qin00b

Yes, that's why I'm waiting to finish this cycle before starting a new method.

Thanks. I'll put it on my list to start after my current gong of Fragrant qigong is completed.

That video is not so good. Use the video recommended here instead: That entire thread should be helpful for you and answer your questions, although I don't think too many people kept up with it for the recommended 3 months. I'm only about 6 weeks into it and like most of my qigong practices, it turns into a slog around then. Interestingly, I've had 0 motivation to practice any other form of qigong alongside this one, so mixing was a concern when I started, but no longer. What I mean by it being a slog is that at first, there's the definite feeling of progress (and possibly a minor form of qi sickness), then there's a sense of "getting it" and sometime after the first month, the progress seems to level off and going through the motions seems tedious, but it picks up again in the last month or so...

Very good. Thanks for sharing.

I can visualize something that sounds right - I used to do something similar with a heavy bag while learning kickboxing. If you could make a video, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Any resources to review to learn this?

I've just been following along to the vid of Tian's daughter (got the Dolic vid, but it doesn't have anything more to offer in terms of technique that isn't available to someone with close observation skills in the aforementioned vid, tho it has a couple extra exercises I haven't incorporated yet). There is one fragrant teacher near me that I've found, but clearly doesn't _get it_ as they end each session with a visualization drill….so, I'll keep looking, but practicing alone until then.

In one document I read (the infamous pdf floating around), it was said that one can practice other things, so long as they don't involve the mind (visualizations, etc.). This form of qigong appealed to me specifically because it was a no-mind thing. Tian recommends, per this document, that one can even practice with a TV or music going (so long as one can "hear without listening" or maybe it was the other way around). It might even be preferable than doing it in silence…. But, your post was years ago. Did you decide to continue with it? If so, how's it going?

Interesting. Thanks. I'll keep an eye out as it were. Fortunately, I'm not so advanced. Although, I did notice some weird muscle twings when practicing that I wasn't expecting (and before reading your post), so perhaps there's something to this….

Can you expand on this? Why would deviations occur for the trained, but not the untrained? I'm only a few sessions in, but am enjoying it thus far.

Thanks for the reminder about Foundation. Got the books coming from the library and will check out their vids. It seems the greatest impediment to my sitting meditations is back pain…I can't seem to make it past a half hour without needing to drastically switch positions. Fortunately, I've been able to not come too far out of my state during the shift to a new position, but I do feel like I'm "losing some ground." After getting past the back hurdle, I suspect I'll have to wrestle with the legs falling asleep, but that's a problem for a different time.

Bit late to the party, but i've been doing a seated ZZ posture as an adjunct/part of qigong, doing about 15 minutes (more or less depending on how my back is doing) And I try to get in a few minutes of ZZ whenever I can. I'll try to set a timer with 2 minute intervals and move through on section of hands to the floor, hands facing, then pointing to lower dan tien, middle dan tien and finally upper dan tien. I find that it's not so hard to hold my legs in a moderately bent position in this manner. I've also been trying to more fully energize the dan tiens by holding that position for 10 minutes, tho' depending on how the rest of the day's gone, back pain might make it a shorter session. I'll try to do that daily until I feel heat in the affected body region within a couple minutes of starting and/or spontaneous movements. Once I can do that reliably, I'll move on to the next stage (The assumption is that the hands/appropriate dan tien is "full" or properly energized and you can move on to the next bit). Working on middle dan tien now. When practicing, I try to maintain a posture as relaxed as I am able in a state of no-mind. This took some weeks to get used to, but now the "space between thoughts" is decently long and I generally release tension as much as I'm able to without thinking. The session ends when tension becomes so great, I can't release it and/or can't stop thinking about it. For smaller doses, I'll try to take a deep stance (keeping in mind ChiRunner's cues) for a shorter time, such as while I'm waiting for coffee to brew. This is mostly just a strengthening exercise, but I'm told that having the deeper stance will generate more energy, but it's harder to release to feel it moving….

I'm glad you mentioned the friction - I've read others describe this as drawing up so much yin/earth energy that you melt your own shoes.

Maybe I should have added more nuance. The way I learned from my martial arts background was that respect (for a new teacher or student) was the default - and rather than being something earned, it was something you lost. Although, barring outright fraud or danger, we were taught to let the teacher do their thing. I recall being in a self-defense seminar held by my company. They brought in a JKD guy who taught the general sort of self-defense stuff you teach to beginners with no training. However, I surmised that the guy was a total clown and couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. Unbeknownst to me, another coworker had some basic MA training and wanted to call the guy out, so asked to be the uke and blasted him with a different combo than what the drill was (I think dude actually split the instructor's lip). To his credit, the instructor stayed calm and said something like, "sometimes you get hit and that's OK. You can keep moving." Next demo, he looked for a new uke and I subtly raised my hand. Should have been obvious to him that I had some training, so he chose me and was tense for the first exchange, presumably fearing I'd try to show him up as well. I fired off whatever the combo was, quickly and accurately, but light and with no intention to land, but to allow it to look as real as the dude who attacked the instructor, but so he could finish his demo. I finished out the class getting swept, taken down, etc. as a good uke would. I'm 100% sure the instructor knew I could flatten him and could have taught a more helpful class, but I gave him the respect due an instructor doing their best. I was a student and he was a teacher….Had anyone asked me if they should train with that guy, I'd have said no, he's a moron. But all the same, I wasn't about to disrupt the class.

