cheya

Spacester, And what do you feel inside when you sense chi? Not asking for techniques here (that was the other thread), but for description of your own internal sensations... unless of course the sensation is external for you!

Welcome Frederic! Looking forward to your postings!

Welcome osburn! What kind of Qigong did you take up?

Yes, welcome!

Yes, the Tao is everywhere, but getting grounding contact is a little different. You might look into earthing.... That could give you what I think you're after... Home Page Earthing.com https://www. earthing.com/ Shop huge selection of high quality Earthing products like starter kits, grounded sheets, mats & more. Everything you need for Earthing and grounding at home!‎What is Earthing? · ‎Universal Mats · ‎Throw · ‎Half Sheets How to Use Earthing & Grounding to Boost Health - Wellness Mama wellnessmama.com › Blog › Health Earthing or grounding is a new technology that harnesses the age old power of the earth to reduce inflammation and improve health. How Does Grounding or Earthing Impact Your Health? - Mercola articles.mercola.com/.../why-does-walking-barefoot-on-the-earth-make-you-feel-bette... Nov 4, 2012 - Earthing or grounding helps improve heart rate variability, cortisol dynamics, blood viscosity, and sleep, and reduces stress effects and risk of ...

Sounds like you're feeling DONE with surveying suggested methods, but I'm going to point at another: Robert Bruce's Energy Work. (Sorry to be so obsessive) His method involves focusing sensating mental focus on a point, and then rotating your sensating attention around that point. You can scratch the point a little (say on your hand or foot) to give your mind a better target for this sensating attention. He says pay attention as if you were trying to feel the air on your skin there. Then feel/sensate in a circle around that point. I was playing with his method on my foot, having covered the top of my foot in little attention circles (say quarter or 50 cent sized circles). I got around to focusing on the outside middle of the top of my right foot (pinkie side), I started to feel filling or growing or accumulating sensation there, so I kept doing the attention feeling circles. The filling sensation grew, and suddenly a zap ran up the side of my calf to the outside of my knee! I was stunned. I hadn't touched my foot, this was all with my mind! I looked up the point on the side of my foot to see what it meant on different maps. In reflexology, I had been on the knee reflex zone. In meridian theory, I had been close to the gall bladder meridian, which runs up to the outside of the knee, exactly the path of the zap! My right knee had been bothering me at the time. I was floored! At the time, I gave no credence to foot reflexology, and knew about meridian theory, but didn't know any paths yet. This experience was a revelation for me, both in chi and in bodywork. That was years ago. More recently, working with Meredith's energy work model, he said we needed to find the niwan, the point in the center of the brain that he sees as grand central station for the energy body. I could not find it, couldn't get any sensation or action there at all, although he seemed to think it was easy, not for me. And for me, if I can't feel it, it's not happening... so... even though I believed you can't "feel" inside the brain, I started making Bruce's feeling circles with my mind in the center of my brain. I kept it up a little while, trying different angles of rotation of the circles, and, finally... something started... stirring. I kept focusing, circling there, and then... Then niwan activated, and streams of energy were going all over my body! It was so cool! The niwan connection is still not real easy for me, but way fun when I get it going. Okay, maybe I can back off for awhile and let you get on with your chosen methods! Did you ever read Mysteries of the Life Force. It's short, quick, fascinating from the chi perspective. I hope you will check it out. And if you DO get chi going, I do hope you will let me/us know how you did it! (Also pm'd to LDMB)

LDMB, I'm sorry you're leaving the thread and the board, but I get that you've got as much as you think you can from the thread, and then it becomes a waste of precious time. But I still had one more thing I wanted you to read! Goosebumps! (Like I'm having right now ) That was the first way I recognized chi! For years I've called myself a "chills junkie." Full body chills is the best, right off the top of my head. You ever get them? listening to soaring music, absorbing the power of the crashing ocean, remembering some event in your life?... maybe having narrowly escaped something awful? That's chi too. So here's where we talk about that. Channeling Chi and Goosebumps http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/20182-channeling-chi-celestial-and-goosebumps/ (I pm'd this to LDMB)

Well, the solid balls don't deliver the vibration, which IMO drives and amplifies the chi. I don't get the same response with the solid balls. They are more a muscle thing for me. But if you can try both solid and chiming you can decide. Besides, they sound cool....

Well, even if it's not true, or is no longer true, I'm glad I read it, cause I tried it , and it works! But it still kind of tickles me.

