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  • #16
    Stops twiddling thumbs as
    The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for Health, Longevity and Enlightenment
    arrived thursday yay!

    and today arrived
    Qigong, the Secret of Youth: Da Mo's Muscle/tendon and Marrow/brain Washing

    Having now read "the roots" cover to cover

    what a can of worms I have just opened

    Time to beat back the Xin emotional mind with Yi wisdom mind
    (This is going to be interesting/challanging training)

    Regulation in my new buzz word!!

    (think i will leave the other book for a while but may have a peek in it )

    afew questions for people who may have read the book / and can understand my questions.

    ive tryed out the arching the arms posture gong shou pg 99

    its an exercise for sensing qi flow

    its opened my eyes for sure.

    I also tryed the leading Qi exercise on page 100

    you stand and amagine you are pusing your palms down while being fully relaxed

    my palms did become warm and it did feel what felt like air was coming out of my palms,

    is this too yang? ie to make your hands warm like that on page 56 it says the chinese symbol for qi was constructed with two words "no fire."

    and goes on to say that a qigong practitioner should not try to feel your qi as heat, its better to feel it as an electrical sensation?

    also With abdominal breathing and building qi in your lower dan tian it was suggested to think your dan tian was on fire to help regulate/ focus your xin emotional mind on the dan tian and help it not wander.

    but if you feel that is it too heat/fire .. is this also too yang as well?

    Maybe im looking to deep into things at this stage.

    Fantasic read though.
    Do or do not there is no try.

    Comment


    • #17
      If heat happens, whatever. Don't TRY to feel heat. Just let it whatever happens happen. Don't worry about your yang.
      Show me a man who has forgotten words, so that I can have a word with him.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by Void
        Im getting really curious about QiGong
        and would like to find more information and learn about.


        The Eight Pieces of Brocade | Ba Duan Jin

        Small Microcosmic Circulation | Xiao Zhou Tian Qigong

        Grand Microcosmic Circulation | Da Zhou Tian Qigong

        Muscle | Tendon Changing and Brain | Marrow Washing - Yi Jin Jing and Xi Sui Jing


        If you know about any these of these and can impart me with some wisdom or can point me in the right direction to a true source> I do understand this is a very complex topic, and I should seek out a Sifu to put me on the right path, or for them to answer my questions.

        I just have this urge to find out as much as I can about this, having trained in MA for quite some time, I realising I should be undertaking this alongside what im currently doing.

        Cheers for any light you might be able to shed on the subject

        no.... the can of worms only contains a few species, so once you understand those, contaiing and controlling them is simple......

        I don't know if it'll help your perspective any, but I've been practicing qigong myself for over 15 yrs and the way I see the diffrence between the above qigongs is a series of lvl and pre-lvl skill and understanding based progessive sequence.

        The small miscrocosmic circulation being ( as far as I beast logicise it) an essential beginner lvl qigong where the practioner experiments with sending qi through their bodies, all the various senstations and just gets familiar with qi and having an awareness of it in their body.

        Then with the grand micrososmic circulatin the practioner is introduced to "extrenal" and universal qis and begins to learn how to incorperate a relationship between the two with the body as the focus vessel where it all merges .


        With the brocades, a practioner then starts to condition their body twd being able to execute martial applications and is introduced to more blatant however basic of those apps and prep sequences to prepare for the tendon change .

        The tendon change is the most martially focussed and while also increases familiarity with finer body mechanic consideration , where you should start to really find length and jings etc, preps you to use internal stylings for any martial form at all and just gets you familar with how they all play together to cover the typical internal stylist awareness from health to body condition to relaxedness and the importance and contrast of being supple ( subtle) minded , how it effects your health and performance amd the importance of each of those elements as apects of continued practice .

        It does get easier to get creative on how you put all the aspects together for whatever your pasrticular need and goal is for each sesh and day and form and style etc as you get more familiar but Imho, it's an easy way to break it down and get started on some harmony.

        enjoy the ride and don't forget to reflect on what you glean occassionally and mentally run the sequences and apps once in a while until in your mind it plays smoothly and naturally and you can find a flow or a zone to either ride with for the day or bring into your real time artistry as you find you need it .
        A days end zazen ( meditation) is always good if you can swing it .... but have fun with it , make it as much a non - thinking relaxation as you can not think through ( because we do that bit in zazen ) and good luck.

        cheers

        Blooming Lotus

        btw : on the heat issue, I like to use the white blue qi visual when I need one ( even if it's just over a few good deep grounding nasal inhalations and exhalations tounge to roof of mouth breaths when adrenalin or fear if you get moments of it or thoughts or whatever interfere with your relaxed state as you pull some up and send it through some meridians and settle it your dantient and lower for intenser stabilzation need or back into the ground leaving the concious connection reestanblished & open as you relax and your satori kicks itself back in ) ...
        ..... it's stronger / purer and it contains elements of all of the above, has a nature of it's own and will just do what it needs to.

        cheers
        Last edited by blooming tianshi lotus; 09-11-2005, 02:46 AM.

