RIP789

小梦想, thanks for your generous offer of the zoom session. I plan to join. In the unlikely event that I cannot join, I take it that the stillness practice - which seems important as a counter-balance to the yang aspects of one's practice - would still be covered in your beginning level training? Another quick question: I stumbled on an online offering and noticed that the practice that they claim to teach might be a form of fa qi. They claim a partial lineage to a master based in SE Asia from whom they have derived a type of training using an electronic device said to stimulate electric qi production. I am a bit mystified as to the advisability from a health perspective of using electronics to stimulate qi. Any thoughts on that type of training, assuming you've come across it? Thanks.

Walker: Thanks very much for posting your experiences with shaking - very helpful. I used to do some shaking years ago as a warm-up to qigong or Taiji practice. At the time, I thought that 300 shakes were plenty. Your advice goaded me to do more or less 10 times that, as an end onto itself. Since re-starting this practice shortly after your original post, I've been doing shaking sessions of 15-20 minutes each at least 3-4 days a week. More than once, feeling tired or being on the verge of coming down with something, I found that shaking re-energized me or brought me back from the brink. I am not sure whether what I feel at the end of each session is what you call 通 (freedom from blockages would be my translation of that word), so I may need to keep practicing to get to what you described. However, if I were to borrow the concept of the 3 states of H2O as analogies from Bruce Frantzis, I would describe my state prior to a session to be somewhat frozen or viscous liquid, and the end state upon completing the session as steam (a healthful internal heat emanating from the LDT which induces a light sweat). Also, as Starjumper remarked in an earlier post in this thread, all that shaking does seem to benefit qi generation. Much appreciate this type of simple and yet profound and effective exercise during these trying times!

Hi RS: Your last reply is to Vortex but I believe that you were addressing my query, for which I am very grateful. I can appreciate that you are not at liberty to disclose the training methods of Dr. JF's YJJ and, given such constraint, you still managed to give a very helpful reply. Among other things, I am glad to hear that the qi infusion that you mention is not an ongoing requirement - it serves mainly to activate major centers or pathways in order to launch one's practice. That is very helpful to know for those of us who may be interested in learning Dr. JF's system without having to commit to go back to China several times a year (I live in Connecticut USA - a lot of British folks live here by the way). I understand that return trips are still needed for adjustments of and corrections to one's practice but at least there is hope of making significant progress on one's own once the exercises are learned. I am going to have to think about making a visit to Dr. JF as well (would like to convince my wife to join me I've been practicing Yang style Tai Chi and a qigong set called Cinnabar Palm for a combined 20 years. The latter in my understanding is a derivative of YJJ (but possibly in the more "conventional" sense) and hopefully it is not incompatible with Dr. JF's system. I look forward to your future posts on Dr. JF or any other qigong explorations that you might be engaged in. Thanks again.

Many thanks, RS, for posting about your experiences with Dr. Jiang Feng. I enjoyed reading your post. I am not sure from your post to what extent you actively trained in their system of Yi Jin Jing during your visit, but if you did, I wonder whether you could give a sense of the nature of such YJJ exercises. First, I realize that theirs is a multi-pronged approach, involving possibly herbal treatments and most definitely some type of Qi infusion from a master such as Dr. JF or one of his senior students, as well as exercises that one has to do on one's own. One question I have is the relative weighting of such exercises in the overall approach to developing the qi abilities that Dr. JF and his students demonstrate. In other words, do the exercises themselves serve mostly to clear blockages or develop some qi ability, with most of the qi abilities, however, deriving from qi infusions from a master? How dependent would one be on such ongoing qi infusions to make real progress? The other question is how do the YJJ exercises taught by Dr. JF and his senior students differ from conventional (for lack of a better word) YJJ exercises the instructions for which can be found in most major cities? From my research of "conventional" YJJ exercises, they train muscles/facia and tendons through various stretching-types of exercises, done with focus and intent and coordinated with breathing. These often alternate between a tension phase and a relaxation phase. These exercises seem to help with strength, flexibility, lymphatic drainage, blood circulation, hormonal regulation and organ massage, and even develop some level of qi that can translate to modest healing abilities, but have not been reported, generally speaking to my knowledge, to produce the types of qi abilities demonstrated by Dr. JF and his senior students. Therefore I am wondering what distinguishes his YJJ exercises from what's available conventionally. If you could just give a sense of the differences I'd much appreciate it. I wish you the best of success in your qigong pursuits.

Leandro: Thanks very much for the helpful response. In fairness to the myriad styles of Tai Chi out there, I should add that the perspective on Tai Chi that I was citing earlier has been shaped by a particular interpretation of the Zheng Mang Qing style, which itself is an outgrowth of the relaxation-oriented Yang style. There are other styles of Tai Chi that emphasize techniques, such as silk reeling, which "relaxation" diehards may interpret as undesirable "muscle tension." Actually, even Prof. Zheng himself advocated a particular body/mind state which he called "swimming on land", i.e. performing the movements as if one is encountering a resistance having the consistency of water, which arguably involves recruitment of muscle fibers or neurons in excess of the bare minimum needed to form and hold the various postures. Your depiction of the proper role of muscle tension makes sense to me. To use a crude analogy, negating the role of muscle tension in qigong practice is somewhat like using only 5 or 6 cylinders in a V8 car engine. Muscles are an integral part of our body/mind - they even help to regulate internal functions such as blood sugar levels or insulin resistance - and I don't see the point of negating a proper role for muscles in qi cultivation either. Dr. Jiang's school is fortunate to have such an articulate proponent as you.

Leandro: Thank you for alerting us as to the impressive demonstrations of qi by Dr. Jiang Feng. Just to help us understand better the nature of the practice that potentially leads to such an apparently outstanding accomplishment in qi cultivation, can you give a sense of the role of muscle exertion in your YJJ practice? The reason I ask stems from my understanding of the method of qi cultivation in Tai Chi practice. As you probably know, Tai Chi emphasizes maximum relaxation of muscles in executing the movements, i.e. no muscle tension beyond the bare minimum needed to form and hold the various postures in the form practice. The theory underlying such emphasis is that muscle tension somehow blocks qi flow. In apparent contrast, I note that Dr. Jiang Feng and his students all seem to actively exert muscular effort when issuing qi, including forming some type of inner compression of qi when performing a demonstration or issuing qi into a patient. It does seem therefore that in your type of YJJ practice, muscles are actively recruited in the process of issuing qi. In a nutshell, what I would appreciate is your giving a sense of the role of muscle exertion in both qi issuance (as discussed above) as well as qi cultivation. Many thanks.

I am looking forward to joining some of the discussions in this estimable forum. I have been practicing Tai Chi and a form of qigong called "Cinnabar Palm" or "Red Iron Palm". The latter is a family style taught to me by a master based in Wuhan, China. I have an interest in Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, as well as any connection between Qi cultivation and one's level of ethics.

Thank you, Scotty and Elliot, and happy holidays.