How can you tell the difference between chi flow and a pinched nerve?

[Encephalon]

I've had carpal tunnel surgery on both hand in the last three years. (it has a 99.9% success rate). We all know what a pinched nerve feels like, especially if it travels. Today, while standing in Embrace Tree, I was able to control an oscillating sensation between my left and right hands; a rotating sensation that bounced back and forth between R and L with a frequency of approximately two pulses per second.

 

I'm awfully excited about the whole thing. Is it too soon to quit my day job?

 

Just prior to this experience I was using my mind to direct attention to each finger, to get it to throb individually before moving on to the next digit. That's when the oscillation kicked in.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Blasto

[JustARandomPanda]

I've had carpal tunnel surgery on both hand in the last three years. (it has a 99.9% success rate). We all know what a pinched nerve feels like, especially if it travels. Today, while standing in Embrace Tree, I was able to control an oscillating sensation between my left and right hands; a rotating sensation that bounced back and forth between R and L with a frequency of approximately two pulses per second.

 

I'm awfully excited about the whole thing. Is it too soon to quit my day job?

 

Just prior to this experience I was using my mind to direct attention to each finger, to get it to throb individually before moving on to the next digit. That's when the oscillation kicked in.

Blasto...since no one has answered I figured I'd give it a shot. Only thing is I'm a beginner so perhaps take what I say with a grain of salt. For what it's worth I recognized your description as something similar to what I feel. I noticed that as the weeks and months wear on my ability to feel Chi gets better. I've started to notice things now that I didn't in the beginning.

 

One example:

 

I can now feel dense Chi areas in my own body via a magnetic pull on my hands. That's how I discovered the Chakra approximately 1 foot above my head. I was starting at my crown to do the Chakra diagnosis that Tao taught when my hands suddenly shot up - pulled up by 'magnetic force' of the Chakra nexus up there. I was literally then able to 'feel' it's dimensions - somewhat similar to the way you describe above.

 

When I first began to feel Chi I did not have this ability. It was very weak - so weak for a while I wondered if it was just wishful thinking and pretending that I was feeling chi. It definitely took a while to really feel it. I now think that just like lifting weights - as you keep at it - your ability to feel it and manipulate it gets stronger.

 

Of course I also now think the people who are strongest of all with manipulating Chi cultivate a Dantien Buddha Belly (and now I understand why Santi's public Shaktipats unleash the gale force of a Category 5 hurricane ).

 

 

So be proud! It sounds like you are making great progress. And this is only the beginning...

[Mal]

When I first began to feel Chi I did not have this ability. It was very weak - so weak for a while I wondered if it was just wishful thinking and pretending that I was feeling chi. It definitely took a while to really feel it. I now think that just like lifting weights - as you keep at it - your ability to feel it and manipulate it gets stronger.

 

I feel the same. Girls do seem to progress faster in this stuff, perhaps they are just more in tune with there own body

[Encephalon]

I feel the same. Girls do seem to progress faster in this stuff, perhaps they are just more in tune with there own body

 

That settles it. I'm going forward with my sex change operation.

[Zhuo Ming-Dao]

I've had carpal tunnel surgery on both hand in the last three years. (it has a 99.9% success rate). We all know what a pinched nerve feels like, especially if it travels. Today, while standing in Embrace Tree, I was able to control an oscillating sensation between my left and right hands; a rotating sensation that bounced back and forth between R and L with a frequency of approximately two pulses per second.

 

I'm awfully excited about the whole thing. Is it too soon to quit my day job?

 

Just prior to this experience I was using my mind to direct attention to each finger, to get it to throb individually before moving on to the next digit. That's when the oscillation kicked in.

 

My wife, a medical massage therapist, was just telling me that while carpal tunnel surgery has a 99.9% success rate at first, it falls to an abysmally low percentage after about five years post-op. She said that the nerve typically will get impinged again on other things even after the offending fascia on the wrist has been severed.

 

With that out of the way... what you describe just sounds like good old chi to me. As long as it is not the numb, super prickly sensation that comes with a pinched nerve, I would not worry. Chi can have a variety of intense sensations, especially when you are opening up the flow in a new location, but it rarely feels like a pinched nerve. Also, when you allow your limbs to become paralyzed or stiff through relaxed concentration, the chi sensations can sometimes leap up to unbelievable or even uncomfortable heights and pulse or flow however they want.

[King Kabalabhati]

In the summer I fell on my skateboard ramp and landed on my arm, ending with multiple strains, sprains and bruises. Oooh it hurt.. Anyway, as the pain cleared a bit, boy was this arm sensitive to chi. It was like a new experience and a peculiar step forward in my energy work, to have the sensation of chi magnified like that so it kinda strengthened my faith in the energy.

[Ya Mu]

99% success? Not what I have seen; but it has been pointed out to me that the successes do not come to my clinic.

What I have seen is that it is one of the most misdiagnosed injuries that exist. I would say that over 75% of the people that have been to my clinic with that diagnosis did not have real carpal tunnel syndrome. Usually it stems from neurological issues in the upper thoracic/lower cervical area as well as energy channel stagnation and is easily corrected. Even those that really have true carpal tunnel syndrome usually have components of neurological degradation at upper thoracic/lower cervical as well as energy channel stagnation and benefit dramatically with therapy and removing the cause of the problem.

 

From what you are describing, though, it sounds like good old plain and simple as well as complex and astounding qi.

[joeblast]

I agree. IME qi feels way different than a pinched nerve.

[Encephalon]

Thanks for the Heads Up on the Carpal tunnel data. I'm lucky I have Kaiser. They perform a nerve conduction test; two electrical leads and an O-scope. I flat-lined the test, both arms. I had to have the surgery, after years of working on fishing boats and construction sites.

 

I just have to ask; is it typical to have such breakthroughs, or milestones, with such rapidity? My chronology was two solid years of nei kung as taught my Master Chu http://www.chutaichi.com/neikung.shtml

 

Then, as some of you know and graciously commented on, I overheated myself and broke out in a rash and dry skin on my face and the bottom of my feet. So I stopped Embrace Tree and performed twenty minutes of Horse Stance with my hands on my tan tien, and voila! the heat ricochet stopped and the chi turbine in the Lower Vessel just went totally ape-shit.

 

This was quickly followed by dramatic (by my standards) and wilful control of chi sensation. Yesterday's finger experiment was the most profound so far, and I was able to duplicate the same thing last night around midnight. All I'm working toward is a decent MO by Christmas. Heat. Movement. Inner sensitivity. I'm sort of a house husband right now so I have the opportunity to really dig into this stuff, which may explain why I have daily surprises.

 

Thanks for your feedback and encouragement. Half the time I am ready to bail on this forum because of all the egocentrism that pervades the threads (uh, mine included, but I'm working on it). Perhaps if I just stick with issues surrounding personal physical experience, and leave the philosophy and intellectualizing out of it I can still get enormous benefit from participating in here.

 

I'll let you know when I have successfully jettisoned my ego.

[Baguakid]

1. I agree with YaMu

 

2. SereneBlue, you have the hottest avatar on the TBs... !!

 

3. I've always had trouble feeling my own Qi.. I can feel others, especially those of high levels, no problem. More practice for me.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Baguakid