
3. Laoji fuli (老骥伏枥), “The old steed in the stable”
4. Ji Chang guan shi (纪昌贯虱), “Ji Chang pierces the louse”
5. Gongshen danxue (躬身掸靴), “Bowing to brush the boots”
6. Xiniu wangyue (犀牛望月), “The rhinoceros gazes at the moon”
7. Furong chushui (芙蓉出水), “The lotus rises from the water”
8. Jinji baoxiao (金鸡报晓), “The golden rooster heralds the dawn”
9. Pingsha luoyan (平沙落雁), “Wild geese settle on the sandbank”
10. Yunduan baihe (云端白鹤), “White crane in the clouds”
11. Fenghuang laiyi (凤凰来仪), “The phoenix arrives”
12. Qixi guiyuan (气息归元), “Breath returns to the source”
Closing posture (收势)

The publisher’s description of the English edition says the form can be practised standing or seated, and that the book gives step-by-step instructions for both [8].

How the verse describes the practice

Label: 📜 Documented history (what the official verse says) · 🔵 Tradition only (the theory behind it).

The character of the form. The Center’s 2012 introduction says the form is guided by the theory of the organs and meridians (zangfu jingluo), of yin–yang and the five phases, and of qi and blood. It joins daoyin with yangsheng (nourishing life), and bodily exercise with the cultivation of the mind. It calls the movements graceful and smoothly linked, simple to learn, and suitable for different groups of people [2].

Its principles. The verse’s chapter on the form’s features names these points [3]:

its theory comes from the Book of Changes and from medicine (养生理法源于易医);
the movements travel along circular paths (功走圆道), in keeping with the old idea of the unity of heaven and humans;
“every movement turns” (逢动必旋): the arms and hands spiral as they move;
the work is done through the hands and feet (工于梢节);
mind and form are joined, with the mind “like a clear stream”;
breath follows movement: “slow movement, long breath” (动缓息长);
inner and outer work support each other, with the intention centred at the waist (命意腰际).

Breath and attention. In the preparatory posture the verse asks you to stand with feet together and the whole body relaxed, the tongue touching the upper palate, the teeth lightly together and the eyes softly closed. It also asks you to recite the verse silently, let the breath settle and rest the attention in the dantian below the navel [3]. In several movements, breathing in goes with rising, a gentle lift of the pelvic floor and drawing in of the lower belly, and breathing out goes with sinking and letting go [3]. Almost every movement names a point to rest the mind on: the dantian, guanyuan (关元) on the lower belly, mingmen (命门) in the lower back, laogong (劳宫) in the centre of the palm, or taiyuan (太渊) at the wrist [3]. Several movements press the fingertips into laogong when the hand closes into a fist [3].

Sounds. The verse also asks for sounds familiar from Liu Zi Jue. In movements 1 and 2 it asks for the hu sound (in movement 1 “read silently”, 默读呼音); in movements 3 and 7 the si sound (呬; silently in movement 7); in movement 8 the chui sound (吹); in movement 9 the he sound (呵); and in movement 11 hu again [3]. Some of these lines say “read silently” and some only “read” or “breathe out”; from the verse alone we cannot tell whether every sound is meant to be voiced or silent. We found no mention of the other two Liu Zi Jue sounds, xu and xi, in the verse.

The “main effects”. Each movement’s verse ends with its “main effects” (主要作用), described in terms of meridians, organs and qi, and in places by naming illnesses [3]. The publisher’s description of the English book likewise promises “health benefits for each movement” [8]. These lines express traditional Chinese medical theory as the form’s compilers understand it. They are not results from studies, and we do not repeat them here.

One practical caution in the verse is worth passing on: in movement 5, a forward bend, it says that people with high blood pressure should keep the head raised [3]. If you have a health condition, please also read Who should be careful with breathing practices.

Names from poetry, legend and music

Label: 📜 Documented history (the names and verses) · 🔵 Tradition only (the meanings given to them).

