« The Importance of Working with a Good Qigong Teacher | Main | Are You Over-Manipulating Your Breath In Your Qigong Practice? »
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 October 31, 2005 10:00 AM