Maddie

I want to know what/which qigong practices are the best for fatigue? I ask because even though I have been doing qigong for a while now, and it has helped me with a lot of stuff, I still manage to feel fatigued often. So I would like to know the best way to deal with this.

In retrospect I think I have figured out what was/is making me tired. It seems that every time I do the "hold the ball" pose in the area of a new chakra, or one that I had not worked on very much previously I get very tired at first. I have noticed this patern time and again. I realize that there are a wide range of things that can cause one to feel fatigued, but I beleive in my case this is the cause, as I have past experiences and a patter established by those pratices to give me something to go by. Here is what I believe happens. It would seem that doing the hold the ball posture in ZZ at the level of a certain chakra causes the blockages in that chakra to get burned off. If you work on a new chakra that you have not worked on much, it would seem that doing this posture causes a lot of the chi in your body to be directed at that point, thus leaving the rest of your body at a relatively lower level than it was. This I believe is why for several days after doing hold the ball at the level of a new chakra I feel so tired, but then as the "issues" of that chakra improve and not as much energy is needed to work on them, my energy level returns to normal, plus the problems of the chakra I was working on, are resolved as well.

Hmmm your interpretation is nicer than mine lol, I was wondering if she was a witch or something haha.

yup In relation to what I said yesterday, raising the state of my upper dan tien with the cool draw, I had to work on my spleen with the inner smile/healing sounds because it would seem that as my upper dan tien was getting all that jing chi from the cool draw, it was causing my brain to go into over time. I was just thinking a million miles an hour, which naturally threw my spleen out of wack. Once my spleen got out of wack with all that overthinking, things like going to bed at a decent hour became difficult, as well as overthinking everything, like "is this the right decision" "what did that mean in the past" ect... I've had a tendency to overthink in the past, so doing the spleen inner smile/healing sound really helped slow down the over active thinker.

When I said life is weird I spoke too soon lol. Ok so that girl that asked me out, leme tell you, what an experience. First of all her heart meridian was way over active, and therefore I had a hard time being near her, I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin, even though she was drop dead gorgeous. But where it really gets weird is I noticed as we were talking she started projecting chi out of her upper dan tien/ third eye and scanning me. That made me feel really uncomfortable. I told her that I knew what she was doing, and she looked like she was in shock. She asked me how I knew that she was doing that, and she did that all the time to guys, and no one had ever realized that she was doing it. Now I'm thinking what kind of person am I on a date with lol? And even though she looked like a model, when it was time to go I could not wait to get out of there. Anyways the lastest thing I've been doing the past few days now that I have begun the cool draw again, is I've been using it to energize my upper dan tien, and doing so has really changed my perspective in life dramatically. Standing meditation had already done wonders for my middle and lower dan tiens, but I felt that something was missing, as though not all pieces of the puzzel were in place yet. So as I began doing the cool draw, and drawing jing up to my crown, and spinning it there as to fix it, suddenly its like I'm looking at things in a whole new way. Its like my appetite to learn and understand has become unsatiable. I've checked out a bunch of books from the library about the various sciences and want to read, and know and learn more and more. Not only that but my perspective on things seems much more "big picture" than before. Anyways its kind of hard to desribe but I think those of you who've been there done that prolly know what I'm talking about.

Back in when I was actively training in karate, one of the things our teacher told us to do was to try to get your opponent angry before fighting them, as this would throw off their focus. I found it to be true in sparing. If my opponent lost his cool in sparing, and I kept mine they became pretty easy to deal with. Another time back when I was in basic traing for the army, we had pugel contests. These are large Q-tip looking objects that you pummel eachother with as part of bayonet training. Anyways the guy I was to go up against was huffing and puffing and saying how he was going to kick my ass ect... I just kept my martial arts training in mind, and focused on cultivating a calm and peaceful mind. When the drill sergant said go, he came out in the rage swinging every which way, which I was greatful for because it made him very easy to defeat. My point is that I do not believe that negative emtions are more powerful than postive ones.