A pound a pair if they are 3" maybe. Anything over 13-14 oz is good. You want two of them for each hand. You learn to rotate them in both hands simultaneously, in either direction, usually opposite directions for each hand, or whatever feels right. Bound to be youtubes of the possible patterns and combinations. First they want rotation, then they want silent smooth rotation (no clunking), then they want you to rotate the balls without their touching each other at all (harder the bigger the balls you choose), and then I think silent and not touching. You can use as many balls as fit in your hand. I have smaller ones I can do three, haven't worked higher than that. The 3 inch balls will stretch your fingers and palms. 2 inches is a nice size to start with, even 1.75 is good, so long as they are the heavy type. So that's what I've read "they" want you to do. I don't do that. I like them to clunk each other, 'cause that's what makes the vibration. All the other variations probably have chi effects, i just haven't learned them. I read that older chinese men could be seen walking around the parks twirling their Baoding balls. The image really cracked me up. But I thought I probably ought to try it before I laughed too hard. Walking helps move and distribute the chee. . (Mind you, if you drop those cloisonné balls on anything hard, the cloissone can break. So can the coffee table. You can break the chimes too.) I walked around for awhile, and then settled on rocking fore and back in the tai chi ruler style. On a rug. That works very well for chi.

I checked back on my notes back when I was buying them on eBay for clients (I was obsessed ). You're looking for balls at least 2" (50 mm) in diameter, 6.5 inches circumference, and weighing at least 13-14 oz the pair (2), without the box. (The new ones can weigh less than half that!) And then you want two sets, similar size and weight. There are some modern ones that fit those specs, but very few. The 1985 ones are pretty much all the heavy type. It can be hard to get that info from sellers, but it's worth it to get Baoding balls that will really charge you up! If you get to handle the new ones compared to a pair of old ones, you will really feel the difference. They must be plastic inside somewhere, even though they do chime. Another place you can sometimes find good ones is martial arts studios. They usually sell the steel/chrome version, not cloisonné, and you have to make sure they have chimes. I keep a 3 inch pair of those around for guys, who sometimes think the cloisonné are too "pretty." If you feel the chee, those 3" steel monsters will rock you! Disadvantage is they are much colder on your hands in the winter than the cloisonné version.

I got so I could feel the energy within 5-10 seconds every time I started rotating the Baoding balls. Then one day I got up from an intense Sudoku session, and picked up the balls. I couldn't find the energy! WTF! It took me awhile to realize that I had to be in a right brain mode to feel the energy. That day, I was so deeply into the left brain, I had almost no access to energetic perception. I actually don't switch very well naturally. Since then I have used the balls to train myself to switch back and forth between left and right brain, between analytical thinking and energy perception mode more rapidly. This has helped me tremendously in my bodywork practice, as tuning in to the energy there is essentially the same switch. Thinking about what I should do next with the client vs. feeling into the energy. Sometimes my hands actually tell my mind to "Pu-leeze butt out!" Using the chinese balls has a useful tool to enhance coordination between brain hemispheres through the corpus callousum, which I understand is a basic shamanic practice. This isn't so much about where to focus as how to focus as you look for the energy.

Baoding Balls, aka chinese Health Balls, are another fun way to cultivate chee. They are hollow metal balls that have chimes inside, and vibrate when you rotate a pair in your hands. A couple years ago, I inherited two identical sets of Baoding balls. They were two inches in diameter, much bigger than the single small set I'd had for years, and I thought they would just be too big to handle. I'd been working alot with feeling energy in my chi gung practice, and when I finallly did pick them up, I was shocked at what I felt. The energy traveled up my arms to my head, down to my feet, back up to my head, back out to my hands. It wasn't a perfect circuit, and it didn't follow meridians, but it was very palpable. I was stunned. I mean, that is what the chinese say the balls do, but it just never occurred to me that the effect would be palpable! I didn't expect to be able to repeat the effect, but indeed, it happens every time I pick up the balls! I've become somewhat obsessed with Chinese balls, and have bought many pairs on eBay, which I make available for my massage clients. Some balls precipitate the energy effect more than others. Some hints: In general, I need balls in both hands to feel the effect. The old heavier type of balls are much more effective than the new lighter balls, which hardly do anything at all. The heavier balls, having more mass, have a stronger physical vibration, it's the vibration, not the sound, that generates the energetic effect. Only a few people I know feel this immediately, partly because you probably need the smooth physical manipulation skill in place before you feel the chi. I'd been playing with the one small pair for years, so that part was already in place. But a couple clients have been blown away when they felt the chee from the Baoding balls I keep in my office. Utterly shocked. I love it!

Wow, LDMB, this is great! I have that book, but only the Chinese version. Your post has the translation! Thank you!

