soaring crane

Hi EFS first, you already got tons of ideas to work on, and I'd definitely +1 the coffee. Go cold turkey for for a week or two (I know, I know) just to monitor the change, if any. I suspect you might find that that's all that's causing the problem. Something I wanted to add to the qigong angle - practice very sincerely keeping the armpits open while doing your qigong (what do you do, anyway?). A super simple 'test' is to simply stand like normal, turn the tips of the elbows outward to open the armpits (the classic 'hold raw eggs under the arms' position), and raise the arms slowly in front of you to about chest height. Now lower them slowly to the start position. Ah hah. The arm pits closed, didn't they? They almost always do, it's an insecurity thing. Practice the simple arm raising and lowering (it's the opening move from the '18 Taiji-Qigong movements aka Shibashi), until the arms glide smoothly back into the starting position, and you overcome the automatic defense-mechanism of compression the chest by pushing the armpits together. This could have a positive effect in the long-term for you. But first cut out the java

on a less serious note: -How long have you been practicing? since Autumn, 1996 Is it a daily practice? (Does it have to be?) At the moment, yes, and should be, even if only a couple minutes. How much time do you dedicate per day? oh... not so easy. Right now, a good hour of actual "practice" (I teach, so I tend to practice whatever form I'm teaching at the moment, and since I have four groups learning four different things, I do a bit of everything), but exercises and techniques have creeped into my daily routine as well, so shifting gears in my car is a qigong exercise for me. Your personal benefits (any and all) Huge question, and not so easy to answer because we're all an experiment of one, meaning, there's no control group. I can't say what I'd be like without qigong. I can say that I'm a inch taller than I was when I started, my eyes are a bright bright blue, my hairline isn't as high as it was, my temper is even (a huge improvement over the old me), my desires are non-material, my digestion is strong, my blood pressure is up (used to be very low), I've got healthy joints, never get sick, good posture, and I don't know what else to write. But, as indicated, who knows what I'd be like without the qigong. I inherited good genes from my mother's side, and my father's side is full of centenarians. I don't have a lot of friends anymore, because I just don't have anything in common with those guys, but I also feel quite content with things the way they are ... Oh yeah, I mentioned eyes in another thread - my eyesight improved drastically, and I know that that was a side-effect of my qigong. And what you've gained from it that's redundant. See above What has it healed, or helped you overcome I guess I answered all that above You have to understand that there's a big difference between standing there flapping your arms like a dork and performing qigong. The qigong occurs on the inside. Every cell in the body joins the dance and rejuvenates itself with with every breath and there's not a joint or sinew in the body that isn't participating in every move. Mimicking the outer movements of a qigong form (or Taiji or whatever) is pointless. You'd be better off with Pilates, or Zumba, or something more fun. Also, there's actually no such thing as qigong, not in the narrow sense. It's an umbrella term for a vast number of approaches to health and longevity (same statement could be made of yoga, btw). hth

Saving for later

I flap my wings in the wind grus grus!

what do you think?

http://www.survivopedia.com/svp_greenroof 😊

precisely! Also - look into pre-Buddhist Chinese depictions of practices. Is there any full-lotus to be found? The discussion has come up before but I don't think it's clear.

well, now, that's a different motivation :-)

Hi TL - I'd be interested in your impressions after thirty minutes of 'Standing in the stream' http://zhanzhuangsydney.com/?page_id=18

wow, that sounds beautiful. I'm curious - what about non-human beings? Animals? Trees? Rocks? The sky?

my little milking stool looks something like this: It allows for total freedom of position - knees more outward or closer, etc. I have trouble accepting the idea that full-lotus increases the intensity of connection to Earth-Qi. The Earth is huge, the energy-field immense, and the few centimeters represented by the distance created between Huiyin and the Earth when we stand up is less than negligible, it's a nano-distance. On the other hand, the position folds the legs together, effectively reducing the flow through them compared to standing. I think the Yongchuan-pointed-heavenward is the key to full-lotus, moreso than the Huiyin on the floor. And for me, that's a way of disconnecting from the Earth, ie a Buddhist practice to overcome Earthly attachments. There's a tremendous amount of information regarding people's experiences in full-lotus. And extremely little about long-term standing, in comparison. I suspect that if people spent as much time standing still as they do sitting, they would discover how incredibly powerful the practice is. But, it seems so... mundane, I guess. And, standing is something that comes natural to humans. We're the only bipedal mammal and the only mammal that can stand like that (or walk or run, for that matter). Our bodies are uniquely and specifically built to do it (along with kneeling and, especially, squatting), and not built to sit on the tailbone with the legs all pretzeled up. The soles of the feet are the natural conduit for Earth power. And again, uniquely human, and perfect for the job. So, in my view, full-lotus is kind of 'super-natural', something that has to be trained over many, many years to do correctly, and a way of escaping from (or transcending, of you prefer) that which makes you human; while standing is just natural (think, Dao), and is a way of expressing and emphasizing, celebrating our true nature. Guess which one I prefer

