ChiDragon

This is a very good explanation of Taiji breathing.

Ref: https://taichibasics.com/tai-chi-breathing/#:~:text=It is important to begin by talking about

On 7/27/2024 at 11:16 AM, Rheor said:

I have been meditating a lot for two years, I reduced off from 8 hours daily to 2/3 hours over the course of two months in order to focus

I feel most of my energy working around the heart chakra, like a "lock" in the center of my chest. My chest feels "full" with heat and pain accumulating in the heart, some head pressure aswell along with some level of mental fog. 

 

Pressure keep accumulating in my chest, I do the bare minimum of meditation just to release excesses.
To ground myself: Tai Chi, "earthing" barefoot on backyard,

When you meditate, did you concentrate on your breathing. Since you do meditation and Taiji, both are involved with breathing. If you had done properly with breathing, then, it should help to release the pressure off the chest and head as well. As I recall, the head use about 20% of the oxygen from the breathing. The lack of oxygen, hypoxia, might cause problem in the head as you had described. Try to breathe slowly and deep while meditating.

Use this as a guideline in your breathing.

2 hours ago, Thrice Daily said:

Remember reading somewhere that the mingmen is perfect point to focus on when moving. Like walking...

 

It is better to focus on mingmen that LDT when moving.

May I jump into this. My good friend!
Mingmen, 命門 is just an accupoint. It will do nothing while you are walking, either your are focusing on it or not.

What you should be focusing on is the meaning of "focus（意守)". For example, I focus on you chest while I am breathing. It simply means I am paying close attention to breathe down to my chest.

When I focus on my dantain while breathing. Thus my concentration is to breathe down to the abdomen.

My advice to you is to stick to the right definition. Then, nothing will go wrong in your understanding.

意守丹田: focus on the dantian

The points must be observed before practice weapons.
Diligent practice of the basic Taiji movements is a must to condition the body and breathing. Conditioning the body means to activate and strengthening the leg muscles. The condition in standing on one leg is always from one move after another, it will alternately shifting the way from leg to leg. Other times, both legs should be grounded on the floor at a bow stand to keep the body balance. The proper bow stand is not to have the legs in one straight line. Hence, there should be a gap between the heels is a must.

The legs were raised, one at a time, is to let the other leg to withstand the weight of the whole body. In other words, most people don't realize that the legs are actually doing weight lifting. That was how the leg muscles was conditioned. I don't think most people was aware of that when I said practice Taiji to condition the body. Thus the more one practices the legs  get more stronger. The good thing about practicing diligently will kick in the breathing, so one can breathe deeply until the breath reach the abdomen. At this point in time, one had been accomplished "氣沉丹田, sink chi to the dantain."  However, regardless, what others defined what chi is here. My definition is always meant breath to make any sense to me. It is because I am dealing with breath that was given me the energy.

 

Yang Taiji sword 42 style

Those who wish to practice weapons, the prerequisite is the practice the basic Taiji movements to condition the body and breathing before one can practice weapons. The choice of weapons is up to the practitioner wish to practice. It can be a sword, sabre, staff or whatever.

Taiji sword may be performed slowly, softly and refine. It is considered to be more yin. A sword, has two sharp edges, should never swing over above the head as oppose to a sabre. The sabre requires to consume more energy and considered to be more yang. Thus a practitioner must be familiarized with  breathing to handle a sabre. One should only swing the non-sharpen edge of the sabre over the head.
 

59 minutes ago, Cobie said:

It’s a response to “that’s basically a cop-out”, which was in response to my post:

No，Cobie, What you said is not related to anything we had discussed here.  Ok, you have fun on your vacation.

1 hour ago, thelerner said:

To show we aren't (armed or) dangerous.

Someone can stab you in the back with a smile.

Bow stance with Taiji walk.

Improper footing:

Bow stance with Taiji walk.

Proper way:

His instruction for Taiji walk and bow stance are very good. I would use it as my standard in teaching. If you are ever in doubt, then, always come back for reference.

7 minutes ago, Giles said:

 

Unfortunately, such videos don't exist.

 

However, I can assure you that William has no knee issues whatsoever and neither do I (although I only started practicing Lam-style Chi Kung in the mid-90s,.so perhaps I'll pay a price for ignoring your advice eventually 🤣).

 

Just for your amusement, most of the Taiji moves should ended up with a bow stand. The key to it was that there must be a gap between to heels to maintain balance. In other words, both leg should not be in a straight line. Let me see if I can find some examples online.

10 minutes ago, Giles said:

 

No, but I'm sure that your warning will ring all the right bells anyway... 😊

 

Incidentally, here's a video of one of Sifu Lam's students practicing Lam-style Tai Chi just in case you'd like to take it upon yourself critique that, as well. 😊

 

 

Thank you! I see that he has been practiced for some time is because there is Jin in him. Do you have a video that show the lower part of his body. I would like to see how was he doing the stance?

