The Way Is Virtue

I see from your list of interests in your tag that you do a lot of practices so I guess it might be hard for you to tell specifically how much the zhan zhuang practice is helping overall, but have you noticed any improvements that you would attribute to the zhan zhuang practice?

Sounds good Jetsun! Yes, I think you probably don't want to try to force standing meditation longer than you can do it without it starting to be a strain. The idea is to stay relaxed and calm, and that state can be hard to maintain if the meditation starts becaoming a strain. When first starting out you may only want to do just a few minutes at a time until yor legs start getting more used to the posture. You don't have to bend your knees too much either. Just a little bit so the knee joints aren't locked is good enough.

Great! Anyway, that was then and this is now. Anyway people are free to participate or stop as they please. Some people may just find they have lost interest after a while or they are getting too busy or whatever, so that is perfectly fine. I think it is probably better for people to not commit to something too ambitious at first to make it easier to keep up their practice regularly. One can always slowly increase their practice time over time if they are finding they can manage without finding it to be too much of a burden. Also, people don't have to report on their progress very often or even at all if they don't want to. Some people may prefer to keep some or all of that to themselves. That's fine with me. I probably won't be posting here much more than about once a week or so myself as I am fairly busy these days, but I will keep up with what is going on as long as others are still interested. I do intend to keep this up for the full 100 days myself though for sure, as I do want to see what results this might bring. I think sometimes the group thing can help motivate some people a bit more though than doing it completely on one's own. What sort of sitting meditation do you practice?

Thanks for joining in! Not all of us have access to local meditation or qigong groups that we resonate with or that we can participate in, so I thought maybe trying this as a group thing here might still provide people a bit of the group energy experience even if we are scattered all over the place and only communicating through electric, light, and electromagnetic pulses through the net. What kind of standing were you doing previously?

Cool! I'm not familiar with those yoga postures or any yoga postures really. Sounds like it could be a bit tough holding yoga postures for as much as 5 minutes? Are they pretty tough postures to do and hold? If they are you may want to start off with shorter times at first and slowly work your way up, but maybe you have already worked your way up to several minutes in those postures? Welcome to the experiment. I am hoping that doing this is a group thing will help to inspire and motiviate at least a few people to push themselves a bit more to practice regularly and to keep going steady through all the ups and downs.

That's what I am thinking as well. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts... For others: It's perfectly OK to join in on this even if you have already been doing regular meditation or qigong for quite a while. The idea here is just to make a commitment to do your best to practice every day for 100 days without missing any days to really keep the momentum going and maybe post a comment to this thread once in a while on how you are making out and if you had any interesting experiences. Even if you can only commit to 15 minutes a day, if you do that every day for 100 days you are bound to make at least some progress. Often people practice somewhat intermittently, or they practice a lot for several weeks quite regularly and then start to lose steam. It might be interesting to see what progress people can make if they do regular daily practice for 100 days. If some want to give it a try and they find that they can't keep up the practice for some reason, then no worries.

Awesome! Should be interesting to see what types of results various people get if more people decide to take the plunge as well.

This video series (Days 1 to 10) by Lam Kam Chuen called "Stand Still, Be Fit" seems to be a pretty good overview, although I have only watched the first video so far and skimmed through some of the others. Seems to contain some good info and tips: Here is the link to the "Day 1" video: You may see some variation in the forms from teacher to teacher, but the principles should be fairly similar. The first video shows the wuji standing posture.

To keep things moving along in qigong, it is good to try to do at least a little qigong practice every day. Depends on your goals and free time though. Various other practices can be complementary to qigong so you may just have to experiment a bit to see what schedule seems to be working for you. When I am really short on free time, I try to do at least 10 to 15 minutes of standing meditation. Seems to help for me.

A warm hello to everyone!

Haven't heard of qigong specifically causing sudden hair loss although I suppose it might be possible. It sounds from your description that you are not experiencing any other negative effects like headaches or strange aches and pains or other signs that something might be wrong? You haven't started using some new sort of hair care products or other substances on your body recently that might be causing some sort of reaction? No new foods or supplements recently? There was something in the news recently about the 'Brazilian Blowout' hair straightening treatment causing sudden hair loss If the hair loss problem is as you have described, then you may well want to consult a doctor and see if they can help. If this is being caused by some sort of reaction to something it might well start growing back once you find the cause of the problem and eliminate it. Anything eles that might have changed recently in your environment or your normal routine?

Nice! As far as the pain in the knee, that is something that you will kind of have to watch and judge for yourself if it is just minor and temporary as the knee gets used to the new stretch, or whether it is a bit too much and then you would probably want to take it slower or take a break for a while. You can always do half lotus for a while alternating on each side as well as a way to ease into full lotus with a little less stress on the joints in the mean time. Hmm, haven't heard that one should necessarily do sitting before standing. In some internal martial arts traditions standing meditation is the main kind of meditation that is used to build up qi and help open all the channels. Some may do sitting meditation as well though and also moving qigong forms. You can always try alternating to standing when you want to give your joints a break.

Edit: Will try to make my question more to the point: From your understanding, what are the reasons for doing closing after practicing qigong or meditation? The reasons I am aware of are to try to help prevent qi stagnation in certain areas of the body, and to help direct excess qi back to the lower dan tian where it is more safely stored. What other reasons might there be for doing closing?

