Question on Qigong training

[Anonymous]

Hi. I just joined the Energy Arts Training Circle, and I hope someone with more experience can help to clarify this matter for me..

I’m learning Chen Style Tai Chi with a teacher for about 1 year, the training concentrates on learning the form/postures but I can’t really feel the ‘chi’ yet, so I’m looking to learn something that can complement my Tai Chi training… which would be the right Qigong to start practice on a daily basis?

The different Qigongs taught by Energy Arts.. how do they fit into the complete picture?

I mean, should the different Qigong be learned/practiced in a certain order, e.g. Should I start with Energy Gates qigong and practice that for certain length of time before attempting Dragon And Tiger Medical Qigong or Gods In the Clouds Qigong?

The Description of the Gods In The Clouds Qigong mentioned that it is an advanced form of Qigong integrating all 16 neigong… if one practice that on a daily basis, is there still any point/benefits in also doing other Qigongs (Energy Gates, Dragon and Tiger etc) at the same time?

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Hi Kee,

I’ll try and answer some of your questions.

If you want to get a sense of your chi, I’d recommend practicing Dragon and Tiger. I think it’s the easiest way to start getting a concrete feeling of chi. D&T is a meridan line chi gung. It uses the movement of your hands to push and pull energy along the various surfaces of your body. You start to get a clear feeling of the energy between your hand and your body. If you’re at the stage of “I’m not sure if I’m feeling any chi” or “Is that chi? or am I just making stuff up?”. D&T is great because it gives a clear feeling of “Yup, I’m definately feeling something in my torso as I move my hand in the space in front of my chest. Hmmm… very interesting”

Practicing Gods won’t let you skip practicing all the other chi gung sets. The individual chi gung sets are where you learn specific skills. In Energy Gates you learn how to dissolve. In Marriage of Heaven and Earth you learn how to pulse. etc…  Gods is where you integrate all these seperate skills so that you can do them all at once.

Here’s an analogy that might help. First you spend a month teaching yourself how to juggle three balls. Then you spend a month teaching yourself to ride a unicycle. Once you can do those both with ease then you spend a couple of months learning how to juggle while you ride a unicycle. This last stage is what Gods does. It focuses on integrating skills that were learned individually.

Hope this helps,
Janak

[Anonymous]

Hi Kee,

I’ll just add some more detail to Janak’s already excellent response.

Dragon and Tiger is an fantastic starting place for learning Chi Gung, but so is Energy Gates too. You can really take them in any order you want. Energy Gates is a little bit more demanding, since you have to go through an initial phase of learning to stand, which can be quite uncomfortable, depending on your personal physical/energetic issues. And it takes more time. But the payoff is really great, especially if you do TaiChi, as the internal elements you’ll learn in Energy Gates are the ones most immediately necessary for TaiChi !
I personally began with Energy Gates and only learned D&T years later. But if I was a beginner today, having less time available, I would probably choose D&T, just because it’s quicker to learn and to do.

The Marriage of Heaven and Earth is also a possible entry point, although most people learn it after Energy Gates. But there is no prerequisite to learning it, really. People with back problems can be interested in making it their initial practice.

Spiraling Energy Body is not a basic Chi Gung set and Bruce always specifies that a solid fondation in Energy Gates is necessary to tackle it safely.

Similarly, it is necessary to have fully integrated the Marriage of Heaven and Earth before doing Bend the Bow and Shoot the Arrow.

Finally, Gods playing in the Clouds is said to be both the culmination of the system, the place where all the elements learned in the other sets are integrated and brought together as a whole, as well as simply a basic set that can be leaned as a beginner, but which will radically evolve each time another set is learned and new skills are acquired through them.
I imagine it must be a bit like a computer’s mother board with a very powerful processor. It’s good in and of itself, but it gets even better if you add a good graphics processor, sound processor, more Ram, etc…

Hope it helps,

Erwan

[Anonymous]

Hi Janak & Erwan,

Thank you for your detailed explanations. They are very helpful.

I’m halfway through reading the book Opening the Energy Gates Of Your Body… and from what I read so far, normal abdominal breathing should be use when doing the standing posture? This is quite different from some of the chinese books I’ve read on the topic of Zhan Zhuang (Standing postures), where they suggests reverse abdominal breathing should be used. Appreciate it if you can share your thoughts on this: does it matter which type of breathing (normal/reverse) is used when practicing Qigong (especially the Standing pose)?

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Reverse breathing can be dangerous – one can damage their digestive system if it is practiced incorrectly. Especially the Lower Esophagus Sphincter – the one responsible for numerous heartburn cases. Bruce didn’t teach reverse breathing even in his Crete Breathing retreat (as I was told by its participants). My personal experience is that one should approach reversed breathing with extreme caution. But as a tool, reversed breathing is quite powerful, that’s for sure.

[Anonymous]

Hi Kee,

In Bruce’s system, Reverse Breathing is considered an intermeditate practice. First you would do your practices with regular breathing. After you stablize that and that gets to be very easy and smooth. Then you would do the same practice with reverse breathing.

Reverse breathing can be more powerful then regular breathing. It will ramp up the pressures in the body considerably and will start to move a lot more chi. If you jump to this practice before you are ready, you can cause yourself serious injury. In particular, you can injury your internal organs and mess up your lower spine.

After hearing Bruce’s repeated warnings on the subject, I decided that I wasn’t ready for reverse breathing and so I’ve never really practiced it.

Hope this helps,
Janak

[Anonymous]

Hi Janak & Igor,

Thanks a lot for the information.

Kee Siang

[Anonymous]

My experience with reverse breathing, which may be helpful for you

I learned reverse breathing boosting performance in weight lifting. Back then I didn’t know it was a Qi Gong practice. It definitely boosts power output, and also helps protect the Spine under very heavy loads.

But doing i regularly caused residual tension in my abdominal area and lower back, which was difficult to get rid of during meditation.

Therefore I don’t practise it anymore, but if I have to do very heavy lifting I will use it as a back up.

But I think Bruce talks about it on his Hsing I DVDs somewhere. The method he describes is way more difficult than the one I did.

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