Flying Phoenix Chi Kung

[Frederic]

Hi Jeff,

 

Thank you for this great advice. Thank you for confirming that the effortless way is the right way.

When I started this practice I promised myself not to fall into the trap of striving (again), but just do it and enjoy the process.

True spirituality is, to me, mostly about release of effort and tension, yet striving with too much effort is so engrained...

 

I will continue in the way that you described :-)

[zen-bear]

Hi Jeff,

 

Thank you for this great advice. Thank you for confirming that the effortless way is the right way.

When I started this practice I promised myself not to fall into the trap of striving (again), but just do it and enjoy the process.

True spirituality is, to me, mostly about release of effort and tension, yet striving with too much effort is so engrained...

 

I will continue in the way that you described :-)

Hi Frederic,

 

Welcome to the Flying Phoenix community.

 

Here's a tip that will enable you to gradually increase the duration of your practice of the basic standing FP Meditations such as Monk Gazing At Moon:  do Bending the Bows on a regular basis and as much as you can.

 

This cornerstone moving meditation imparts profound relaxation in all physiological functions, transforms muscular and nervous tension, relieves pain, and conditions the body to assume the FP Meditation postures with comfort.  Practice of all the stationary FP Meditations will naturally be more relaxed and easier to prolong.

 

Good luck with your practice.

 

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

 

 

_{www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html}

Edited August 21, 2016 by zen-bear

[Frederic]

Hi Frederic,

 

Welcome to the Flying Phoenix community.

 

Here's a tip that will enable you to gradually increase the duration of your practice of the basic standing FP Meditations such as Monk Gazing At Moon:  do Bending the Bows on a regular basis and as much as you can.

 

This cornerstone moving meditation imparts profound relaxation in all physiological functions, transforms muscular and nervous tension, relieves pain, and conditions the body to assume the FP Meditation postures with comfort.  Practice of all the stationary FP Meditations will naturally be more relaxed and easier to prolong.

 

Good luck with your practice.

 

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

 

 

_{www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html}

 

Thanks Sifu, will do!

 

 

I already noticed that my shoulders where much more at ease when doing the Monk Holding the Peach which comes after Bending the Bows on the DVD, and that Bending the Bows brings a feeling of softness in my body.

 

I will focus more on Bending the Bows and add a few repetitions also before Monk Gazing at Moon.  Thank you!

[tao stillness]

Sifu Terry,

In the past you have written here that you have only seen a few people do the long form on volume 4 correctly. Could you share with us why this form would be difficult to learn to do correctly? Because knowing that only a few people are doing it the right way creates a mental block against even attempting to learn it.

[Chai Hu]

Hello Sifu Terry. I want to ask about something. I started your DVD program and with warming up exercises I see the white aura around your hands on video, that's intersting thing.

After practicing my first session of level one standing meditations I felt pretty agressive for no reason, like woman on period. Am I doing something wrong or this is normal effect of qigong?

 

At what e-mail can I contact you? Is this the right one? [email protected]

Edited August 23, 2016 by Chai Hu

[Jeff495Caldwell]

Hope all is well.

 

Question on Wind above the clouds. 

 

Whilst looking through the posts I realized that I wasn’t doing the breath sequence on each repetition of Wind above the clouds.  Didn’t clue in when Terry mentioned it at the end on the DVD.  I will make that change now. 

 

My question is, when Terry says perform the breath sequence again if doing a second repetition, does the breath sequence include always the 3 initial and 3 ending breaths?  Just want to make sure I am clear on these instructions and not skipping something.   

 

Thanks.

 

Jeff

[ridingtheox]

musings:   breath, breathing is the central element of all  qi  cultivation.   awareness of breath is key to progress in tcc and all the qg exercises.  by extension respiration at the cell level, the delivery of oxygen to all body is life,  no breath no respiration no life.

If breathing is not a central part of your practice ,  you need to reconsider how / what you are doing.  If you are doing FP but not breathing smoothly and with awareness throughout,  then your practice is not correct.   The focusing breaths and breath regime are key to the efficacy of this practice,  however,  the breath must continue to be in your awareness and intent as you do the forms.  This is one possibility of doing the FP  ' wrong'.   One can do the physical sequences correctly and still not be doing the practice efficiently.  I think that this is true of all internal arts.  The breath is critically important .. chu y  pay attention. Cultivate and store in the dan tien,  but always come back to the breath.

 

mho

[tao stillness]

While I have done Flying Phoenix meditations the relaxation is at a point where I have to periodically check to see if I am breathing. What I recall from Sifu Terry is that once the correct breathing sequence is finished, we then no longer have to be concerned with our breathing. I know this conflicts with the above advice so we will wait for the Sifu to get back to us on this one. I don't always remember correctly what I have read on this long blog.

[cihan]

One mistake I made in the beginning was coordinating the movements with in/out breath, because I was feeling the chi much better. After some cultivation, attention automatically broadens and covers the many processes of the mind, with breathing stopping on its own for some time during the movements. (documented to be one of the cornerstones of some jhana level in general meditation practice.) Only then I finally understood why Sifu Terry once told me to let the breath to its own, with no interference. Of course I may be very wrong, but following/regulating breathing aside opening and closing procedure is not a good friend of FPCK meditations after the preliminary stages . It may be much difficult to break this habit later on and maybe get pass through.

Edited August 27, 2016 by cihan

[tao stillness]

I put my awareness wherever it wants to go, I daydream during FP at times. It does not matter. As I understand it, once the breathing sequence is done, it is an automatic process and does not need anything from us except doing the postures as slow as possible. That is where my attention usually ends up, on focusing on doing the postures correctly. Other chi kung methods have you imagining where the chi is going, focusing on the dan tien, etc. I am much too lazy to do all of that Taoist type stuff. It seems like multi-tasking. None of that is part of Flying Phoenix. The mind gets to rest.

