Heat

[Anonymous]

I’m hoping that someone can help me to understand what is happening here. This is my second month of practising Standing Qigong and a few times I’ve noticed that I suddenly get really warm, my face feels hot and I become aware of my heart beating. this happens usually around the second or third round of sinking my qi and gradually goes away as my mind moves down my body. I’m wondering if I’m not doing something the right way but can’t work this out. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I’m fairly new to this.
Thanks.
Suzanne

[Anonymous]

Hello Suzanne, great that you have been getting into this, and taken this (practice/exploration) on.

Its hard to say from just a comment (so your sense of whether what I’ll write below is ‘on’ for you, or not quite fitting-your-situation.. may help it be more on track and applicable). -the key is, does this warmth feel “scorching” or achey-hot, or it is a flush-warm (sort of a fluid-feeling, like being in a sauna, or hot tub.. even a hot shower, either during, or just after stepping out).
–if the second, it can have an achey-feeling, that might be slightly prickly, as the circulation is opening up, sort of like the pins&needles affect from the cold.. but in this case, you weren’t cold, rather increasing your micro-capillary soaking more than you are accustomed to.. (an opening process in your flesh).

I’m reading, from your description (espec face feels hot, and become aware of heart beating… later you can even feel the “pulse” shifting, out in arms.. then even torso/guts, and into legs. By feeling this flux in your arms, out to your “gloves” (skin on front-sides-back of hands) and beat in upper chest , along with the other instructions of “standing” that can layer and shift your awareness state further… [this Bruce has mentioned as the 20mins of sustained practice time that gets to the “flooding of the vascular beds”.. before that, the heart itself may be felt by changes in blood pressure, up or down, getting to that “flooding”.. as well as if there are alignments off- restricting breathing or compressing circulation.)

So I’d recommend (to ref that last pt above), to check all the droppings and liftings- lengthening and “sung” (stack up the alignments and don’t let any part slump or lean-angle… feel that that opens up/helps your breathing and “pulse” and awareness as a whole, or how it hindres…)… but do this in a relaxed way, one can raise the entire tension in body (nerves), or even in a ‘relaxed’ body.. the mind-attn directing it&watching can become tense and “hard”…

….. see if there is a sense of scorchiness to the heat (like a feeling of sunburn.. vs the warmth of the sun itself… ) whether in an area of the soft-tissue flesh.. or deeper in how the blood seems to flow, or even in the shape of your frame itself. -sort of like floating in a “warm” bath (not hot, or uncomfortable, nor cool).. and realize that the body has “Growing pains” from this, just like other-exercise.. (the training affect, the soreness is not in the contractile-muscles, but the blood-vessels, and other structures).. but as you let-go and flow “it” more, one does feel the “exercise” as much (and then more) than moving about..

.. I’d just add, have the let-go be the basis of dropping (gravity) more so than a sinking felt as a ‘pushing-down’ (that can cause tension in diaphram subtly).. and allow that down-flow, like that riding in an elevator feeling.. that can help settle and adjust, and connect up the parts.. I hope this helps…

— if parts don’t seem to fit (or if they do), and/or if you try any adjustments from above in your practice and find changes, and you describe more, those here may be able to add more. (keep exploring, but don’t drift too far into changing in a way you feel isn’t right- for you). -cheers

[Anonymous]

Hi Taokua and thank you so much for your response. Much of what you say makes a lot of sense to me. The heat that I felt did feel like a flush and seemed to come from deep inside. It did eventually subside or maybe it was that I just started to feel more comfortable.

I am working on my alignments all the time – sometimes everything feels good and my mind feels as though it is deep inside me and then I become aware of maybe my head or my shoulders and have to keep making tiny adjustments. This is still a challenge for me (and no doubt will be for some time) and your comment about how the mind / attn can become hard strikes a chord with me.

I appreciate your comments and will keep them in mind. These are my first steps on a long journey but even with my less than perfect practice, I have already begun to notice improvements in my health. After nearly two years of being unable to sleep at night, I am now enjoying regular good quality sleep and feeling so much better. This is entirely down to qigong and I am looking forward to learning more as the months go by.

Thank you.

Suzanne

[Anonymous]

Hello there- great to hear my comments may have helped [awesome hearing of success-steps, as you say it is a journey not so much a race but a marathon as the saying goes- how to keep-on-keeping-on is the biggest trick]

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Any other thoughts/questions and discoveries that you share, I’m sure I’m not the only one that will appreciate reading..

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getting a first, solid-concrete recognition of a benefit is significant (for the subcon valuing the time/activity)… it is a continual adjusting refinement (not just as now-I-get-it = learned.. but tweak, tweak, aha-eureka)

>> This is entirely down to qigong and I am looking forward to learning more as the months go by. << imagine what could be possible…

(in terms of alignments: at times just feeling gravity accepting your parts down and balanced by the hydraulic-springiness upward,, per not being intangible, for the ground to hold, your substance itself is “matter”.. can those two aspects “fully” support you? ie with no effort, except keeping “stacked up”?) but just at times.. mostly, practice as you mentioned..
* (I find the insidious “other people don’t do this” influence to the a steady pressure on people to find it hard to do this ~standing.. unless it becomes an “exercise” or “efforting”..
how to take on this practice/exploration, not just for a short burst of “learning soemthing new? – but to take-it-on.. so to speak… ongoing.. (just like brushing one’s teeth, there was a time when that was weird, and a hassle.. now just is -for most what if one “brushed one’s teeth” not just as a task, not just to clean, but each-day, each-time one learned a bit more, and developed (like in standing).. [the layers of paper stack up, over time]

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