Hi Friend, yes, perhaps some can do this more intuiitively or more by just allowing the closing practice to take it's natural course or the like, but many teachers teach a set closing sequence, which may be for the reason you indicated that it is better to make certain that all the bases are covered, so to speak. Thanks for your feedback on this.

Hi Reader. From some of the replies on this topic it does seem that some view closing as not only just a proper way to end out of qigong/meditation, but also as involving literally closing or sealing in some ways. It would seem closing practices can include both aspects, at least in some traditions. I personally have always viewed 'closing' as more of a proper way to end a qigong/meditation session to help prevent qi stagnation and any other ill effects that might potentially occur from not ending properly, as that is how it was taught to me. One of my meditation teachers merely taught that one should just come out of meditation slowly and sit relaxed until you feel your system has returned to normal, and then get up and walk around slowly for a bit to help any buildups of qi to balance and smooth out more. In other traditions various types of self massage and patting are used along with some other procedures. It is probably best to follow whatever closing procedures are taught in the particular system that one is practicing and one can always consider adding more if they feel so inclined or if they are running into issues. That's my view anyway.

No worries Observer. It never hurts to get some feedback from others if you are not certain about something. Either way, in the end you still have to use your best discretion. BTW, unless you have leg or joint or circulation problems, I wouldn't worry too much about some numbness and pain in the legs or joints when doing sitting meditation. It's kind of unavoidable for most people unless your joints are already quite open and your muscles and ligaments and tendons are fairly flexible. For people with joint or circulation problems in the legs however, it is a different story. Consulting a doctor or physical therapist first would be advisable. For less serious problems one could consider either just sitting in a chair or doing a standing meditation like the wuji or taiji zhan zhuang stances. In more serious cases of these sorts of problems one should definitely check with a doctor to see if they think the posture you are intending to use would be harmful in the doctor's estimation. One always has to use their best judgement. Over time the numbness and pain starts becoming less of a problem. However if you have numbness in the area that you mentioned, I would try adjusting your position or use a thicker meditation cushion until you find a solution where that is not happening. If numbness or pain in the legs starts becoming too much you can always move your legs out in front of you a bit and massage them a bit until you feel relief and then resume your posture if you still want to continue. I personally don't use full lotus, just use either normal leg crossing or half lotus. Full lotus can be pretty tough for many westerners unless they start when they are younger or have done martial arts or yoga or the like for some time. I understand that some teachers do teach sitting using full lotus though. Different teachers from different traditions seem to have varying views on this.

No, I hadn't seen that thread. Thanks for the link! Some more interesting points in that thread as well about closing. I still would be interested in hearing more about reasons for placing either the left or right hand on the outside in the taoist hand seal and when rotating the palms over the lower dantian area, and why exactly the circle or spiral motions with the palms are done over the lower dantian area when closing, if anyone knows.

It is not so much that you feel chi (qi), but you feel its effects in the body as sensations. Sensations that can be felt can vary from warmth, coolness, vibrations, field like sensations, pulsing, shaking, sharp sudden pin prick like sensations (usually when qi is passing through a blocked point), aching sensations (usually in areas where there are restrictions or blockages to qi or imbalances), feeling of something like electricity or strong 'energy-like' sensations moving through a meridian or through muscles (can cause shaking or vibration sensations in the muscles), expansiveness, emptiness - as in feeling no form in parts of your body or the whole body, etc. In other words, the feeling of qi being active in your body can cause a wide variety of sensations.

Edit: Decided to move this to a PM instead.

I think it is for the same reason your legs can get numb when sitting for a long time is a certain position. These sort of effects will start to go away as your joints open up more and as you progress in your meditation. I believe it is either caused by pressure on a nerve or reduced circulation. In the mean time you might try adjusting your leg position slightly or using a thicker meditation cushion, etc.

Ok, thanks! There are taoist/qigong closing practices that involve rotating the palms over the lower dantian or possibly other areas as well. Different traditions appear to have variations on this, but it usually involves rotating the inward facing palms over the lower dantian. The number of rotations seems to vary from different traditions, and exactly how the hands are positioned and rotated varies as well. This process seems to at least in part be used to gather qi back to the lower dantian, but I do not really understand why the palms are rotated in circles to do this. For example, some will start with small counter-clockwise circles that increase in size for a certain number of rotations, and then switch to clockwise circles of the palms that slowly decrease in size. Some just seem to do a certain number of clockwise circles. Can anyone shed any insight on what the exact purpose of these circles are, and why some closing methods will first rotate one way and then switch to the other direction? Some will place one hand on the outside to rotate one way and then switch the other hand to the outside to rotate the other way as well. As an aside to this, I have seen some taoist arts teachers for which the left hand is held outside the right hand for the taoist hand seal (for men) or when rotating the hands over the dantian , and some teachers who place the right hand outside the left for the hand seal (for men). I understand that it has something to do with yang embracing yin or vice versa, but have no idea why this is actually done this way. Has anyone ever come across an explanation for this?

Very interesting info. Thank you.

Greetings mibale.