Mystical systems
Five Animal Frolics
Direct answer
Five Animal Frolics: The Five Animal Frolics, Wuqinxi, are a set of Chinese exercises that imitate the tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird, credited to the physician Hua Tuo of the second century.
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At a glance
- Also called
- wuqinxi, wu qin xi, five animals qigong, five animal play
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Qigong, Daoyin, Baduanjin, Qi (Chi)
The Five Animal Frolics, Wuqinxi, are a set of Chinese exercises that imitate the tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird, credited to the physician Hua Tuo of the second century.
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Which are the five animals?
Wu is five, qin is animals and xi is play. Each animal gives a short group of movements with a character of its own: the tiger reaches and pounces with clawed hands, the deer turns its head to look behind, the bear sways heavily from the waist, the ape picks and darts, and the bird spreads its arms and balances on one leg. The practitioner is asked to take on something of the animal's manner as well as its shape.
It is practised today as a qigong set for general fitness. Later Chinese medicine paired the five animals with the five phases and five organ systems, a scheme laid over the exercises well after their first mention.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Yoga, qigong, tai chi.
What sets Five Animal Frolics apart
Its distinguishing idea is imitation of character as well as shape. A practitioner is meant to be fierce in the tiger, alert in the deer, heavy in the bear, quick in the ape and light in the bird, so the set works on mood and expression in a way plainer exercise drills do not. It is also the one Chinese exercise set whose origin is told in an official dynastic history, with a named physician, a named pupil and a reason given.
- Chinese name: Wuqinxi: five, animals, play
- The animals: tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird
- Credited to: the physician Hua Tuo, died about 208 CE
- Earliest record: Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms, 3rd century
- Pupil named: Wu Pu, said to have stayed hale past ninety
- Modern standard: a state health qigong set, issued in 2003
Often mistaken for something else: The Eight Pieces of Brocade are abstract movements named for their effect; the Five Animal Frolics are mimicry, each section named for a creature and coloured by its temperament.
The story behind Five Animal Frolics
The source is the biography of Hua Tuo, who died about 208 CE, in the Records of the Three Kingdoms compiled by Chen Shou later in the third century. Hua Tuo tells his student Wu Pu that the body needs movement as a door hinge does, and names the five animals; Wu Pu is said to have kept his teeth and hearing past ninety. The history does not describe the movements. The oldest surviving instructions come from later compilations, and the form now taught was standardised under China's state sports authority and issued in 2003.
Why Five Animal Frolics matters
It is the earliest named exercise set in Chinese records with an author attached, and the model for the many animal forms that followed.
How to read Five Animal Frolics
Groups practise the whole set in about fifteen minutes; teachers also pick a single animal to suit a stiff back or unsteady balance.
Five Animal Frolics in practice: an example
In the bird's movement a practitioner lifts one knee and opens both arms like wings, then lowers them as the foot comes down.
Where readings of Five Animal Frolics go wrong
Today's movements are a modern reconstruction: the third-century source gives the animals' names and nothing of how to perform them.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- wuqinxi, wu qin xi, five animals qigong, five animal play, hua tuo five animals
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Which are the five animals?
Tiger, deer, bear, ape and bird. English versions often say monkey for the ape and crane for the bird.
Did Hua Tuo really create the Five Animal Frolics?
The third-century history credits him with it, and there is no reason to doubt that he taught animal exercises of some kind. Whether today's movements resemble his cannot be known, since his own instructions do not survive.
How are the Five Animal Frolics different from the Eight Pieces of Brocade?
The Brocade is a set of eight plain movements first recorded in the twelfth century. The Frolics are older in name, imitate animals and ask for more bending, balancing and changes of level.
