knee caps

[Anonymous]

lots of tension in knee caps when standing in the best alignment i can attain
if i tilt slightly forward knee cap tension lessens, however the weight distributions on bottom of feet also shifts forward and becomes uneven
guess i may have found a perfect place to concentrate on when i start the dissolving process
any advise out there??
daniel

[Anonymous]

Hey Daniel,

I think dissolving your kneecaps is a great idea. If you have trouble dissolving them while standing, you can also try to dissolve them while you are seated in a chair. Sitting down might alleviate the discomfort in your knees and make it easier to focus on dissolving.

Janak

[Anonymous]

Have you tried simply lessening the degree of flexion in your knees? I.e., aim to set standing alignments well within your 70%?

[Anonymous]

In my modest opinion, if you feel lots of tensions at the knee level is that maybe you’re keeping your body weight on your knee. As Bruce said, the knee is not for holding weight.

I would suggest shifting your attention on the sole of the feet and play with the different pressures you can feel, ideally you want to feel pressures evenly but it’s not a static thing and it’s always moving and so
it will keep you busy feeling the sole of the foot.

[Anonymous]

Yes and it does help
Thanks

[Anonymous]

I had some pain to the right on my left knee cap (inner knee) in the medial meniscus area from a running injury. It is gone now. I think “how to fix a knee injury” is similar to “how to get knees more open and let the weight drop through the knees”. I found I had a recoil away from putting weight on the front of my foot and it caused me to put more weight on my left heel than the whole foot. The crazy thing to me, which likely is happening to you, is that I actually thought I was putting weight on front and back of (my left foot) feet, but I actually was favoring my heel for weight distribution. Knee pain and slight callouses/mini-bunions on my big toes let me know I was not putting enough weight on the front of my feet. I corrected by:
(1) practicing weight shift before doing cloud hands. Feel equal weight in front and back of foot when shifting weight from right to left foot and vice versa. I practice weight shift 3-10 mins. before starting leg twisting, and then adding the arms. I think knee tension is likely due to not letting more weight be on front/ball of foot; at least for it was
(2) (different set but my priority #2 point) in 3rd move of dragon and tiger I first do the move on my better leg. I notice how it feels. Then I “let my good leg/knee show my bad knee” how to do it. I move to the left leg with the injured knee.
(3) When walking around casually at home I will try to walk slightly on the front/ball of my feet. in stead of heel-toe walk, I do ball-heel and it feels natural. The trick for me is is a slight lifting of heel about 1/2- 1 cm for me (not 3-4 cm, it is too high). I notice no knee pain when I do this.
(4) usually wear full support running shoes when I go for walks for exercise. I like Brooks Adrenaline GTS model. This mimics action in rec’d #3. I heard New Balance full support is great too
(5) avoid creating any pain in knee when doing cloud hand, standing, swings, etc. make movements smaller (70% rule). For me the twisting was not the issue, but for many people it is. For me I had knee pain from a recoil away from putting full weight on the front on my left foot (but I not realize it at first)
(6) the whole energy gates form helps a lot. If I don’t do it for a couple days (and do H&E or D&T instead) I miss the chifull twisting in my feet tissue and I do the full energy gates set to get it back more fully using the 10 min. dissolving/ 5 min cloud hands/ 2 mins swing one/ 2 mins. swing two/ and untimed spine stretch. I.e. those are ratios and I will often do the cloud hands longer when I am integrating something.
(7) dissolving helps. easiest to dissolve for me in standing posture. When I feel/sense something loud in my body I do dissolving first, or when I cannot feel my chi flowing overall as much
( doing the energy preparation/sensitivity exercise for dragon and tiger helps my legs a lot. holding hands on side of leg chi field and go up and down leg to end of field below foot. I do this for my legs, arms and head before doing dragon and tiger. Opening the chi nicely before practicing dragon and tiger makes it easy for me avoid any knee pain. The chi creates a buffer/protecter. I will do this exercise laying down before getting to practice
9) On a related note for knees to avoid injury always, always have knee and foot face the same direction. twisting the knee in different direction creates injury or pain. I found I was making this error slightly in my cloud hands leg twists, so I started to twist less to keep alignments

I did all those things for 1 month and my knee pain went away. Although I was doing daily practice the few months before, so it is hard to tell timing. I took classes in 2000-2002 with a Sr. Instructor and Bruce. I practiced daily for 4 years and stopped. 6 months ago I started daily practice again and the dvds help inspire that a lot. I practice Dragon and tiger, energy gates and marriage of heaven and earth daily. I focus more on one depending stress factors of the day, what my body needs and if I am trying to do integrate microalignments. During the process of shifting more weight on my front feet my whole body adjusted/realigned, mainly with the spine realigning and opening. Anyway, that is my story. 2 months ago I did not think my knee pain would ever go away. But it has. Now I can practice energy arts 2-3 time longer with comfort. Although I follow the recommendation of not doing more than 50% more practice than the day before, to avoid internal exhaustion.

