Zhan Zhuang Qigong

[EagleShen]

Great, thanks!!

I will report back my experience ASAP.

 

Neiye

Neiye, i occasioinally do a good stint of ZZ and then to the Primordial, it really is an amazing combination.

[neiye]

Neiye, i occasioinally do a good stint of ZZ and then to the Primordial, it really is an amazing combination.

 

Thanks for the report, EagleShen.

 

Best qi

Neiye

[neiye]

My practice plan and what I do now is kinda a long story. I have had serious grounding problems (lots of energy in the head and crown creating problems of various kinds) that have forced me to stop regular meditation. THis was so extreeme that I could not be mindfull of the breath for more than two minutes without setting of surges of energy to the head which would take me a couple of days to normalize from. THis made various methods that were suposed to be grounding and balancing unbalancing in stead. Deep belly breathing is a good grounding exercise for example but not one I can do because of the quick start of he surges. Bodyscanning is another that used to balance me out perfectly but because as soon as I go slightly into meditative mode it starts of the energy, body scanning does not have time to even me out before all hel has broken loose. I have tried perhpas over ten other classical grounding exercises that does not work for me. What I have ended up with is embrace the tree and some horse stance, deep earth pulsing like RyanO writes about, tai chi, a version of the inner smile where one smiles in spirals down the body and into the earth that I learnt from Santiago, pilates, some squat stuff and hip hop dancing. THis has now worked consistently well for a long time and I am really getting much more grounded but it is still too early for me to meditate or do bodyscans although I can stay with the breath for some time now and I can quite easily ground back down if something sets of the surges. THe way things are going now I am guessing maybe two weeks minimum maximum two months untill I can meditate so I am excited about that as this has been going on for a year and a half almost.

 

When I can meditate again I will do yoga nidra because it evens me out so well and takes me deep. I want to do it for about 6 months to really get that work done. Alongside I will do longevity breathing and some just watching the breath and lots of standing meditation and inner smile and healing sounds. After that I will transition to more breath based meditation and after some time start doing fusion of the five elements. I tried fusion once and actually started spontainiously doing something similar during a breath based meditation before learning fusion and in both cases thought WOW this is perfect for me. I will then do fusion and breath based medition and standing etc. for as long as I feel like.

 

Long term I want to do Vipassana and KAP. I believe Vipassana is a clear cut effective way to enlightenment and the practice apeals to me strongly, just sitting observing. I belive KAP is an effective suport for a stilnness based sitting practice like Vipassana and a great way to spead things up, have more control over energy and buld health and "juice" and personal balance. THe reason why I don´t want to start of with neither right away is that I am not very interested in Kundalini or any sort of spiritual highs now or for the next couple of years untill I finish school. I need stability and to work on balancing myself and sorting stuff out. And I can`t afford to be tipped of balance untill I finish law school. No matter how balanced the process can be made and how beneficial it is Kundalini is too much radical change for me to go through now or soon and especially during exams etc. THe same can be said for some of the insight cycles of Vipassana and especially the Dark Night.

 

So my choice in practices the next two to three years are more about laying a very firm foundation and balance and heaing and just quality of life rather than high spiritual goals. So it makes sense for me to plan on doing yoga nidra for abou 6 months as I have found it evens out my awareness perfectly evenly across teh whole body which then cures grounding issues. I want to use it to make really sure something like what I have gone through never happens again. Once grounded enough to do yoga nidra it should thorougly finish the job. It also leads to very deep restfull states and whole body awareness and is is very good in general and will be a great foundation in every way. Longevity breathing because it is considered a very good way to build and harmonize energy and because when the breath is deep in the belly you are grounded. Lots of standing and deep earth pulsing to create a strong root which I don`t have at all. And inner smile because I love it and feels it alows me to work on my body and realtionship to my body in great ways and as I said to work sepcificaly. Healing sounds is like my going to bed ritual. Fusion will alow me to go deeper in emotional healing and balancing and working on organs etc.

