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I sure hope he keeps going. Very powerful content. In this morning’s session I found my right midriff was stuck. What the heck! I was just over there yesterday and everything was fine. I am always intrigued by what I find in each session.
Hello,
Im nearly midway through month 7 and feel like Im not yet confident in my liver awareness. There are instances when I feel like I could be feeling my liver but nothing lasting or concrete. Also, when trying to tap push or massage my liver I cant honestly say Im distinctly feeling my liver.
Otherwise, all is swell. I do feel like my belly, midriff and sides have more range of motion and have been doing my best to maintain a fairly steady rhythym.
Before moving on in the practice I was hoping to get my liver awareness more dialed in. Does anyone have advice or links to video on liver movement that may help in my situation?
Many Thanks,
Kevin
Hi Kevin, I’m familiar with the challenge. I’m on month 9 and can’t always sense or ‘connect’ with my liver. My approach has been to carry on with the programme even if I don’t feel that I’ve achieved all the objectives of any particular month with any particular measure of success. As a number of people have noted progression isn’t linear, it’s very much iterative and circular – and I guess few people retain and can recall the breadth and depth of the meditation circle learning all of the time. Indeed, I sometimes find myself going backwards as much as forwards – although overall my sensitivity and awareness, and ability to remain present, are slowly improving. My experience has been that both month 8 and 9 continue to develop and consolidate liver awareness (amongst other things!), both adding in new layers and backfilling earlier gaps. Hope this helps.
best
Colin
Hi, Kevin. I don’t know how fast or slow is normal, but it took me a really long time to really feel the internal organs. I’ve done a lot of different Energy Arts practices and they come at it from a lot of different angles. lately, they’ve all converged for me and I can feel the liver energy, as well as the balance of liver and spleen Bruce talks about. It took me a really long time, though. Like almost 10 years of various practices to get to this point. And that’s after having done tai chi daily since 1987, and with really good teachers.
There are two things I’ve learned: the various forms of internal energy don’t feel anything like I imagined they would, and it’s better to come at this with a completely open mind and just work on being as present and sensitive as possible.
I don’t know if this is helpful or not. Good luck with your practice.best wishes, matthew
Thats great Matthew; thanks for your insight. Im very grateful to have become connected with everyone in this circle. I plan on making this a life long practice and I look forward to the process.
Well, I think I’ll throw on some warm clothes and get an outdoor night session in before bed!
Cheers,
Kevin
Has anybody tried belly rolls as Bruce suggests?
I’m a bit apprehensive of trying them as I have a weak lower esophagus sphincter; and any strong movement in that area can disturb its work.
I didn’t try the belly rolls beyond a few experimental movements to see if I could get them happening (no). Bruce talks about belly rolls in the Bagua Program as well and talks about the importance of finding a good teacher. I did a few google and YouTube searches, with no real luck. What you find when you search the web for belly roll lessons or something similar is about what you’d expect – eclectic, odd, and sometimes “adult” rated. I didn’t really go beyond that initial half-hearted search. I wonder what other folks discovered…
THis is interesting in a sense that majority of daoist schools teach reversed breathing eventually as the main breathing technique practice. At the same time Bruce focuses on direct breathing up to the pretty advanced level. The Bagua program is perhaps the only one where Bruce talks a bit more about reversed breathing. I asked one of the participants of Crete’s Longevity breathing 3-weeks training in 2009 (?) and he confirmed that only direct breathing was taught
I’m sort of OK with that due to my esophagus sphincter issues, but I’m still wondering what other feel/think about reversed breathing.
I mean, belly rolls should be done on reversed breathing, right?
The bagua mastery program goes into quite a bit of depth about reverse breathing. However, Bruce strongly encourages learning it directly from a qualified teacher. He gives some preliminary information in the BMP materials that you can get started with, but withholds the advanced instruction. He talks about the applications of reverse breathing in advanced baqua meditation and it seems important to high level practice. I haven’t messed around with it because he’s pretty adamant about how damaging it can be to your body if you do it incorrectly. Just out of curiosity, I picked up Yang Jwing-Ming’s “Qigong Meditation: Embryonic Breathing.” It’s interesting but seems like mostly a scholarly treatment not grounded in a particular lineage of master-level instruction.
Anyway, I’m not entirely sure if you need to do reverse breathing for the belly rolls. I’m going to wait on reverse breathing until I can learn it from either Bruce himself or one of his senior students. (I realize that means I may never learn it, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.) If I stumble across someone who can teach belly rolls, I’ll do it. Otherwise, that’s on the back burner, too.
I have the Embrionic Breathing by Yang Jwing-Ming as well. The book has very good reviews; and it is highly regarded among The Tao Bums folks. But I couldn’t make any practice from the book. General ideas – yes; as a source of references – very good; but for practice – not even close to what Bruce teaches IMO.
Reverse breathing is more powerful and ‘more logical’ if one could use those terms. For instance, when you do taiji it is just much easier to do expanding movements on exhale and contracting movements on inhale; but for this you would have to breath reverse. The same goes if somebody does energetic practices like MCO for instance. It is much easier and ‘more logically’ done with reverse breathing.
…..I found YouTube quite helpful. Lots of simple belly rolls from the ‘belly dancing’ community and a few yoga people and fitness types. I’ve experimented and found them quite easy to do, and the intensity can be varied. I’d check with a MD before experimenting, there could be a risk of gastric reflux, especially on a full stomach.
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