100%. Always respect the teacher - they're teaching me their way, I'm going to learn their way.

I have no knowledge of the Chinese languages and certainly don't presume to have direct translations. In fact, I gave up after not being able to figure out what qi translates to, if there's a difference between nei gong and qi gong, does wu wei have an equivalent in English, etc. It also became evident that many of the [Western] people I ran into had unsatisfying definitions and/or knew that theirs was right and alternates were wrong. From talking to various enlightened/spiritual types, it's obvious that they're oft describing the same thing with different words or perhaps the different things with the same words - so I decided that if I'm not studying anything legalistic, I'll just figure out what the teacher means and go with that. FWIW, Steve doesn't define ZZ until 44 pages into his book (!) and even then has a couple suggestions which include, "to act out the part of being still" or "to battle against action." He settles into "physical stillness" and then "holding a posture" to differentiate it from tai chi or qi gong. Somewhere in this forum, he also describes Tien Shan as being performed relatively slowly compared to other forms to try to split the diff. between moving and stillness meditations (somewhere he described TSCK as "moving ZZ". I assume what he meant was the posture is done as slow as possible to avoid tension to get the benefits of the stillness practices but with the moving practice benefit of moving qi around). But as @Forestgreen mentioned, Steve's all about practice and not theory (at least in his books and vids). Is it because he doesn't know the theory? Is it because he did but didn't want beginners to get caught up in something unhelpful? Is it because theory is not helpful? Did he just skip over the form and go to formlessness? I dunno. Having seen a bunch of ZZ demos which ranged from "absolutely nothing moves" to "pretend you're Jack Kerouac humping a tree," I found Steve's "just stand mostly still and see where the energy goes" to be most suitable for me at this time. If I stop noticing benefits, I'll look somewhere else (that said, I think I have a copy of _Way of Power_ coming from the library). I'm not saying those other methods are good, bad, etc. Just I found one that is working for me.

Towards the end of Steve Gray's Tien Shan exercises, they have a seated meditation session which includes what he refers to as seated ZZ. He also writes about this in his ZZ book. Spoiler alert: the most important part is hand positioning and not visualizing. He claims that you can do ZZ lying down as well, tho' it won't be as powerful as doing it standing as you won't be generating enough energy from the stance (then again, you can likely hold the position longer, so you'll ultimately generate a decent amount of energy. I think he says it's six of one….But I have no idea how you measure such qi generation, so who knows?). Somewhere else, he mentions doing ZZ _after_ your qigong session. I had been doing ZZ for 4-10 minutes without much result, but after incorporating it at the end of the TSCK sessions, it feels as if my progress took off and now doing ZZ by itself elicits that same response. All that's to say - maybe try while seated and see if that offers any benefit.

I've been practicing level 1 and am enjoying it. For some reason, one of the moves is not making its way into my muscle memory, so I've still got some more time before I can do it without the video as an aid and move on to level 2 (per his instructions). I get the point about having a living master. I'd prefer that, too. Going through his post history here, I can see why rubbed people the wrong way….For the time being, Steve's ghost is good enough for me.

My first tai chi teacher taught in this manner. He taught in a side room of a very busy martial arts school and it only took a couple classes to realize why none of the other martial artists stayed for more than a couple classes.

The answer I've arrived at to my questions is, "if you end up with more energy than you started with, it was worth it."

Perfect! Thank you!

I came to this forum largely due to reading @Starjumper's books and trying to discover more about him. I went through some of the threads in his profile, finding some helpful info that he didn't put in his books. However, he was quite prolific and the profile page only shows 15ish of the most recent posts. Is there a way to expand that list or find more of his posts? Thanks,

I think that's a completely different style/school, but I'll keep looking.

I tried contacting that guy, but have not yet received a response. In one of the video interviews with Steve, he mentioned a couple fellow students of his who taught, but seems like they're no longer findable (at least via google). I guess we'll have to practice solo and assume that the dragons will take a liking to us and send us in a proper direction for advancement.

Do you all find that there's a minimum time to practice ZZ to get any benefit? Obviously, longer is better, but if one has four minutes while waiting for the coffee to brew, is that too little a time? I oft try to work on a deep horse stance in such situations, in addition to the 10+ minutes I practice after my regular qigong session.