In the West, many people translate the word Qi as “energy”. This is viewed by most scholars of Chinese culture as a poor translation. It is perhaps more accurate to translate Qi as everything that circulates in the body. It can be as immaterial as spirit, energy and nerve impulse and as material as blood, lymph and other body substances.  To gain a better understanding of this concept, it may be helpful to consider Newton’s first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but only transformed.  The same is true of Qi.  Most broadly defined, the concept of Qi includes anything that may be viewed as an active force.