13 minutes ago, Giles said:

 

So, if I understood you correctly, this has nothing to do with the brief Chi Kung warm-up exercises, taught by Sifu Lam but instead it relates to the improper practice of Tai Chi?

 

The same erroneous movement is in both exercises. Is that clear? It was the erroneous knee movement that makes the Taiji practice improper! It is also in the ZZ warm up exercise. 

37 minutes ago, Giles said:

 

Thanks. 🙏🏻

 

What's your source?

 

In China, there were many people practicing Taiji improperly and damaged their knee joints. The swirl movement was causing the grinding of the bones in the knee caps. The proper way to exercise one leg is by moving both foot and knee together simultaneously. Just by moving the knees is causing to much stress at the knee joint.
 

On 9/11/2024 at 10:17 AM, Giles said:

 

There are indeed many forms of qigong and here is a the first episode of a series of instructional videos featuring a competent teacher who is teaching and practicing both static and moving chi kung outdoors.

 

FYI
@ 2:40 Nowadays, it has been determined that is the worse exercise. Making circle with the knees is very detrimental to the knee joints.  It was recommended to drop this knee exercise for good.

10 hours ago, dwai said:

 

Thank you very much for showing the videos. I didn't know which gentleman is you. However, I do see lots of Jin in the body of both partners. I think push-hand was performed. I only see push-push, none was push-pull. Therefore, I would not consider to classify that as a performance of push-hand. What I can say is that both partners are testing the body strength of each other.

Now, I had seen your videos. May I have your permission to make a few comments with no offense? It is because I have a lot more to say.

1 hour ago, Lukks said:

I've been practicing Qigong like never before so it should be happening now but it's not, so I'm at a point that I don't even know if this is correlated to qigong, which was the only thing I could think of to trigger this.

😂 how long have you been practicing Qigong. If it was done properly, there will be a biological change in your body. It might change your personality a bit.

@Rheor

Based on your symptoms, may I ask you a question?

What kind of activity were you involved when you are a teenager? Did you do something constantly and more often like most teenagers do with your five fingers?

2 hours ago, forestofclarity said:

Does fajin have a point outside of martial arts? 

 

 

No, Fajin is the highest form of martial arts in Taiji. Just one punch through the heart will kill someone. That Jin(explosive force) is so powerful, it will just go through one's body. My teacher once told us, just be careful who you touch and try not to push any kid around! The kid might flight off few feet away.

4 hours ago, Thrice Daily said:

You will inspire people with your bravery I think. Be authentic..... !!!

Yes, at first, it was not too quite comfortable. You only can feel more comfortable if you get over the fear. I did the Taiji hand movements in the airplane while standing with people watch TV or me. After awhile, I feel relaxed when I pretend that nobody was there watching me. I was, also, feeling kind of proud that I am doing Taiji to show off.
 

5 hours ago, dwai said:

We can discuss fajin further after you demonstrate fajin with a live partner.

BTW May I have the honor to see your demo? It's optional of course.

Please do get me wrong. I am not asking for proof. I beleive you based on your words.

2 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

(idiom) Don’t give up until you achieve your goal.

 

 

Thank Tao, we are almost become a Taoist. You are a quarter-Taoist and I am a semi-Taoist. At least, we can make some sense out of each other and communicate. It was nice that we can picked it up where we left off from OD. Otherwise, we would be boring to death. Anyway, Taoist talk makes thing to go in accordance with the way of Tao. It gives us a peace of mind. Isn't that wonderful!

8 hours ago, Master Logray said:

There are levels of Fajin.  If my Fajin can push a trolley for 10 feet, it is not very useful.

Ofc not, your trolley has wheels.

20 minutes ago, dwai said:

The way I see it, there is a point of diminishing returns if there is no way to demonstrate what is being claimed

 

 There was another saying, 不到黃河心不息. 

I'll let Cobie handle this one. Please translate!
@Cobie

1 hour ago, dwai said:

Heavy bags are not a good way to do push-hands. They will give you dead weight—a live human being will not

I do not use a heavy bag, rather I used a lightweight bag stand up right on the floor. When push I feel the light weight of the bag to get the yang effect. On the pull, moving my hand away from the bag, I go song(松) on my hand and let the bag follow me to get the yin effect. When doing the push-pull motion, it meets the yin-yang concept which what Taiji goes by.

11 hours ago, Fracas said:

Hi to all

In my spare time I practice tai chi and qi gong.
Hopefully I will find interesting opinions and topics about Tao here.

Gregory Patterson

Welcome! Please come to discuss about the mysterious Tao.