The movement names are classical images, and the verse explains several of them. Movement 2’s “two fish” are the two fish of the taiji diagram, yin and yang waxing and waning [3]. Movement 3’s verse quotes the famous lines of the old steed in the stable, whose heart is still set on a thousand li, from the poem “Though the Tortoise Lives Long” (龟虽寿) by the warlord-poet Cao Cao, as a picture of strength of purpose in old age [3, 20]. Movement 4 is named after the archer Ji Chang, who in the verse learns from Fei Wei by training his eyes until a louse looks as big as a cartwheel [3]. Movement 9’s “wild geese settling on the sandbank” is, in the verse’s own words, a piece of music for the qin, the Chinese zither [3]. Movement 11’s phoenix is described as the auspicious king of birds [3].

Zhang wrote a whole essay on the first movement, “Qianyuan qiyun”, explaining its name through the Book of Changes, the old dictionary Shuowen jiezi and classical poetry [4]. Its verse links it to spring and new beginnings [3].

How it relates to Zhang’s wider system

Label: 📜 Documented history.

As our first article shows, Zhang’s Daoyin Yangsheng Gong is not one form but a large family of routines, created from the 1970s onwards and taught at Beijing Sport University since 1986 [9]. The Center counts “more than 50” of them [2]. The university lists routines such as the 49-movement meridian exercise (四十九式经络动功), Shuxin Pingxue Gong (舒心平血功) and Yiqi Yangfei Gong (益气养肺功) [9]. Many of them are named for organs or functions in traditional Chinese medical theory; a 2023 study of Zhang’s ideas calls his basic approach “matching practice to the condition” [17].

The Twelve Daoyin Exercises take a different line. They are a general sequence for everyone, not a routine matched to one complaint. And, as far as the sources we read show, they are the form of his that appears on the Center’s lists of officially promoted forms; Shujin Zhuanggu Gong, for example, does not [6, 7]. The Center describes them as a selection from his routines [2]. We have not found a source that says which of his earlier routines each of the twelve movements was taken from, or how far the movements were changed in the process.

How it relates to classical daoyin

Label: 📜 Documented history (the old texts) · 🔵 Tradition only (the link the form draws).

Daoyin (导引), “guiding and pulling”, is the old Chinese name for exercises that combine stretching, movement and breathing. Our article Daoyin: from the Mawangdui chart to modern Qigong follows it from the Zhuangzi, through a painted chart sealed in a tomb in 168 BCE and a bamboo manual of about 186 BCE, to the Qigong of the 1950s.

The Twelve Daoyin Exercises carry that name, and their verse opens by placing them in a long folk tradition of nourishing life [3]. But we found no source that traces any of the twelve movements to a specific ancient text or chart. Like the rest of Zhang’s system, the form is best seen as a modern composition in the language of classical daoyin, not a reconstruction of an old form. Mawangdui Daoyin Shu, made in the same 2009 round [1], at least carries the name of the Mawangdui tomb where the 168 BCE chart was found; the Twelve Daoyin Exercises point to no single ancient source.

What science says

Label for this section: 🟡 Early evidence (a few small studies) · 📜 Documented history (what was studied).

How we searched. We searched PubMed for “Daoyin Yangsheng Gong”, “Shi Er Fa”, “twelve-form daoyin”, “Health Qigong Daoyin” and related spellings. No study had the form’s name in its title or abstract. A full-text search in Europe PMC found the form inside a handful of papers, under names such as “Daoyin Yangsheng Gong Shi Er Fa”, “12-step Daoyin Health Preservation Exercises” and “Twelve Methods”. Here is what we found, from most to least specific.