        Comment


        • #19
          Thank you for the comments, some really helpful and good stuff.

          with abdominal breathing training, which is more advisable

          laying down, sitting or even standing?

          Laying down i find is good to really relax limbs etc but i dont normally sleep on my

          back and some times it feel my head should be raised on a pillow while doing

          abdominal breathing to stop a mild falling feeling.

          sitting take more focus to be still and let things be.
          ie stop hands arms wanting to move a tiny bit "to make them more comfortable"

          I can see why you need to have a strong body/ core to be able to sit still for a time while performing sitting meditation.

          With things like sitting in half lotus / lotus position i notice this would help keep the back in a neutral position so muscles dont have to strain /micro strain to hold the position and stay balanced.

          ive seen people sitting on a cushion while meditating,

          so ive been using my sand bag to sit on with legs in half lotus, as i cant quite do the full lotus. I find this helps give a firm base to work from

          any suggestions on how long to sit and meditate?

          ive tried the counting breaths but i find i get eventually annoyed with the counting process ( maybe i Just need to build my mental stamina doing this)

          afew of my goals are

          1. control my mind to be content with the now and not wander about while meditating

          2. continue abdominal breathing and regulate and relax my breath. in tern relax
          the whole body.

          3. build qi

          4. learn more about leading qi

          i will be really interested to read your thoughts
          Do or do not there is no try.

          Comment


          • #20
            I think the thing with laying meditation is more about the breathing and spine alignment and getting familiar with good posture to then use for not only your standing artistry interms of balance and absorbing blows and oxygen circulation and mind clarity and also as a good way to send qi through your limbs at nice well postured lengths.

            I really reccommend that you look into getting hold of a pilates dvd and whiler you're doing that apply your breathing techs and meditational mind set ( hence doing it at home alone withthe dvd) and you should get a good idea of what I mean.

            In the meantime, I think the best advice I can give you, is when laying make sure your tail bone is on the floor, pelvis slightly tipped up so you end up with a small arch in your lower back, ribs flat to the ground and drive your navel to your spine , which with the deep breathing allows easier and more comfortable use of your lower diaphragm. Shoulders should be relaxed and open , hands to your side , legs slightly turned in and toes comfortabley pointing twd the ground. Feel free to adjust your position as you start to clear meridians and need the extra length and to perform some basic qigong arm movements, like wide circles either direction and over the top of your head moving the qi through your crown ( bahui) and back down over your face and down your outter arms and back up through your inner arms down parellel with yur nipples then to centre through your cv meridian and the centre of your body line to either rest in your dantien or visually send it through your lower body spreading out from our pelvis to your hip socket, down your thighs , crossing over to the inside of your knee and down your inside calf to run over the inside of your ankle bone , over you instep, over your toes and reentre somewhere in the middle of te sole of your foot just below and in the middle of the two fleshy mounds either side to run up the back of your legs over the outside of your toosh back in twd your spine up and over and so it goes.. once you get in good practice , you might also like to try a double hit and visualise that as the qi is being drawn up ( and always through your dantien remembering it's there and is your focal point ) that the qi is also being sent back down similtaneously...because it is a ciruclar flow process and this is what hapens.

            Try using four counts for your breathing until it just settles into a natural rythym.. four slow in, four to hold on and four out of your lungs and down through your diaphragm them deeply into your lower diaphragm with initial "goal" to expell as much air and dirty qi out of lungs as possible ... and holding flat with no air in your lungs as your lower diaphragm becomes activated, spend a moments focus on your dantien awareness that from there should have sufficient momentum for you to send nxt circle through with slightly more concentration on bits where you notice blockage or interuption or feel needs stimulating or settling ........like bones and organs and joints and muscles and nerve lines ..and then when your ready microcellularly ........ when you release that though, don't take your navel off your spine, but don't tense your abs, the navel to spine thing will take care of that , just relax into each new position and continue to breath. tongue to roof of mouth and breaths in and out of your nose expanding your ribcage as you breath in....
            Sounds complicated but really , it's quite a natural flow and once you get comfortable with it, you should dig every beautiful moment you can milk it for....and don't forget to lengthen your spine( shrug your shoulders up gentely drawing your upper torso with it) as your lungs refill...... awesome stuff....

            and 'this' is not only healiung qigong but also a good pre -iron shirt conditioner.
            lol@ the long post considering busy btw, but I quite dig the exercises myself and it's a pleasure to give it to you.
            ....


