Energy Gates

Here’s a quick update on what we’ve been working on during Immersion Week 2014. I’m very impressed (and I say so in the video about 15 times!) with the way this group has patiently explored many different facets of the Swings and Spine Stretch without rushing ahead to try to fit seemingly contradictory pieces together conceptually. Instead, they’re doing a great job experiencing/exploring each different component on its own. When you practice this way, you naturally come to integration points where the components gel in a way you couldn’t have predicted.

I’m getting excited about Immersion Week at BTC next month, where we’ll take another look at the Spine Stretch and the Three Swings. Another look? Like we’ve done it before? Yes! Why is it exciting to go back to the same qigong sets over and over again? So-called creative people understand better than most that there is nothing new under the sun. Working with boulders of granite, with empty stages, with blank paper, they are credited with making something out of nothing, but that isn’t exactly what they do. All art is derived from what is in actuality a remarkably finite human experience. Whatever the medium, the creative person’s task is to interpret an essentially unchanging reality, a dog-eared reality pondered by Homer and Mel Brooks and everyone in between. The artist succeeds if he or she can present something familiar from an unfamiliar angle." ...

I’m very excited to share some news about two big projects with you today: Brookline Tai Chi’s annual Immersion Week and the publication of the Tai Chi Way to Better Balance as a physical book. Join me from Tuesday, April 22 - Friday, April 25 at Brookline Tai Chi in Boston for Energy Gates Moving Qigong Exercises. Times, cost, and registration details in the link. The Tai Chi Way to Better Balance is now available for purchase on Amazon, but you can also get your copy of the physical book directly from the publisher.

In this video, we’re talking about building up the skill of Outer Dissolving in your standing qigong practice. When you start out, it pays to follow a recipe - a set of instructions that lead through a certain procedure physically, energetically, and with your mind. However, there are times you want to break away from the recipe and times you’ll want to reflect on your experience verbally – but there are good and bad ways to do both.

If you read last week’s post on standing qigong and the Energy Gates book, or better yet, you can stand comfortably “just feeling” for 15-20 minutes, you’re probably ready to embark on the downward dissolving process. This week, I want to help you get started. I recorded a guided practice mp3 to get you through the first workout in the Energy Gates series: Feeling the Gate at the Crown of the Head. ...

When you set out to develop your internal energy using standing postures, there are two main ways you can go about it: by feel or by form. Now, there will be a lot of overlap in these two broad approaches, like aligning your body with gravity without collapsing internally and progressively releasing and relaxing as you stand, but when it comes to the role of the mind, form and feel can be very different. ...

Dan standing in New Mexico, not Vancouver (yet!). Do you live in or near Vancouver? Are you willing to travel to refine your Energy Gates practice? At the behest of a few eager Vancouver locals, I wanted to reach out and see if any of our Northwest-oriented readers would be interested in a spring 2014 Energy Gates seminar. Date and exact location haven’t been nailed down yet, but if there’s enough demand, I would love to come out and do some Energy Gates with you. ...

We’re borrowing a technique from Dragon and Tiger qigong to try and get a better sense of the lower tantien. The lower tantien (“dan-tee-en”) is the energetic center of your physical body, located just below your navel, on the central axis of the body. If you dropped a line down from the crown of the head, through the body, and out the bottom of the pelvis, it would pass through the lower tantien. ...

From the outside, standing qigong can look calm, peaceful and meditative. On the inside, if you don’t ask yourself these 3 essential questions, standing can be grueling. Your muscles ache, you tremble and sweat, and in burning discomfort you strain to see how much longer you must endure. It doesn’t have to be torture, though, if you adopt the right mindset as you practice. ...

One of the major goals of standing qigong is to develop a strong downward flow that clears stagnant energy out of your system and strengthens your natural restorative abilities. When you begin to work on this process, though, it’s natural to wonder how strict you need to be able sticking with the downward flow and what to do if you start to notice other things happening in the body. Recently, I got this question via email that nails the exact issue: ...