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October 31, 2005
The Balance of Mental and Physical in Qigong Posture and Movement
I just attended a very good workshop by Master William Ting, which included sessions on Qigong, Bagua and Tai Chi. Amongst the many excellent principles that Master Ting discussed, was the principle of how to balance the mental and physical in any particular posture and movement.
For instance, if you have seventy percent of your weight on your right leg, then thirty percent of your mind needs to be devoted to that leg, while the left leg should balance this out with seventy percent of the mental attention residing there, to complement the thirty percent physical.
According to Master Ting, if you don’t keep this mental/physical proportion in place during your postures and movement, you will not be in true balance.
To understand this in action, balance a glass of water on the palm of one hand and invite a friend to remove the glass. Almost certainly, as the friend removes the glass, your hand will move slightly. However, now remove the glass from your palm using your own other hand. Now, almost certainly the hand that was holding the glass will not move.
Why? Because in the second case, with your own involvement, the mental and physical were in near perfect balance.
At Newark airport, I was reminded of this phenomenon again, when I had to walk down an escalator whose power had been turned off. My mental association with movement for this design of stairs was so strong that I found myself physically out of balance, walking down something stationary that my mind powerfully believed should be moving.
My friend and Dragon Door author Pavel has discussed this same idea from a different perspective for strength training. Pick up, let’s say, a suitcase that you expected to weigh one hundred pounds, which actually weighs five pounds. Most likely the suitcase will fly up.
I recommend Master William Ting for those of you interested in going deeper with Qigong, Tai Chi and Bagua, including the self-defense aspects. His website is www.silvertigertaichi.com.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2005
The Importance of Working with a Good Qigong Teacher
You can only go so far in your qigong practice by learning from books and DVDs. Qigong books are wonderful to get a better understanding of the history and theory of qigong. If the books contain photographs and descriptions of forms, then you can approximate those methods on your own but are most likely to be off in important ways.
DVDs get a little closer to being able to transmit some of the deeper qualities of qigong.
However nothing ever beats the impact of studying with a reputable, experienced qigong teacher. When I started qigong thirty years ago, it was very difficult to find good teachers—and I spent a fortune and much time tracking down different teachers to study with.
Fortunately, it is now relatively easy to locate a qigong teacher in most US metro areas. But how do you gage if the teacher is right for you? Are there any red flags to watch for?
Here’s a few tips garnered from my own experience:
Does the teacher model what he talks and teaches? A good teacher will usually emanate a relaxed, benign presence and will be balanced and respectful.
How is the teacher’s energy? You should be able to feel a definite energy coming off a highly trained qigong practitioner. Their hands will normally be warm to the touch. If they do qi healing work on you, you should normally be able to feel distinct sensations within your body.
When you finish a class with a qigong teacher, how for you feel? You should normally leave leaving energized and relaxed.
Who is attracted to this qigong teacher and why? Take a look at the students who have been studying with that teacher for any length of time. I have attended a few qigong seminars where the teacher’s longtime students appeared surprisingly unhealthy, if not dysfunctional.
Does the teacher make wild claims or make surprising demonstrations of “qi power”? The qigong teachers I most respect have been very down to earth in this department. Outlandish claims and “magical” demonstrations are a big red flag, in my book.
How is the teacher’s sense of humor? Most of the great teachers I have been around have been light hearted and have an excellent sense of humor. Beware the overly serious.
How is the teacher’s own health, physical strength and movement? Again, find a teacher who is clearly practicing what he preaches.
Is the teacher able to answer your questions in a clear manner? If the teacher has truly been around the block, they will be able to answer most of your questions with conviction, even if it is only the conviction that they simply don’t know the answer!
Who has the qigong teacher studied with and for how long? A teacher doesn’t have to have spent twenty years in a Chinese cave or a medical qigong hospital to know their stuff, but lineage remains an important indicator of likely worth.
Does the qigong teacher cover all the bases? While you may be coming to qigong for one particular benefit, a good qigong teacher will transmit knowledge in all the major aspects of qigong—posture, correct movement, correct breath work, correct use of attention and consciousness for energetic and spiritual cultivation.