Cancer survivors (2023). In a study by researchers in Taiwan, 125 cancer survivors, 93% of them women, chose for themselves whether to join a Qigong group (51 people), a mindfulness group (38) or a control group (36) [11]. The Qigong group learned Daoyin Yangsheng Gong Shi Er Fa in a two-hour class once a week for 12 weeks, and was encouraged to practise at home. The researchers measured fatigue, fear of cancer coming back and quality of life by questionnaire, and heart rate variability, a measure of how the heartbeat varies from beat to beat. They report some changes in the Qigong and mindfulness groups over time. The study was not randomised: people picked their own group, so the groups may have differed from the start. The authors also note that home practice was not followed up [11].

Women in drug rehabilitation (2025). In a randomised trial in a compulsory drug rehabilitation centre in China, 96 women were assigned to the “12-step Daoyin Health Preservation Exercises” (31), to cycling on an exercise bike (33), or to both (32), in 45-minute daily sessions for six months [12]. By the end, 80 were still in the study. The researchers measured resting heart rate, lung capacity, choice reaction time, sleep quality and a questionnaire on the tendency to relapse. All three groups changed on several measures compared with their own starting point, and the combined group changed most. The assessors did not know the group allocation; the participants, who could see which exercise they were doing, could not be blinded, and there was no group without exercise. The authors name the small sample and the reliance on self-reported measures as limits; the trial was registered after it had started [12]. Because every group exercised, the trial compares kinds of exercise; it cannot show what the form adds to no exercise at all.

Single movements in mixed routines. Two small randomised trials in people with Parkinson’s disease used a routine built from movements of several Health Qigong forms [13, 14]. Both drew on the Twelve Daoyin Exercises [13, 14]; one of them names the two movements it took from this form, “Qianyuan qiyun” and “Yunduan baihe” [13]. Whatever these trials found belongs to the mixed routine; it says nothing about the Twelve Daoyin Exercises as a form.

Chinese studies inside larger reviews. Some Chinese-language studies of the form exist, including theses, and reviews sometimes include them. A 2025 network meta-analysis of exercise and depressive symptoms in college students, for example, included a 2018 Beijing Sport University doctoral dissertation and a 2015 journal study on the “twelve methods”, but pooled them with very different activities: its table counts both in a broad “aerobic exercise” category, although its own definitions list Daoyin exercises under “dance and rhythmic movements” [15]. Results pooled this way cannot be read as results for this form. We have not read the Chinese originals and leave their findings out.

The wider system. For Zhang’s other routines the picture is similar. A 2025 network meta-analysis included three small trials of Shuxin Pingxue Gong, one of his Daoyin Yangsheng Gong routines, which measured blood pressure in older people with high blood pressure; its authors rated the certainty of that evidence as low [16].

What this adds up to. On the ladder in our article Study types explained: from anecdote to meta-analysis, the Twelve Daoyin Exercises sit low: one non-randomised study and one small randomised trial without a no-exercise group, in two very particular groups of people, with outcomes partly based on questionnaires. There is no systematic review of the form, and no trial outside China and Taiwan that we could find. That is early evidence at most, and it says more about what has not yet been studied than about what the form does.

Where popular claims go beyond the evidence

Label for this section: 🟠 Speculative.

“Each movement has proven health effects.” The “main effects” listed for each movement in the official verse and textbook come from traditional Chinese medical theory [3, 8]. No study we found has tested a single movement’s effect on its own.

“Research shows the Twelve Daoyin Exercises work.” Two small studies used the form on its own, one of them not randomised, and neither compared it with no activity in a randomised group [11, 12]. That is a starting point for research, not a result.

“It is an ancient form.” It is a modern composition, compiled as a research project from 2009 and released in 2010, drawing on routines Zhang created from 1974 [1, 2, 18]. Its names and images are classical, but we found no source tracing a movement to a specific old text.

“Zhang Guangde created all the Health Qigong forms.” He is documented as the source of this one [2, 5]. The first four forms were compiled by teams led by others [10], and of the five 2009 forms only this one is credited to his work in the sources we read [1, 2].

“Official recognition means it is proven.” Being on the Center’s list of promoted forms is a decision by a sport body [6, 7], not an independent clinical evaluation.