I looked into Karezza and to me it looked like a dual cultivation technique. I have re-introduced back into my practice testicle breathing/ cool draw. I had been doing it last fall as part of the 100 days of celebacy thing, and found it to be very effective at reducing my desire. At the end of the fall I finished the 100 days and then proceeded to go on a dating frenzy for about another 100 days lol. Each had their own unique challenges and benefits. The 100 days of cool draw did a lot to dig up the emotional aspects of desire, women, ect, without so much of the physical desire. I found from this that a lot of our desire goes beyond purely the physical drive, and is very much emotional. The next 100 days of doing a lot of dating showed me how much of what I was looking for was not to be found in another person, but rather within. The "100 days of dating" also were quite a distraction from the more subtel inner workings of myself, and my practice. It left me feeling quite empty, frustrated, and confused. As ironic as it may sound, now that I have the two periods in my life to compare, I found that I was actually happier during the celibate 100 days, than the dating 100 days. Does this mean I want to be a celibate monk for the rest of my life? Probably not, I hope not lol, but what I do plan on doing (you know what they say about plans) is making the cool draw a part of my regular practice, reducing desire, putting the dating frenzy on hold, and if its in my Tao to meet the "right one" then just let it happen with out striving for it "wuji". So bascially my practice now is 20 min of 8 brocades for basic health, and balancing the meridians and organs, 20 min of ZZ standing meditation to build up chi, and open channels and dan tiens/chakras, 20 min of testicle breathing/cool draw to reduce desire, and 20 min of dan tien reverse breathing, and inner smile/healing sounds as needed. *edit: ok life is weird, no sooner than I say I am not going to try to date anymore, yet leave myself open to what comes my way, now women are asking me out! Yesterday I got invited to a movie, didn't even have to pay, and now today I get invited to an Italian icecreame/coffee place. Life is just weird lol.

Ok I'll have to look into this Karezza stuff. I'm happy to hear that using the healing sounds to get rid of unwanted emotions has been helpful , its done me a tonne of good.

LOL I'm not going to disagree with you, it is pleasant, but I noticed how the associated desire was not so pleasant :-/. This happened to me again at work last night. The most beautiful girl I've ever seen (ok granted I see a lot of most beautiful girls I've ever seen, but work with me here) walked in the door. It took a lot of effort to pick my jaw up off the floor, and not make an ass of myself. [oh and I found her pretty cause she was smoking hot, and no one needs a class to learn that lol]. So after my inital loss of composure and oogeling what did I feel? I felt pissed! Why pissed you may ask? Pissed because I did not have that girl, or a girl like that, and probably some other schumk did. And then it hit me once again, she pushed my desire button, and now I'm suffering again. It would seem desire triggered my realization of lack, my envy and jealous, bitterness, and such things. Beleive me it was not a pleasant sensation. What I did do after I came home from work was to do the liver inner smile and healing sound, due to the liver's relation to anger/kindness, greed/generosity, and arousal. I think it helped somewhat, but interestingly enough at right about 2am (the time on the chi clock the liver is predominate) I woke up, or was rather woken up by um... "mr. happy", and think "why is it so weird to be me" lol. Ok so my point was that while I enjoy good looking women, in fact I enjoy them a lot, I also think this may be the reason behind a lot of my and others suffering if you sort of look behind the curtain, because it triggers "lack" "envy" ect... I suppose this is the same reason that other people get frustrated when they see rich people, or if their neighbor gets a new anamatronic glow in the dark santa clause in their yard they have to get one, or if cousin Bill gets a new 18" plasma big screen whatever they have to go and get a 20" one.

