Toni

My advice is to strenghten and stretch your quads. Healthy and strong quads will protect your knees. Also try maybe to bend less your knees at least until pain is gone

yes, correct, it is necessary to stretch the legs always

my favourite book is the Dhammapada, a classic, so much wisdom in a relatively short text. I can only recommend it to everybody

knee pain? make sure not to overpass the feet with your knees by bending them too much. Anyway, knee pain in ZZ is probably due to weak quadriceps. Train them, wall squats are a good idea for this

I don't think ZZ makes you stiff, it relaxes and soften all the body if performed correctly

would you mind to tell us about these shoulder exercises in the level 2 of zhi neng? i just did level 1 and i remember very well my shoulders hurt me ...

I would recommend you to relax the area, and also do some scapular exercises, like "stretching the qi":

I also like the term "cultivation". For me it means to train oneself, or to improve yourself. In which way? There can be many ways to train and to improve oneself, and some of them are surely mistaken. But a good way to understand this, though not the only one, could be to improve health, body and mind, in order to be not as much successful as virtuous

Very interesting topic. For my part, I have been doing stretching (and some strenghtening) generic exercises plus xiang gong (fragrant qigong). Now I have changed my routine a little bit, and I am doing less stretching but more standing meditation (zhan zhuang) and wall squats, and also xiang gong. Besides this I try to read something spiritual often to keep me on the right "path". My favourite right now is the Dhammapada, a classical pearl I can only recommend to everybody

I want to share my experiences after more than 3 months doing fragrant qigong. I have done level 1 for three months, and just this has improved my health and wellbeing a lot. It gives you a lot of energy, and it cleanses your stomach very well, among countless other benefits. Now I am doing level 2 too, and it seems it has great benefits as well, but I have only been doing it for the last few days, so I must rather wait more to make a good judgement. But it does seem that it is like a beauty therapy. I have learnt it throught Sifu John Dolic, I bought his dvds, which are a good help. Also, I want to say that I have taught level 1 to some friends, and they all fell much better after doing it. One of them even admitted to me that in just a few sessions it healed a problem he had. So I strongly recommend this style of qigong to everybody, as it is as simple as efficient

Hello! I am very curious to know the favourite system of the people of the forum. I am not talking about the single "best" qigong system, this probably wouldn't be a very intelligent question. I am just curious to know what is the one that you like the most. Zhineng, zhang zhuan, fragrant qi gong, wudang, Damo Mitchell's Ji Beng, 5 animals, etc? In my case maybe I shouldn't give an answer. I haven't practiced for long and I don't know many systems yet, but perhaps Damo Mitchell's Ji Ben Qigong is my favourite one among the systems I know. I also have watched some videos about fragrant qigong, and although I have never done it, it seems very powerful to me.

smile with all the cells of your body!

enjoy this one, a real treasure:

I don't get it neither

well, then maybe it is not really to be trust this list nor the government

Shibashi maybe? I m sure this can be found on the internet

In 1997 and 1998 the chinese government in two different studies claimed that zhineng qigong was the most effective for healing purposes. Does anybody know which qigong systems ranked second and third and so on? I can't find this information on the internet

Hi! It's a matter of fact that zhi neng qi gong is a style that many people regard as very positive and with powerful benefits, especially in the health level. I am always skeptical about popular styles or styles which a particular government promotes. I think it is quite clear that the chinese government has promoted this style. Also I am surprised that here in the forum people don't talk much about zhi neng. So I would like to know your opinion about this qigong. Is it as powerful as some people claim? I had to do a seminar about zhi neng in november, but now as I am doing fragrant qigong quite seriously I am not sure if I still should attend.

I first learned about fragrant qigong (xiang gong) here. Invaluable!!

I can't wait to read your novel!

so you want to see naked women at distance, don't you? :P:D

This is a very interesting and important topic. I would be happy too if somebody with knowledge regarding this is kind enough as to share it with us!

Very interesting topic. Many yoga and qi gong teachers tell us to look at a certain spot all the time. Even if eyes are closed one should have the eyes focusing on the top of the nose. Maybe I am wrong, but I think this is done because it is a way to relax the eyes, and thus calm down the brain. In NLP they say that when you think you move your eyes. When you think visually your eyes normally go up, when you think auditorylly they go to the sides, and when you think kinesthetically or you have an internal diallog they go down. NLP has some interesting theories for people who do qigong or meditation, and they themselves are influenced by these. So from this I would conclude that to focus somewhere with the eyes fixed and relaxed is a good way to relax the brain and the nervous system

I absolutely agree that negative thoughts are a constant in the majority of people. Honestly, I don't know why this is so. Maybe they are useful to protect our lifes from an evolutionary point of view. If we consider the bad possibilities then it is more easy that we can manage them if they finally become real. But also our western lifestyle promotes negative thinking. Our stressed lifes, our incorrect breathing, all our social prejudices and other bullshit, all this can contribute to negative thinking. And it is very important to eliminate this negative thinking in our daily lifes. This change can improve ourselfs quite a bit. Casually, I am reading a book now about NLP which deals with techniques to eliminate negative thinking

Now I am reading Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins. It is a good book, inmho, it talks about things that we can use here in meditation, qigong, etc. He stresses the importance of eliminating negative thinking, the importance of positive beliefs, and things like these. Also he has some good tricks, based on NLP, about how to eliminate bad thoughts.