Hey Marblehead, sorry to hear about your hip. Proteolytic enzymes like WobenzymN, Vitalzym or Serrapeptase are good for pain. They chew up damaged tissue and reduce inflammation, which can help mightily with pain. Used a lot in Europe, but oddly not so much in the states. Another thing that helps some folks with uneven leg lengths is a lift in the shoe of the shorter leg...but you have to add height slowly in stages not to freak the body out. You've probably looked into both of those, but just thought I'd throw that in.

Okay, just have to say, sorry Jim, your "professional hat" didn't help you here, wrong on all counts.... And now I'm resolutely resisting the feminatzi-istic urge to carry on with this, and instead would like to honor the OP's request and get back to his topic of feeling "chee". By the way, LDMB, when you've made enough posts, you can apply for "Owner's Permissions", and then you can control your threads! Neat, eh? You can read all about it on the home page.

MH, don't care what that's from, one of the few times I've wished for a "Don't like" button. Not funny.

That chat room meditation was a pretty interesting way to feel chi! Wouldn't have been there without this thread... So thanks for that, LDMB. And Marblehead, that was interesting, you dropping in. The meditation seems to proceed along with the chatting. So you don't have to feel bad (or good ) about "breaking it up."

dawei, Did you get your five? I'm so curious what you're going to do!

Hi LDMB, When I first started Goodman's two founders, my lower back made a few comments, odd because I didn't yet know that was the source of my problems. I found that paying strict attention to tightening the core, pulling in the gut, and making a strong attempt to lengthen while I held the pose, totally solved that for me. I just hadn't been paying enough attention to holding the core solid. When done right, Goodman's exercises will try to make our posterior chains symmetrical side to side, which can address (at least) one component of scoliosis. It will strengthen the upper back, helping with the kyphosis. And sucking in the gut properly lengthens the abdomen, also essential to reduce the kyphosis. Not surprising that your thorax area is making comments! So ... bodyworker's advice here is take it slow, give it time, and don't work it too hard while your body adjusts. Goodman's new book puts more emphasis on downward traction on the pelvis from strong thigh adductor engagement, introduced in the first book in that face down exercise with bent knees. That exercise has been a little problematic for me, but you might find the intense adductor engagement helpful. Any chance you can find a Foundation trainer where you live? Have a session with a trainer like Mercola did with Goodman on youTube? Really helps to have someone else's eye on what you're doing. Very glad to hear you're getting something out of it!

You might read The Ion Effect, by Fred Soyka. This book doesn't talk about jing/qi, but it does talk in depth about the amazing effects of negative ions on health. It starts with the author trying to puzzle out his own health problems, and follows along to some pretty amazing discoveries. The book is old, cheap on Amazon, but will totally convince you to pay more attention to your ion environment.

Thank you Apech!

This was a link to proposed questions. Here is a working link to Apech's link to the pdf of Damo's answers to the questions that were asked. http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/34992-damo-mitchell-interview-for-tbs-may-2014/?p=549696 Opps. That one led to another dead link. Let's ask Apech! Edit: Apache fixed it! Now that link will get you there!

HA! You're talking about one of my very favorite topics! I learned to do this by using Robert Bruce's energy techniques. I wrote the following in the "training the energy body thread," which you might want to check out: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/28303-training-the-energy-body-books/ "Energy Work, by Robert Bruce. Bruce's Tactile Imaging method was amazing in teaching me to mentally activate acupoints and reflexology areas. Bruce's tactile imaging uses sense of touch, rather than visualization, to stimulate the flow of vital energy throughout the body. You learn how to wake up energy centers and move vital energy throughout the body [Just using mind, attention, and intention]. Bruce's easy-to-follow illustrations and exercises encourage safe, rapid results. (Bruce used to have his Tactile Imaging tutorial online, titled "NEW energy work", and you may be able to find it on wayback if you don't want to buy the whole book.)"

Hi D.A.D... Yes of course! For starters, just google "wheelchair tai chi" or "chair qigong," and you'll find plenty of DVDs, youtubes, and books. I'm not familiar with any of them, but if you check the Amazon reviews, you're bound to get some idea about the relative merits of the different teachers and programs. At different stages in my qigong practice, I've done a good bit of qigong lying flat! This was internal work, but moving qi is moving qi. Once a qigong teacher told a friend who was pretty weak with CFS that she should do a little standing qigong every day, not to exhaustion, but a little every day, and that her stamina would grow. He was talking about "standing like a tree" or Zhan Zhuang. Good luck with this, and I hope you'll let us know how it goes for you!