Look up 'pinhole glasses'. here's what they look like Further qigong - holding the hands in front of the closed eyes as ya mu says, start circling the hands, very tiny circles at first, but let them grow larger, spiraling outward until you're circling roughly from the hairline (or where it used to be, haha) to the mouth. All the while, follow the hands with the eyes, as passively as possible. It should feel like the hands (Laogongs) are gently pulling the eyes through magnetic force. Once you reach the outer most limit of the spiral, reverse direction and spiral inward. Eyes remain closed the whole time. During this whole time, the spiraling motions, keep the face relaxed, the eyes closed and relaxed, and play with the distance hands-to-eyes to find your sweet spot. When you get to the center of the circling, really tiny circles, come to rest, lay the hands over the closed eyes, relax a bit. Now turn on your ears and listen intently to your surroundings. Maybe 1, 2 or 3 minutes. Return attention quickly to the eyes (you may feel a rush of energy, whooosh, which would be good) Now "look" actively through the eyelids and hands (which are still covering the eyes) and try to see what's in front of you. Form an active, vibrant image of what's really there in front of you. Look for details, colors, light and shadow etc. Make the image as realistic and detailed as possible. When you're ready, open the eyes behind the hands. Note that it got a little lighter. Draw the hands apart, slowly allowing the external vision to meld with the internal pictures. Like looking at the world for the first time. All fresh and and beautiful. Enjoy :-) It's a good way to end an Qigong session. Don't hang up on the idea of 'fixing' the eyesight. The less you try to force it, the more effective it'll be. I went from about -4.5 to -2 with techniques like this, but admittedly with quite a few other things. And then I got Lasic, lol (but for a different reason).

Nestlé owns everything. Their water "brand" in the US seems to be "pure life". Everything Nestlé sells is poison. Over here I think their water is called Aquarel. Plastic bottles introduce hormones (bpa) to the water btw. Our tap water here is excellent. Soft and clean, zero chemicals, wonderful stuff. Of course Germans don't trust tap water and generally only drink bottled and carbonated stuff, of which there are a plethora of brands available. But we can buy it in returnable glass bottles.

It's Kulmbacher Leitungswasser or nothing for me (our tap water)

Kneeling on a little wooden 'milking stool' that I had made for me. It's my chair at home for most things. Half-lotus in the sauna. But I don't really sit to meditate. I stand :-)

Most. Awesome. Song. Ever. !

+1

thank you, Vitalii!

yeah, but if you wanna make a Bon-omelette, first you have to break a few eggs. Or chop off a couple heads, apparently. Do the heads come from already deceased persons or are they also a sacrifice? Unfortunate outsiders? British Lt. Cols., for example?

100 days of facing the eyelids. Yep, I dun it.

The name brands did poorly across the board, I can write more about it later. Re toothpaste: the name brand they tested was Colgate and it bombed out mainly because it (and presumably all American toothpastes) contains an antibiotic that contributes to antibiotic resistance. Can you get Weleda products? They're awesome, everything they make is excellent. I use two of their toothpastes haha :-)

Penaten does work well, but in a recent comparison test name brands vs store brands, in Oeko-Test magazine, it fared quite poorly. It's an old product that doesn't meet the stricter modern guidelines for contents. An organic diaper-rash cream would be a good place to start. But being in Germany, we have a huge selection and I don't know what brands are available elsewhere, so hard to make a recommendation. If his problem is in fact being cause by improper Qi exercises, then a cream isn't going to help anyway. TCM would be the place to go, imo. .

Baguazhang chorus Dancing, strong, circle walkers Eight palms a clapping

Was thinking about this last night ... what I thought was that, for most people, Wuji stance with a small variety of standard hand positions would result in more positive development and quicker. I suspect people are naturally attracted to the most outwardly impressive-appearing and challenging practices and then they jump over a whole host of base-building work, leaving them less than optimally prepared for the big one, so to speak. Wuxing: Dragon: Mabu:

Just flipped through the thread and saw ppl asking about balls (yongchuan) vs heels. Yongchuan is the springboard for motion. When you stand with more weight on the balls of the feet, you find yourself in a permanent yang ready state. Test it by monitoring how you breathe. Stand weighted on the heels for a while a then shift weight to the balls. You'll feel yourself rise and your breathing impulse will move higher, too. Not a good situation for almost all of us, and only good some of the time for serious martial arts practitioners.