[Anonymous]

Hey Scot,

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. It was helpful. It sounds like you have some good experiance to share. I hope you post more often

Your experiances echo mine in a number of ways

• Noticing that you are unconsciously favoring one leg because of some old injury and slowing learning to even things out
• Noticing that one side of your body is healthy and the other side is weak and using that to slowly change the injuried side of your body
• Trying to avoid creating pain in your knees by modifying movements to make them smaller. Trying to create less stressful versions of the practices has helped me greatly
• Dissolving is very important for dealing with pain in the knees. Energy gates and dissolving were key for me.

Janak

[Anonymous]

what wonderfully precise and insightful reply’s and i thank you
however i don’t think i asked the question with the same precision
i feel no pain in the knees
my kneecaps rise up when i put weight on my legs
for example is i empty the weight from the right leg and put it all on the left leg the left kneecap comes up and feels tense, and visa versa
when i have equal weight on both legs both kneecaps come up equally and feel tense equally
is this just a natural response or is this tension considered blockage

thanks again

daniel

[Anonymous]

Now it more clear what you are asking. Your question relates a lot to the 70% rule and adjusting your body. It is tricky learning and deciding whether to step into to tension or back off. Knees can be easily injured and slow to heal, so one must be cautious. It is good to let a little tension in the knees in and dissolve it. Then it will be easier to open them a little at a time. Overtime you will work your body into the correct posture. But you start by slightly adjusting your body to move in that direction. That is the water method. A fire method would be dive into the pain, hold a painful posture and try and blow the blockage way. You can help the water method by cross training and doing other things that help support knee health.

If that area was injured there may be emotional or other blockages that feel like physical pain but are not. If that is the case, it may be best to dive into the pain, embrace it and let it go (dissolve it). I think of ice to water as releasing the tension, and water to ice as letting it go fully. I personally experienced that. An energy arts instructor helped me get the right alignment. Via Q&A we realized I was recoiling from an old injury. The held fear made the pain feel more than it was. The actual pain was minor. Once I realized that I could hold the alignment and it went away within a month. A bonus of working with an instructor is that their energy field helps yours, and greases the wheels so to speak on the healing process (which is why people often do tai chi/qigung in groups to support one another energetically).

If you just stand in posture painful for knees you may not be able to make progress. It depends on the person. E.g., if you are very overweight and stand on your knee hurting them, you will likely not be able to dissolve the pain ever. If you practice neigung often and you are average weight you may be able to dissolve the pain while being in it.

One a more general note…

As Bruce mentions often there are several levels of practice. The starting place is healing injuries. Then one moves on to power development and spiritual development. In reality it is not sequential and linear, instead the areas of development overlap where insights come along the way.

At first there will be aches, pains and injuries to heal. Overtime they get better and heal. Having pain anywhere (physical, emotional, mental, and all levels) indicates a blockage. I cannot give the Chinese saying but in English to paraphrase Bruce often says where the energy does not flow there is pain and where there is pain energy does not flow. This is a fundamental idea of Chinese medicine and for many people is the reason they go for acupuncture, tai chi, herbs, or any treatment. So whether one has knee pain, back pain or any pain the general principle still applies.

Overcoming ones individual blockages is not always easy or straightforward. There are a multitude of reasons why one could have a blockage or pain. People often try different types of healers until they find the right one. One great benefit of tai chi, qigung, neigung is that one heals oneself and does not need to depend on anyone else. But most people seek help form others to help speed up their healing/strengthening process. You may need someone to help you open up your knees. I suggest an experienced Energy Arts teacher. A qigung tui na practitioner would best (not tui na, qigung tui na). There are western specialists that could likely help too, e.g., physical therapist, osteopath, and others.

Personally I have sometimes reinjured a part of my body that was injured in the past. I saw it as a chance to heal it better the next time. When I have knee pain I try to get all the help I can from others and help myself heal at the same time. Then I take it from there myself. When I had knee pain I went to an Orthopedic Surgeon to get xrayed and get a prescription for physical therapy. I did physical therapy for 2 months and all the things mentioned in my earlier post. Now my knees feel right as rain. I do daily qigung and neigung to strengthen my body/chi and prevent injury.

[Anonymous]

once again thank you for the detail
i have no pain or past injuries, just tension which i understand as a block and it feels like it as well.
i think mine is as simple as continuing to adjust alignment. i notice i automatically pull knee caps up when trying to find balance in the standing posture, if i sway too far forward or backward, just haven’t found the sweet spot yet.
the good part is i have become aware of it and not to go off subject but i found another spot as well: my stomach, i am always sucking it in, creating tension in that area. sure it has something to do with culture and ego…
anyway awareness is growing and i believe that is progress, another way i have of expressing the 70% rule is” progress not perfection” which is a saying i have also incorporated into my workplace with great success

thanks again

daniel

[Author]

Posts