            As for the sitting meditation, I think 'that' is more to do with discipline and satori ......... and imo an essential part of competance....

            the bugger with that though can be back pain ... but if you do your spine alignement regularly, and even while you're in your lotus if you must by dropping your knuckles nxt to you on the ground and lifting your butt off the ground shaking or dropping your spine out loose then arching your upper back or bridging your shoulders and releasing through a quick neck tilt either way before you release again to your posture..you should end up quite more comfortable and able to sit for much longer.

            Standing meditation I think is best kept brief maybe no more than half an hour should be ample and just remember the flow from the laying sets folowed with some slapping along the same and then a nice fireball building exercise from your dantien andbefore your resinkl it..

            I'm not really sure what your experience is here , sio please don't shoot me if I'm sounding slightly patronising. It's a simple few effective sets as an alternative anyway.

            I think that'll have to pretty well cover it for now so cheers and hope some of it is of use.

            Blooming tianshi lotus

            Comment


            • #21
              What a fantastic reply !

              Thank you for spending time explaining Brilliant!

              I'm from an external Martal art background per say
              but it has its soft elements too. but im always looking into all forms of training and merge with what I already know.

              and ive always be interested in the internal works of energy and "trying" to master everything I become interested in ( )

              its really interesting training in a predominately external way

              were you challange yourself your very being and push to become more refined
              in speed strength technique and external awarness.

              to then stop and just

              breath and focusing your concentration inside paying attention to the "tiny"

              why i really looking at the internal is because constant hard external

              training does take its toll on your muscles and joints and you ache after training which leads to more hot baths/ Liniments to counter the tough training.
              now dont take this that im getting tired of hard training, i not im finding the harder the training the better i like it.

              but i know there are other forms of training to learn and mastered to counter balance it.

              so thats where im at, so time to open some more doors and see whats there.

              Do or do not there is no try.

              Comment


              • #22
                after I logged off last night I thought about your half lotus flexor flexibilty issue and wanted to tell you how much success I've had increasingmy own flexibilty by incorporating a series of sitting iso kinetic leg stretching and contracting exercises ....... also greeat contioning exercise for quads and huuge diffence to stance execution and so on.....


                I have explained it here before but you sit on your tail bone legs togeter and straight ahead....

                lengthen your spine up and drop then extending up and out from your hips , slide your chest down your legs in standard calf stretch ...... the idea being that by the time you sequentially warm up your flexors ( hip / leg connective tissue ) slowly through small angle contracting and stretching you should eventually be able to at max rom point or split length distance be able to with your tail bone directly perpindicular to the floor, run your chest flat to the ground and grab or push out your ankles with a thumb down wide open palm..... meaning your whoole rom is loose and strong and your pelvic bone leg connection is always easily on ready....

                I actually looked at some sport physio studies with new med - science technology they conducted for out Australian olympic athletes and as it turns out...it is at the point in rom that ideally and measurabley in terms of power output that ppl generate the most power in their lower body rom .....

                Matt shirvington was he case I looked at and if you google under him and knee injury recovery / treatment assessment or something, you should find a good informative read....

                So once in your beginning position after stretching down to warm up your hammys, you go through a series of 100 contractions , focussing on your quads / butt, bringing your calfs into it and then your hammies as you widen your angle with each progressesive set. Don't be shy to watch your quads as you go either because it'll inspire you..... you can see the whole muscle group working and get a good idea of how much tighter you can go ......

                the important thing with it though is to at each new angle apart to come down for your lngthening stretch .exytending your spine and making sure that even if you only hold it down there for a sec or severalm that your form in it has integrity.... really important to the whole point of doing it .......

                so at angles about 10 degrees or so apart each time , repeat to the max rom you muster , keep your pelvis tucked under while you're upright, intemitentantly runm your chest down each leg in the same fashion as you do twd the front, try to keep a straight spine lifting up out of your pelvis as you go and don't forget when you need more length relax into your stance , breat in to repair and as you exert a long deep slow exhalation use the inertia of that qi to push out ( or relax down into ) some more lngth.....

                have fun and don't forget that if you lay on your stomache, handfs under chin, elbows out , pelvis flatto floor and raise both legs connecting your glutes and pointing your feet then raise or 50 each set for 4 - 6 or so sets a sesh ...your lower back will thank you

                cheers and again .have fun with it.

                Blooming Lotus

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