Ah yes as far as water and fire paths go, I do recall reading that. On the topic of the middle and lower dan tiens, I think I had somewhat of a Buddhist insight on my way to the store. I was in my car and I look to the right and there is a very pretty girl in the car. I look to my left and there is another pretty girl in the car there too. What did I feel from this? Desire of course, emotional and physical. What else did I feel? frustration/suffering lol. It was as though I had a deep insight into the Buddhist doctrine that desires lead to suffering. Where did I feel this desire? I felt it on two distinct levels. I felt an emotional desire for the girls in my middle dan tien, as in oh wouldn't it be so nice/ make me so happy to have a girl like that for a girlfriend, someone to love, to love me ect... On the other level I felt the obvious physical desire relating to oh what fun we could have together, and how pleasurable it would be. In both cases I felt frustration because there was that desire, but of course it was not fufilled. Now at this point one might say, well if you had a girl you would not feel this way. But why then is there this thing called infidelity? Why would people already in a relationship experience desire too? Perhaps its because desire just is, and perhaps the answer is not fufilling the desire, but to reduse the desire itself? I know that Zen Buddhists begin their zazen training by basically doing lower dan tien breathing (I don't know if they call it this, but thats essentially what it is). They do this in an effort to clear their minds of desire. Once the lower dan tien is full, the extra chi naturally begins to spill over into the middle dan tien and balance that as well. So you get physical desires, and then emotional desires eventually balanced. I guess the next step would be when it spills over into the upper dan tien and I guess when that is full and balanced one reaches enlightenment?

I've heard from my acupuncturist that cranberries also are good for kidney yin. I read somewhere that kelp was good too. Know of any other easily obtainable herbs/suppliments that are good for kindey yin?

I actually have those books, but must have missed the part where it said to not focus too much on one system, but I think I have enough good reasons for not doing so after last night lol. Ok so when I posted I was concerned about my flat personality as of late. I was also concerned about my difficultiy (out of all topics) with relationship stuff. So I posted that post and then as I tend to do, did yet another experiment (the mad scientist becomes his own lab rat). I did the hold the ball at the sacral chakra for 10 min in my routine. Thats it! Then I spent almost all night with sex obsessed insomnia. I literally could not sleep almost all night due to a rather insatiable appetite for ...well you know . But then again holding the ball is a rather legitimate exercise, plus what am/was I to do about the fact that out of all topics relating to the human condition, why are interpersonal relationships so hard for me? So I felt like I had nothing to loose at least trying to do something about it. As far as the "lessons to learn" topic I had not even considered it in the context of some outside force trying to teach us something when I posted it. The way I viewed it when I posted was more along the lines of, what is it that we need to learn about ourselves in order for our lives to be better. I suppose the only teacher I had in mind when I posted was ourselves. *Edit: Keeping in mind lessons learned, today I did holding the ball at the middle, and lower dantien, and then the wuji posture. So far I feel much more balanced as a result. I agree that isolating one organ, or chakra, or what ever that is part of a system, can throw things off. It' been my personal feeling that the middle dan tien is more yin, and the lower dan tien is more yang. Only doing the middle dan tien sort of makes me into an emotional wuss, and only doing the lower dan tien kind of makes me into a raving animal. Doing both of them together helps to maintain balance it would seem. I have observed that the middle dan tien seems to contain more of our higher "human emotions" like love and compassion, as well as sorrow and greif, while the lower feels like it has more of our lower "animalistic" emotions like lust, anger, fear, ect.. Too much of one or the other seems to be not a good thing, thus the wuss/anaimal ratio. The wuji posture seems to have a good overall balancing effect upon everything. I have noticed pulsating in my upper dan tien/third eye area while and after doing wuji, so I assume it has a balancing effect upon the upper dan tien as well (standing between heaven and earth). I ran into this before as well when my practice was focusing more on the organs and meridians. If I would work on one organ/meridian system isolated, it would seem to kind of throw everything else off as well. So it would indeed seem that to work on things as a complete system is the ideal way to do so.

