Qigong

I recently received this breathing question and I thought it was worth sharing with everyone here as a post. (Don’t forget, you can send me your practice questions!) I’m really confused! I took a Yang Style Tai Chi course and at the end of the class we would do Qigong. He said “We will do diaphragmatic breathing. As you breath in draw the navel into the spine, as you exhale release and let the belly relax but don’t collapse.” What kind of breathing is this and what is the correct breathing for my qigong practice? Is this wrong? ...

It’s easy to get caught in a linear, progress-oriented way of thinking about your practice. What’s new? What can I learn next? Am I improving…all the time. You get so caught up in doing it right and refining every little detail that you can lose sight of the what’s really great about practice in the first place…the restoration, integration, and feeling of wholeness you can walk away with each time. ...

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.

When you settle into your practice each day, you should always give yourself a couple of minutes to just feel and see where your body, your energy, and your awareness are. In one sense, each practice session is about bringing the rhythms of each of those into harmony. That’s why Tai Chi and qigong can be so powerfully restorative. So, if you take a couple of minutes to just “settle in,” you’ll discover several possible things: ...

It’s been such a cold winter in the Northeastern US this year, that even Niagara Falls has frozen over. Every night, students come in to class shivering, that is, once they’ve resolved to venture out in the cold and the dark. And many haven’t even been up for that. Today I want to tell you about an important practice lesson you can learn from all this cold. You will develop a better feel for the chi of your etheric body and stay warmer in the process. ...

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.

“At some point, don’t we have to ask ourselves, “Aren’t I healthy enough?” Don’t I need to work on “waking up”, on manifesting kindness and patience, and being other oriented?” That’s from a conversation we’ve been having in the Inner Form discussion group and it got me thinking. You might be learning to cultivate your chi to heal old injuries or for the inner experience of meditative exploration, but at some point, shouldn’t your practice extend into the world around you, to the people in your life, and your work? ...

“Is it better to structure your practice to stay with one energy gate, such as the crown, until you feel some dissolving happening there, or should you just keep moving through the gates week by week moving onto another gate?” Excellent questions like this one keep pouring in. Thank you for sharing your practice experiences with me. I know other folks who read the blog really appreciate it too. ...

Thanks to everyone who reached out with questions about the first standing audio practice in the Energy Gates Dissolving series. I want to share some of the questions with you here. Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions or comments or think there is anything the needs clarification. Hopefully we can approach this series together as an ongoing learning process! What’s the Difference between Outer Dissolving, Downward Dissolving, and Sinking? ...