 

My physical practices now are standing, tai chi, dancing and pilates. The plan is to do mostly pilates for as long as I feel I need to really build a solid core musculature and learn to move from the dan tien. Eventually I will transition back to my yoga. I stopped yoga because of the energy problems and also because it is so much slower in teaching you to move from the dan tien. Once that is taken care of with pilates one naturally keeps that quality when doing yoga. I slowly developed the same in yoga but it was too slow and I really need that quality of movement. I have come to the conclusion that body mechanics is KEY for me. THere is something about learnign to move very well that apeals deeply to me and that heals me more than working with energy in many ways. I am a notorious head person locked away in my head and learning to move and get good body mechanics is what, in addition to dancing and mindfulness and breath work, alows me the most to get in touch with and handle emotions. It works much better for me than energetic practices in this regard. This is why I looooove tai chi and will spend a little bit of time everyday doing my short form even though energeticly it would be much, much more efficient to learn do for example primordial qigong. I also think that it would be much more energeticly beneficial to just do qigong rather than yoga but my heart and body strongly feels like it wants to move in yoga ways and needs the cruder physicality of it rather than jsut doing a soft style of qigong for example.

 

So long long term I think I will Do KAP, Vipassana, yoga, maybe some standing, my daily 5-10 min of tai chi, probably one or two select qigong exercises to work on specific things like my spleen for example (9 out of ten of my issues are spleen issues) and maybe dancing or a martial art at different times.

 

I know very well that i might end up doing different thigns and thinking differently but this has roughly been my thinking for a long time (a year maybe) and it is very consistent with my personality and where I am at. I might also very well change KAP for something else that seems like a fitting energy system or Vipassana for Zen if I meet the right Zen teacher but I think I will always prioritize sitting in stilness observing over energy work (I learnt it over ten years ago the first time and thoguht this is sooooo for me) but I think I will always want some energywork in addition because it makes so much sense to me and I just like to do it. So what exactly those two components will be might change but that I will do both and that I will prioritize stilness will in all likelyhood remain the case. Same goes with my prioirty of bodymechanics over efficiency with energy. I feel it is so important to me that untill I feel I have that down This will probably remain the way I think and prioritze. Once I am happy with that side of things I might change completely and tai chi and yoga and pilates might be changed into some sort of qigong system.

 

So although I thought primordial qigong was great it did not fit into my thinking as I did not have time to do it in addition to these other things. It seemed energeticly very good but not as good for body mechanics which was more important than deeper energywork and I plan on taking care of that with fusion and KAP. Adding primordial did not make sense in that package. Had I not wanted to do KAP or prioritized bodymechnics primoridial might very well have become my core alchemy

in addition to Vipassana. But it might also have been Kunlun for example which I see as good for that part (they are aparently good togheter according to fiveelementtao).

 

I know this was a long complicated story and some people might find the way I think strange but I think it makes a lot of sense and have actually wanted to write about how I think about these things for some time as I think there are a couple of aspects of my thinking arround this that might be usefull for others. THere can be good reasons to not just picking one practice and sticking with it from the get go altough that is often a very good idea. It all depends on your goals and phases will often have different goals.

 

Wow, you have a very rich practice program!

I agree with you about body mechanics. I did some yoga for 2-3 years ten years ago and I must admit that my body stored some very good feelings from it in terms of easing the joints, sensations of strengh and supleness. A few days ago, I was even considering going back to it. I learnt a lot with Zen practice (3 years), it gave me some taste of cultivating Shen. I don't know much about KAP and Kunlun...

Thanks for talking freely about your pratices.

 

Best qi,

Neiye

Edited March 22, 2010 by neiye

[spiraltao]

I have owned Master Lam's book Chi Kung-The Way of Power for nearly a year now. I posted a bit on the "wall of fire" exercise.

 

 

I highly recommend this book, as it is very affordable and Master Lam leads you from the beginning stages to more advanced stages.

 

 

 

Thanks for the youtube link!