Creating the mood

It's been a very long time since I wrote about my practice... yet it is been strong during these months... and it hasn't been so much a matter of time, but of being in the mood to write or not.

Very much like getting around to doing qigong itself; somehow it seems easier to spend a cumulative hour resisting and procrastinating the practice, which when finally engaged in takes only 30 minutes. I've now been practicing virtually-everyday since 2003, and have often wrestled with the "resistance to presence" that gets in the way of *just beginning now*.

I'm fairly successful at creating the right head and heart space for qigong; it's a priority that I live; why not writing? Why not language study? Why not the synchronized swimming I'm so obsessed with? Well, okay... just writing ;-)

Topics that have been coming to mind:

• -- qi belt
• -- perenium awareness
• -- body breathing; feeling and flowing with a whole-body-level expansion/contraction
• -- using the eyes and ears; looking within, listening within
• -- mental/emotional detox

virtually every day I have some insight or another that I consider noting. Let's see how it goes.

thank you Bruce Frantzis!

Qigong master/author Frantzis wrote an anecdote in his book "opening the energy gates of your body" that caught my attention.

he's describing working with one of his teachers... who encourages Frantzis to "relax" as a paper bag of coins "relaxes" when the coins rip through the bottom and fall. Anyway, Frantzis thought it worth relating, and I never quite got why it was such a special story...

well, something came to me during my session tonight... I've been focusing too much on the coins rather than the bag!

My body as the paper bag, cleansed by the vacuum of vanishing contents... even shifting my attention equaminously from from one to the other, I notice a distinct difference between bag and coins.

With more attention on the weighty coins, as if to escort them to the door, I feel a grounding, sinking energy throughout my spine/body/etc. with tension zones in the neck. Kind of a subtle "down the drain" vortex-dish feeling.

When I shift attention to the bag my neck relaxes, my back/neck/head floats... I can still root well too... and I get a much better clarity... much more comprehensive awareness of the whole body, particularly shoulder area.

Lots of little breakthroughs in "dark tissue" areas.

Spherical Breathing

During my practice I have a tendency to get excited by (and focus on) "the cutting edge" of my experience... lately that has been feeling/building energy flows through my shoulders to my fingertips, and also spiraling rooting energy from my hips down through my legs and feet into the earth.

It's easy for me to lose myself in these extremities and disconnect from my core, which quickly sabotages my entire session! To progress further I have to reconnect! One powerful way to do this, of course, is breathing. Bringing awareness to the breath... deep and smooth... simple yet effective.

In a couple different books I've come across references to the lower back pushing outwards during inhalation... as a desirable characteristic... "you can recognize the old tai chi students because their lower back expands as they breath"... etc.. Although it felt rather awkward at first, I now find this concept of "spherical" breathing very powerful; it helps me relax (and properly orient!) my entire core/hip area.

Key points include feeling a slight expanding pressure in every direction (as if the balloon is inflating in the area below the belly button), allowing the slight pressure to adjust the position of your spine and muscles, relaxing your hip muscles and allowing your hips to rest naturally on your legs, feeling the weight being channeled directly down into the earth...

I find following these principles helps me find and maintain good geometry throughout my core/hip area, as described by Mantak Chia for his iron shirt exercises.

Sinking + rising = fullness

... well, perhaps "=" is putting it a bit strong... but let me explain ;-)

Virtually every qigong instructor and/or instructional talks about rooting down to the earth and opening up to the heavens. A variety of analogies and visual aids are employed... roots literally growing down from your feet into the earth... your skull being suspended by a string... the vertebrae of your neck and back floating upwards... etc.

The concept of fullness (aka. Openness or Dynamism or Rich Awareness) is also given great significance... and rightly so! I would go so far as to say that cultivating this "opening dynamic fullness" in every cell of your body is the single most crucial and fundamental aspect of qigong.

At least for now ;)

What I'm finding quite powerful these days is using a combination of sinking and rising to guide me into this rich state of awareness.

First, sink. In any and every body part, let each muscle/cell/neuron drop effortlessly, as if sand were falling through your fingers. Smile a bit, too... you're happy to let the sand go.

Then, rise. Not instead of sinking, but in addition to... which sounds difficult yet the two are surprisingly compatible. While the sand of your body and mind are flowing effortlessly downwards, allow your body energy to rise upwards... bringing with it your skeleton.