How this relates to the Six Healing Sounds, Qigong and neigong

Label for this section: 🔵 Tradition only (traditional theory) · 📜 Documented history.

The Twelve Daoyin Exercises sit close to Liu Zi Jue in two ways. Both are official Health Qigong forms of the same Center, Liu Zi Jue from the first round in 2003 and the Twelve Daoyin Exercises from the second. And the Twelve Daoyin verse itself uses four of the six Liu Zi Jue sounds – hu, si, chui and he – within its movements, sometimes to be read silently [3]. In the verse, as in Liu Zi Jue, sounds and movements are linked to organs: movement 1, for example, links its hu to the spleen and stomach [3]. These organ links are traditional theory, not anatomy; our article Liu Zi Jue: where the Six Healing Sounds come from shows how such pairings changed over the centuries.

The form also carries the quieter, inner side that the word neigong points to: the tongue on the palate, the attention resting on the dantian and on named points, the slow match of breath and movement, and the verse recited silently before you begin [3]. How these feel from the inside is something practitioners describe in their own words, and it deserves a place beside the history and the studies, not in place of them.

Resonance Heritage Qi is a personal, music-assisted practice inspired by Liu Zi Jue: connected to it, not a replacement for the traditional form or for study with a teacher of that tradition. If you want to learn the Twelve Daoyin Exercises properly, look for a qualified Health Qigong teacher.

Enjoyed this article? Get my free practice guide to the Six Healing Sounds. Just sign up below, confirm your email, and it’s on its way.

Sources

Health Qigong Management Center, 2009. 五种健身气功新功法正在编创中 (Five new Health Qigong forms being compiled), 26 May 2009, accessed 21 October 2026. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5401/c666432/content.html
Health Qigong Management Center, 2012. 健身气功•导引养生功十二法简介 (Introduction to Health Qigong Daoyin Yangsheng Gong Shi’er Fa), 3 August 2012, accessed 21 October 2026. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5407/c670032/content.html
Health Qigong Management Center, 2017. 健身气功•导引养生功十二法口诀 (Verse summary of Health Qigong Daoyin Yangsheng Gong Shi’er Fa), 7 September 2017, accessed 21 October 2026. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5407/c824761/content.html
Zhang Guangde 张广德, 2017. “乾元启运”文化内涵解诂 (The cultural meaning of the movement “Qianyuan qiyun”). Health Qigong Management Center, 4 May 2017, accessed 21 October 2026. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5407/c801424/content.html
Health Qigong Management Center, General Administration of Sport of China, and Chinese Health Qigong Association, 2022. 我国著名健身气功专家张广德教授逝世 (Famous Health Qigong expert Professor Zhang Guangde has died), 30 January 2022. Official WeChat account, accessed 21 October 2026. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/aVHDUh9NNsQHfxBdVo5Yug
Health Qigong Management Center, 2020. 体育总局气功中心关于健身气功推广功法目录的公告 (Notice on the list of promoted Health Qigong forms, 气功字〔2020〕51号), 24 July 2020, accessed 21 October 2026. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5402/c957402/content.html
Jia Haihong 贾海红, 2026. 清单做“加法”，服务做实事——健身气功新版功法目录发布 (New list of Health Qigong forms published). China Sports Daily, republished by the General Administration of Sport of China, 28 August 2026, accessed 21 October 2026. https://www.sport.gov.cn/n20001280/n20001265/n20067533/c29891430/content.html
Chinese Health Qigong Association, 2014. Daoyin Yangsheng Gong Shi Er Fa: 12-Movement Health Qigong for All Ages. London and Philadelphia: Singing Dragon. With DVD and CD. ISBN 978-1-84819-195-2. Paperback edition 2018, ISBN 978-1-84819-417-5. Originally published Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2012. Bibliographic details from the Ann Arbor District Library catalogue record; contents as given in the publisher’s description; we have not seen the book. Accessed 21 October 2026. https://aadl.org/catalog/record/10026149 ; https://us.singingdragon.com/products/daoyin-yangsheng-gong-shi-er-fa
Beijing Sport University, China Wushu School, 2014. 导引养生教研室简介 (Introduction to the Daoyin Yangsheng teaching and research section), 28 May 2014, accessed 21 October 2026. https://wushu.bsu.edu.cn/xygk/jyssz/dyysjys/14372.htm ; archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://wushu.bsu.edu.cn/xygk/jyssz/dyysjys/14372.htm
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Lee YH, Chang YP, Lee JT, Lee DC, Huang EY, Lai LT, 2023. Heart rate variability as an indicator of the beneficial effects of Qigong and mindfulness training on the mind–body well-being of cancer survivors. Supportive Care in Cancer 31(1):59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07476-7
Yang G, Meng D, He S, Wei M, Li M, Zhang L, et al., 2025. Comparative effects of Health Qigong and closed motor exercise on the physical and mental health of female drug rehabilitation participants: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 25:38. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-025-04797-y
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Wan Z, Liu X, Yang H, Li F, Yu L, Li L, et al., 2021. Effects of Health Qigong exercises on physical function on patients with Parkinson’s disease. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare 14:941–950. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S303945
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Li H, Lin X, Wu X, Huang R, 2025. Effects of six traditional Chinese mind-body exercises on obesity and cardiovascular risk factors in middle-aged and elderly hypertensive patients: a network meta-analysis of 49 RCTs. BMC Cardiovascular Disorders 25:606. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-025-05084-x
Han Xiaoming 韩晓明, Qiao Fengjie 乔凤杰, 2023. 张广德导引养生观的历史生成、要点阐析与时代价值研究 (Zhang Guangde’s view of daoyin health preservation: historical formation, core points and contemporary value). Journal of Beijing Sport University 46(2):139–148. Accessed 21 October 2026. Abstract: http://dianda.cqvip.com/Qikan/Article/Detail?id=00002HGKKH8O7JP0MJDO7JP16HR
Li Xueying 李雪颖, 2017. 全国健身气功站点联赛增设新功法比赛以赛促练推动普及 (National Health Qigong club league adds the new forms). Health Qigong Management Center, 28 November 2017, accessed 21 October 2026. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5401/c836864/content.html
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Source quality note:

[1]–[3], [5]–[7] and [10] are published by the Health Qigong Management Center or the General Administration of Sport, or republished by them; [9] is Beijing Sport University’s own page. They are official, insider sources: good for dates, names, the form’s structure and its stated principles, not independent assessments. [3], the official verse, also contains health claims for each movement, which we do not repeat. [4] is written by Zhang himself.
[8] is the English edition of the official textbook; we have checked its publisher’s description and bibliographic details but not read it.
[11]–[16] are peer-reviewed journal articles, read in full on PubMed Central (via Europe PMC). [11] is a non-randomised study; [12]–[14] are small randomised trials; [15] and [16] are network meta-analyses, cited only for what they say about this form or Zhang’s routines.
[17] is a peer-reviewed Chinese journal article; we have read its abstract only. [18] is an official news item of the Center, cited for the start of national training in the new forms in 2010; [19] is the Chinese edition of the official textbook, known to us only from bookseller listings. [20] is a Chinese journal article on Cao Cao’s poem, cited only for the attribution of the lines; we have seen its index records, not the article.
[1]–[7], [9], [10], [16] and [17] were reused from our first article on Zhang Guangde, where they were fact-checked; [2] and [3] were re-read for this article. All Chinese sources were read in the original; the translations, including the movement names, are our own working translations.

Disclaimer

This article is for general education only. It is not medical advice and does not replace diagnosis or treatment by a doctor or other qualified health professional. Qigong and the Six Healing Sounds are traditional practices; we make no claims that they cure, treat or prevent any illness. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, or are unsure whether a practice suits you, please talk to your doctor first.

The Twelve Daoyin Exercises: Zhang Guangde’s Health Qigong form

In short