Finally trust your gut, or BS meter. If you find yourself questioning the integrity of a qigong teacher, most likely your hunch will be correct. “Virtue” is not a word we use much anymore, but look for it in your teacher.
I have sometimes hung in with a suspect teacher simply to learn a particular method, but I don’t recommend it. Studying with a qigong teacher has a very intimate quality to it… be very aware of what you are exposing yourself to.
A good qigong teacher should inspire you, give you a vision of what can be achieved and either jumpstart your practice or help you move it to a new level.
A good place to check out teachers on a national basis is at the National Qigong Association’s website: www.nqa.org
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 6:36 AM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2005
The Ultimate Goal of Qigong
If you ask the average person what brought them to qigong, you'll most likely hear some combination of stress-release, better energy, enhanced flexibility, greater strength or the healing of disease. Martial artists will be looking for explosive power and resilience. Healers will practice qigong to boost their healing capabilities.
These days, with a significant portion of the population over the age of fifty, many are drawn to qigong for its contributions to anti-aging.
All of this is wonderful and my personal experience over thirty years has confirmed qigong’s ability to deliver on all these counts. However qigong has a greater promise, the promise of enlightenment.
And what is enlightenment? Qigong teachers point to a state that essentially defies verbal description: a merging with the Dao, a sense of union with universal energy, a dissolution of egoistic attachments, a state of deep, abiding peace and tranquility.
Sounds great, but sounds like a lot of work to attain. Well, yes and no—as most mystics will be quick to tell you.
Enlightenment is not something you can make happen. But you can engage in practices that will open you to the possibility of this its realization.
The barriers to enlightenment include mental preoccupations or busymindedness, emotional imbalance and physical disease.
Qigong practices ideally act to seduce us out of our preoccupations and allow us to enter a quiet, energy-based state of simple awareness.
Qigong practices help smooth out the rollercoaster of our emotional addictions to achieve a less needy, grasping state of being.
Qigong practices help cleanse us of the toxins and physical blocks that create a burdening, distracting pain for us.
The more we practice, the deeper our sense of presence and the more we can rest in a state of relaxed attentiveness.
This relaxed, attentive openness allows for the possibility of enlightenment to arise naturally.
Fortunately, whether or not we realize the qigong Holy Grail of enlightenment in this life, the practice of qigong makes that quest thoroughly enjoyable. Qigong takes great discipline to maintain, but the pleasurable rewards are there for the taking… practice qigong every day and it is almost impossible not to feel lighter, more energetic, more balanced and generally happier.
My personal final goal with qigong is definitely that of enlightenment. In the meantime I am enjoying its ancillary rewards: enduring vitality and well being.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 6:31 AM | Comments (1)
October 10, 2005
The Five Essentials for Restoring, Maintaining and Generating Qi
I am currently editing a book on shamanic qigong by new Dragon Door author Zhongxian Wu. Wu reminds us that there are five essential areas that need to be addressed for optimal qi cultivation:
Regulate the breath, regulate posture, regulate the heart/mind, regulate diet and regulate sleep.
We discuss these first three regulations all the time here, as the most obvious concerns of qigong.
However, I have fallen into the trap myself of regarding these first three regulations as the magic formula which will protect me from neglect or abuse in the areas of diet and sleep.
I don’t pretend to any great expertise around diet but here’s my personal fast guide to a diet that will complement the other aspects of your qi cultivation:
Whenever possible, eat “clean”, minimally processed, whole foods. Avoid burdening the body by eating too frequently, or late at night. Eat a wide variety of in-season foods and avoid eating in fast food restaurants as much as possible.
Nothing very startling here, just the message to sensibly consume clean, high-nutrient fuel when your body can most easily extract benefit from that fuel.
What is startling for me, is that I can barely go a day where I can comfortably claim I met this basic plan. How about you? If there has to be an area I find the hardest to maintain at optimal levels, it’s my daily eating habits.
Well, running a close second is sleep… I probably rip off my qi the most, by simply not sleeping enough. Each of us needs a different amount of sleep, but in my case I feel I need an average of eight hours to truly restore myself.