In the confluence of these two activities, where sinking is complemented by rising, lies a dynamic yet stable state of fullness. From here you will know what to do!

Open eyes

Since the beginning of my practice, I've instinctively closed my eyes while doing qigong. I find it easier to be aware of my body; the external world goes away and I get to focus on my insides.

Lately I've been reconsidering this though... in his book on qigong healing, Ken Cohen recommends practicing with eyes open...Mantak Chia says the eyes are powerful tool for concentrating qi... and both make it clear that you are not supposed to focus on anything in particular; rather, take everything in through your peripheral vision at once. I think this point is key; focusing on an object stimulates the mind in different ways... (try it!)... and peripheral vision seems much more compatible with the kind of comprehensive, body-inclusive awareness that qigong requires.

Opening my eyes during practice is having interesting results... during Embracing Tree, for example, including my hands and fingertips in my field of vision has helped me maintain clear, stronger, more cohesive presents with them. If I'm careful to not lose touch of the rest of my body while this is happening, the result can be very exciting... strong heat buildup in my hands, fingers and throughout my arms... and also better alignment of my neck/head.

This last point is interesting to me... the fact that using my eyes would increase energy flow through my neck and awareness of the meridians through my head. I'm now exploring "opening" my eyes without opening my eyelids at all... simply bringing awareness to my eyeballs themselves (while they are closed.) The resulting shifts throughout my neck area have been very encouraging! My head feels lighter, naturally floating upwards... the base of my skull comfortably rises... my neck feels more open, like energy is flowing more freely...

So... open eyes... and open eyes! I plan to keep playing with both.

Isolation and integration

For the past few days (ie. years) I've been learning interesting things about specific elements of standing... rooting through the feet, rising from the upper back/neck, opening the hips, energy meridians...

Focusing on one angle reveals important details, yet often I lose myself in that area (ie. wow this rooting thing is awesome, or holy shit I can feel my entire thumb-big toe meridian) and my scope of awareness narrows. When I noticed this I re-expand my scope of body consciousness, maintaining awareness of the detail (feet, knees, hips, neck, hands, etc.) within the context of my entire physical (and energy) body.

Awareness scope and intensity seem to have an inverse relationship, which is what makes zooming in on one part so seductive... yet as soon as I tune out of my larger body, tension creeps in! Where tension begins, qi stagnation occurs... compromising my entire practice. The micro is key... within the macro. Detail in context!

This oscillation between isolation (where intense learning can occur) and integration (where that learning is incorporated into my practice) is a natural process perhaps... I'm just surprised how persistently I'm having to reestablish my comprehensive awareness...so easy to lose the forest for the trees.

The power of rooting

Since beginning iron shirt, I spend 80% of my time in horse stance, doing "embracing tree". Horse stance is famous and is used in several qigong flavors... yet in iron shirt the postural instructions are very specific:

-- feet shoulder width apart
-- second toes aligned with heels, pointing straight ahead (feels weird at first!)
-- weight distributed evenly between heel, ball of foot (front-inside edge of foot) and outside edge of the foot
-- bend knees (of course)
-- tuck tailbone (sink + curve forward)
-- straighten back
-- "open" spine and allow each vertebrae to fill with energy and rise slightly upwards
-- "float" head as if suspended from heaven by string

This is a lot to keep in mind (especially when you are not supposed to be "thinking" at all!)...and over the past couple months I have discovered a few details that have amplified my qi concentration powers greatly. One of the most striking is the importance of rooting!

I have always visualized my body energy flowing through the "bubbling well" points at the bottom of my feet into the earth (and vice versa)... yet the specific postural alignments and iron shirt horse stance radically increase my sense of energy flow. There are many key points... here are my thoughts for just the feet:

-- bubbling well points are two thirds up your foot from your heel (I used to think of them directly in the middle)
-- weight is distributed evenly between the tripod of points described above (ball of foot, outside edge, heel)
-- toes are also touching yet not really bearing weight
-- "claw" the ground with the ball of your foot and outside edge... (not toes)... not actually moving, more of an intention... the beginning of a movement... let's call it a proto-movement

There are many more postural points to be aware of as you go up the body... these foot-points have helped me improve my rooting tremendously though, which in turn has had a huge impact on my overall practice. I'm raving about it because I'm really surprised myself...(!)...