I have a rather contradictory question. As I work on my chakra's, partiuarly the lower ones, I use as one of my practices to work on them meditation. Now it would seem that as I continue to meditate more and more that I feel my personality becoming more neutral. On the other hand one of the cheif meditations I do is breahing into my lower dan tien, which is in the same area as the sacral chakra. Now the sacral chakra is supposed to be the seat of passion, enthusiasm, ect... but for all the breahing into this area, and building up chi in this area, I feel less passionate, less enthusiastic. This confuses me, on one hand its better than emotional extremes, but on the other hand I don't want to feel like a Vulcan or a robot either. OR is the idea of personality in our culture mislead, and/or not healthy and meditation is just helping me to reach a more natural state, and since most people in our society are not in a natural state, it just feels weird do to the contrast?? Or is this just some kind of phase that passes? or what?

ditto ... qigong is inner alchemy, herbs are outter alchemy, both are useful

Check out this article about Spleen qi deficiency, it matches how I feel very well. Additionally the spleen is weakened by obessive thinking/ worry, and up till last week I was doing just that. I probably wore out my poor spleen, and now its having a hard time converting what I eat into qi. I would add that when it recommends herbs for the spleen, Ginger is a wonderful spleen herb. I've been taking it several times a day for a few days now, and its helped a lot. http://altmedicine.about.com/od/tcmpatterns/a/spleen_qi.htm Spleen Qi Deficiency Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Pattern of Illness By Cathy Wong, About.com Guide Updated September 13, 2005 Symptoms of Spleen Qi Deficiency Weakness, lethargy Pale, bright face Shallow breathing Low, soft voice Little desire to speak Poor appetite Prolonged headache Fatigue Loose stools Lethargy Dizziness Tired eyes Dislike cold greasy foods Headache after exertion Symptoms are worse in the morning Abdominal discomfort which feels better when pressure is applied Indigestion Bloating and gas Weak limbs Tongue Pale or normal tongue. May have swollen sides Pulse Weak pulse Related Conditions Gastric or duodenal ulcer Dyspepsia Hepatitis Anemia Herbs Used For Spleen Qi Deficiency These are just some of the herbs that are believed to help spleen qi deficiency •Codonopsis •Ginseng •Astragalus •Jujube Dates Foods to Strengthen the Spleen •Beef •Root vegetables •Warm foods •Soups •Warming spices, such as black pepper, ginger, cumin References Kaptchuk TJ. The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine. Chicago: Contemporary (McGraw-Hill) 2000 Lu, H. Chinese Natural Cures, New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 1994.

I'm happy to report that today my energy level is up quite a bit. I dropped all practices other than a very shortened 8 brocades (for the streching and loosing aspects) 20 min of ZZ, and 30 min of sitting lower dan tien reverse breathing. I decided to not take up Yi Jin Jing for the moment as I don't think now is the time to begin anything new, as I already dropped other stuff such as most of the 8 brocades, MCO, cool draw, inner smile/healing sounds (unless a particular emotion is really off balance) ect... So far by focusing on primarily chi building practices I've already felt an increase in my energy level.

This article about "healing crisis" pretty much sums up to a T what I'm going through, glad I found this http://www.compassionatedragon.com/crisis.html

Ok back to the actual topic of the lower chakras (sort of). I have noticed this pattern that when I do the spleen inner smile/healing sound that I get aroused just about every time I do it. Now this confused me because I could not see the relation between arousal and the spleen ... at first, then it dawned on me. I think sexual energy is very closely tied in to our emotions, what ever those may be as individuals. This would seem to explain why some people are turned on by one thing, and others by something else. Men and women are generally turned on differently as well. Some people are rather straight foward and get turned on simply by the prospect of pleasure itself (kidney). Others associate sex with love (heart), still others see a sexual conquest as an ego boost (liver), yet others feel sex makes them feel better (lung). In my case I think I associated sex with belonging, being accepted (spleen/earth). Further supporting this theory is that it seemed pretty much that my prior obession with women which had been on going for a long time, seemed to suddenly end very abruptly when I began my root chakra work last week (earth element). The drastic differece as almost been starteling as due to its suddeness. Now while it would seem that this issue has been vastly improved upon, it would not seem that its totally gone, as today I noticed that once again as I was doing the spleen inner smile/healing sound that I began to once again feel aroused, while doing this practice again, where as before I began I had felt nothing, thus after several expereinces like this a pattern has been established. The root chakra (which is earth element) is about the "tribe" "belonging" "being part" which is something that I have long not felt, and rather stived for. The spleen is also earth element, and about being "centered" "belonging" "acceptance/rejection". It would seem that my spleen saw that quite litterally that one of the highest and (pardon the pun) deepest forms of acceptance by someone, was to be ... "in someone". Looking back on my motivation for finding a woman, it does seem to be that what I sough after, what made me happy when it seemed to be the case, and distraught when it did not seem to be the case was being accepted. The answer has seem to be focusing on self acceptance, and as I do so the need/desire to be accepted by others has greatly diminished. The method has been working on the root chakra, and spleen meridian. With this very distracting issue out of the way, it has seemed to clear up the way for me to get to work on the heart chakra, which is where I'm at now.