My actual average is more like seven – and I pay for it with reduced energy. I like to stay up reading, often until 1 or later in the morning, particularly. Call it a trade-off – current pleasure against future loss – which I am often willing to make.
But looking at the bigger picture, I could undoubtedly significantly enhance my overall qi cultivation by adding just an extra half an hour average to my current sleep. What about you?
My point here is that it’s easy to ignore one crucial element in our qi practice which will eventually affect all other aspects of our practice and well being.
Spend some time reviewing your priorities and perhaps consider modifying one or more of those key areas, for better balance and overall health.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 8:59 AM | Comments (1)
October 3, 2005
Can You Combine Internal Energy Practices At the Same Time As Your "External" Workouts?
Com. Joey asked me this and related questions recently (my answers are scattered through his letter):
Joey: "Is there a good way to develop internal energy at the same time as you do your external workouts? I have found in the past that most any skills/drill practice worked better when combined with visualizations. Can you take this and make it a form of energy development without adding on too much extra practice?"
John: Absolutely! There is a lot of crossover between high-level strength training and internal practices like qigong. I wasn’t too surprised when powerlifting champion Bud Jeffries attended one of my qigong classes and was very excited by what he found he could carry over to his own discipline. There are iron shirt qigong like practices described in Pavel’s classic strength training book Power to the People!
In my qigong teaching I encourage students to use visualizations and sensing techniques to add power to their movement. One of the best examples is found in the Bear Frolic set, where one deliberately saturates the body’s cells with a sense of “deliberate power and force.” Most advanced strength training is really advanced mental training. The qigong visualization and attention practices develop skills which transfer automatically to so-called external workouts.
And particularly, as Pavel loves to teach, if you abandon the notion of “workout” (with its relatively mindless connotations) and start thinking of any external training as a “practice.”
Joey continues: “Here are some other methods I have played with in the past...most are simple breathing and visualizations I adapted from or was inspired by somewhere else. I would love your comments:
“1. I was reminded of this by your recent post on drawing energy to the fascia. I used to use something I called Body Breathing. Basically, I closed my eyes, and envisioned my entire body expanding and contracting like a rib cage with each breath, so that I was like a balloon getting bigger and smaller, so my body's edges "blurred" with the breath. Sort of hard to explain more, but it helped relax me a great deal. Ditto if I was tense somewhere, I would "breathe" with that part that was tense, and it would often help.”
John: Qigong’s internal practices, like the ones you mention here, contribute to external practices in many ways: allowing you to focus more tension when you need to generate greater tension, but just as importantly, teaching you the all-important skill of relaxing out of tension that is merely blocking your energy and movement (Come to the Unlock! workshop to learn a good range of these latter techniques.)
Joey continues: “2. I used to be able to project energy into my palm heels to make them warm after I took some Tai Chi classes at school…I can still do this, but not as easily…. I would like to learn some basic ways of doing this for healing and self-defense. Are there any simple ways to learn to project and sense energy from yourself and others, without getting weakened or disoriented? I have heard that this can be the case if you don't know what you are doing, or if someone else projects energy "into" you and you are unprepared.”
John: Yes, simply suck energy with your attention into your hands and forearms on the inhale and project the energy out of your fingertips on the exhale. Maintain a strong standing-qigong posture with your arms in front of your chest, palms facing down. (Full details in the Bliss Qigong DVD). There are many similar methods but if you persevere with this one method you can go far.
I don’t have experience or knowledge of being weakened or disoriented as the result of this kind of practice, so wouldn’t want to comment on that part of your query.
Joey continues: “3. I used to use alternate nostril breathing from Richard Hittleman's Yoga book, and found that it was a good way to calm down before studying. Are there any other methods that are superior to this?”
John: Well, this is a classic Yogic technique that certainly works. I would be hesitant to make claims that a particular qigong method would be superior. If it is working for you I suggest you stick with it. I do enough qigong that calms me down that I haven’t personally felt like adding this method to my own practice, although I have been exposed to it many times over the years.
See all of John Du Cane’s qigong resources.
Posted by james at 6:34 AM | Comments (0)