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Hi Taobums Community ~ I was wondering if anyone out there has experienced this or heard about it... In my qigong practice, I’ve been working with postural daoyin training working with rooting into the earth and allowing the free-flow of Qi through my body, & exploring optimal balance of my structure (physically and energetically). I’ve been working a lot also with beating and drumming the Qi, and also the microcosmic orbit. The two experiences that I’m wondering if anyone has heard about (I’m an acupuncturist and this isn't really the way the Ren and Du meridians are described in the textbooks... well, the Du meridian is, somewhat, but not exactly in this way): Focusing on the area above the perineum causes the Ren meridian to light up along the surface of the body. If I then focus on the area above the perineum and fill it with energy, the Ren meridian will go in an arc upward, from area just above the perineum out away from the body in a half circle, pouring into the third eye, filling the upper dantien with energy. In wuji posture, if I pull my head back a little while looking slightly down, so that my sinuses move into the field of the taiji pole (I’ve been a student of Jerry Alan Johnson’s system, and he talks of the taiji pole… not sure if it’s in other systems), and if I focus on stretching Du-16, it will create a circle of energy that runs from Du-20 (the vertex of the head) through the sinuses, back to Du-16 (where neck meets occiput) and back up to Du-20, circling around and around, filling the upper dantien with energy. Curious if anyone knows about this… These things are not in my textbooks and my qigong teacher didn’t seem to know much about it either. Maybe it’s just the way my energy is shifting as I explore my own healing process, but I’m wondering if anyone else has heard of these things. Please share if you have experienced this, or if you’ve heard of this ~ perhaps a qigong system or teacher talks about this? Thanks so much everyone!

Hi Tao Bums Community ~ I’m new here so I thought I would stop in and say hello, and also see if anyone can recommend a qigong/neigong system or teacher with a deep understanding and instruction regarding the extraordinary meridians, preferably something different than is found in the typical TCM system. I've been an acupuncturist for 10 years, and been into qigong and yoga for quite a long time. I’ve recently become interested in internal alchemy. I’m not looking for any particular “powers” other than to have control of my own energy circuits, and also anything that contributes to vibrant health and longevity (for myself and my patients). Mostly I just really resonate with Taoist cosmology and Chinese medicine, and I really enjoy learning about and working in the energetic realms. The last few years, I’ve been a student of one of Jerry Alan Johnson’s senior teachers and enjoy that system greatly. I planned to continue with it, but I recently find myself without a teacher and wondering which direction I should go with my qigong practice. I find JAJ’s system to be particularly powerful (for me, anyway) in terms of clearing stagnant energies and healing in general, and I appreciate how open he is with his knowledge. I plan to continue my daily practice with that system, but now that my teacher is gone, I’m wondering what else is out there. In the past year, I’ve been doing a lot of postural daoyin training (JAJ’s wuji posture and the 1-10 meditation) and experiencing the Qi that comes up from the earth, in particular discovering how proper posture activates the flow of the extraordinary meridians, including branches off the main pathways that I don’t find in the textbooks. What I’ve been experiencing doesn’t seem to be part of JAJ’s system, although perhaps it’s in there and I didn’t get to that point yet. However I’m not finding references to what I’m experiencing in his books and my teacher didn’t remark on my experiences when I told him about them. I recently read the Chase/Shima translation of Li Shi Zhen’s book on the extraordinary meridians, and found a lot of correspondences between what I’m experiencing and what he says about the 8 extras, particularly regarding pathways and focal points. Li Shi Zhen doesn’t appear to use the standard (TCM) confluent points of the 8 extras, but he references the knowledge of Zhang Bo Duan, and implies that a doctor should cultivate the 8 extras through internal alchemy to really understand how to use them. So I’m looking for a teacher or system that discusses this. Does anyone know a system or teacher out there, pointing to the same things Li Shi Zhen was pointing to, regarding the 8 extras? I’ve poked through the forums and I’ve seen references to this book, but not to systems that really discuss this. The information must be out there somewhere though, and I’m hoping someone here might know. Thanks so much, everyone, and I look forward to getting to know people here! And as soon as I can figure out how to flesh out my profile, I'll do that too.