I'm a lot into building now due to the massive amount of energy I used in balancing lol.

I found this interesting as it seems to tie in with the whole thing I mentioned about the Liver, and the other thread about fatigue.... Liver: Psycho-Emotional Aspects The Liver is responsible for planning and creativity, as well as instantaneous solutions or sudden insights; it is therefore considered The General in Charge of Strategy. The Liver houses the body's Hun and governs fright. Its positive psycho-emotional attributes are kindness, benevolence, compassion, and generosity; its negative attributes are anger, irritability, frustration, resentment, jealousy, rage, and depression. The Liver is also called the "root of resistance to fatigue." Whenever the Liver is not functioning properly (stagnate or excessively Hot due to suppressed emotions) the patient can experience fatigue as well as physical weakness. http://www.lieske.com/channels/5e-liver.htm *edit: The OTHER major emotion/issue/meridian I've had to deal with is greif/sadness/lung meridian, while I've been working on the heart chakra. In addition to all the anger coming up, at the same time a lot of longing, sorrow, grief is too. Working on the heart chakra is not for sissies lol

After considering some of the advise from this thread, I modified my practice a bit yesterday to include only "chi building" techniques. I dropped all moving sets such as the 8 brocades (swapped it with Yi Jin Jing, which is supposed to be very chi building), yet keeping standing postures, and lower dan tien breathing (as this is supposed to build chi too) but no MCO (don't want to disperse what chi I do build up). So far I can say that today while I would not say I'm 100% yet (its only been one day) but I do not feel nearly as lethargic as I had been feeling previously. I also began taking ginger a couple days ago to strengthen my spleen and digestive system so that it can more effeciently convert food into chi. So far the results are favorable. Thanks to all who offered their advice and input

For a chakra that is about love, working on the heart chakra is very hard and painful. Today the ONLY thing I did was the Liver inner smile and healing sound, because it would seem working on the heart chakra has brought to the surface all the old hurts, bitterness, feelings of injustice, resentments, ect... Feeling all the injustices against you, feeling the feeling of "unfairness" at past hurts, the anger that such things bring up is intense. I did not expect to have to work on my liver as a result of having worked on my heart chakra, but then again it seems in doing qigong a lot of things I did not expect seem to come up lol. Speaking of the liver, now that its spring, the time of the wood element, it seems to me that drivers on the road in San Antonio (a city already knowns for grumpy drivers) are extra moody. I'm not sure if there is any coorespondence but the color of the heart chakra is traditionally green, and so is the color of the liver/wood element, and it seems that I am having to work on both at the same time, one as the result of the other. Perhaps all these "issues" are what block the total free flow of love in the heart chakra, and thus need to be dealt with and removed? As I mentioned yesterday, last year I had started doing Zhan Zhuang with the hold the ball posture at the middle dan tien (as per "The Way of Energy") and had to quit because my rage was becoming unbarable. And as I just mentioned I feel it again, but doing the liver inner smile/healing sound seems to be helping to deal with such feelings as they arise.

I can see how squats and streching the legs could have a beneficial effect upon grounding as it works the channels that are in the legs, which are under the domain of the root chakra.