[Earl Grey]

A little update I'd share from my personal practice journal here for the group thread. I did the first four standing and three seated meditations from 2300-0100 last night, which has become my new practice schedule, and have done so consistently for just about forty days now. I wasn't planning on sharing too many developments here on the thread until I had done a full one hundred-day gong (maybe even 108), but I dreamt I was doing practice and using the qi developed for purposes that were not healing. From protecting myself in a haunted mansion using the standing meditations such as Monk Holding Peach or generating a wave of energy from my thumb, index, and middle fingers to blast through the wall of some science fiction scene and fly out of some mechanical danger room, escaping into the cosmos, there were moments of lucidity that made me wonder if today, upon waking, this would be considered my daily practice done already.

 

A part of me says it's just going deeper into what I have already done, and will probably continue as usual tonight, but the mental state I enter whenever I finish my FPQG practice was already tuned in the moment I woke up this morning. Practicing in dreams is usually known to be powerful and profound, but I don't want to get ahead of myself and presuppose anything just yet.

[zen-bear]

musings:   breath, breathing is the central element of all  qi  cultivation.   awareness of breath is key to progress in tcc and all the qg exercises.  by extension respiration at the cell level, the delivery of oxygen to all body is life,  no breath no respiration no life.

If breathing is not a central part of your practice ,  you need to reconsider how / what you are doing.  If you are doing FP but not breathing smoothly and with awareness throughout,  then your practice is not correct.   The focusing breaths and breath regime are key to the efficacy of this practice,  however,  the breath must continue to be in your awareness and intent as you do the forms.  This is one possibility of doing the FP  ' wrong'.   One can do the physical sequences correctly and still not be doing the practice efficiently.  I think that this is true of all internal arts.  The breath is critically important .. chu y  pay attention. Cultivate and store in the dan tien,  but always come back to the breath.

 

mho

Hi Charlie,

 

Good advice for Qigong in general.   But focussed awareness on breathing is not absolutely necessary for FP Qigong practice for the many reasons stated since start of the thread and the unique quality of the FP Qigong system as explained to me by Grandmaster Doo Wai:  

 

Each FP Qigong meditation will impart its health, energizing, rejuvenating benefits regardless of how you focus your mind so long as you hold the posture, do the breath control sequence and the movements (if there are movements) correctly. 

 

This remarkable aspect of Flying Phoenix Qigong is what sets it apart form every other Qigong method that I know about.  The breath control sequence for each one of the FP Qigong meditations in the system imparts calmness and profound mind-body integration as all organ functions are brought under the regulation of the subconscious mind.  This process develops a natural awareness of all bodily processes.  Awareness comes naturally from calmness as does wisdom (per Hui Neng's essential Platform Sutra).  One does not have to concentrate on being aware of the breath in order for calmness, expanded inner and outer awareness, and wisdom to arise--along with FP Qigong's full range of physiologicla health benefits.

 

But there's nothing wrong with turning the mind towards breathing.  I occasionally think of lower tan tien breathing when I practice FP Qigong.  But it is not essential to this practice.   In the stationary FP Meditations in DVD Volumes 1 and 2, I think more along the lines of the ancient teaching:

 

Keeping Still.

Keeping the back still until one no longer feels the body.

 

What I mentally concentrate on is doing the movements of the meditations "at the speed of a shifting sand dune" and with perfect relaxation so that I no longer feel my body.

 

Good practicing.

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

 

 

_{www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html}

[Frederic]

The mind gets to rest.

 

This leaded to an eureka moment for me in my practice, thank you. 'I' rest in the movements, I rest in stillness and Being while my body moves. Truly, Flying Phoenix is meditation. 

[zen-bear]

One mistake I made in the beginning was coordinating the movements with in/out breath, because I was feeling the chi much better. After some cultivation, attention automatically broadens and covers the many processes of the mind, with breathing stopping on its own for some time during the movements. (documented to be one of the cornerstones of some jhana level in general meditation practice.) Only then I finally understood why Sifu Terry once told me to let the breath to its own, with no interference. Of course I may be very wrong, but following/regulating breathing aside opening and closing procedure is not a good friend of FPCK meditations after the preliminary stages . It may be much difficult to break this habit later on and maybe get pass through.

 

Hi Cihan,

 

Thank you for sharing your valuable corroborating experience learning over time that coordinating particular movements with inhalation and exhalation parts of the breath cycle is totally unnecessary and uncalled for in Flying Phoenix Qigong practice.

 

In the moving Flying Phoenix meditations, you perform the movements as slowly as possible, approaching the goal of "moving at the speed of a shifting sand dune"--and breathe naturally as you do this.  Indeed, if one tried to coordinate any of Vol.4's Long Form movements at that speed with one breath cycle, one would pass out from creating an oxygen deficit. 

 

I can empathize with your experienced difficulty in breaking old habitual breathing patterns of coordinating rising/lowering, expanding/contracting, gathering/releasing movements with inhalation/exhalation.  I practiced both So. Shaolin 5 Animals Kung Fu with its internal system and Tao Tan Pai Nei Kung, which both generally coordinate movement with breath cycle in this manner for 15 years before learning FP Qigong and Bok Fu Pai Kung Fu, which completely undid my fixation to that pattern.  (Tao Tan Pai's extremely powerful higher Nei Kung levels--described elsewhere in this thread--followed that pattern, so that pattern was deeply ingrained in me.) 

 

_{This is a good time to reiterate this vital aspect of FP Qigong practice for the benefit of the Flying Phoenix community:} 

Other than moving as slowly as one can, approaching the "speed of a shifting sand dune," all the while breathing normally and naturally, Flying Phoenix Qigong has nothing to do with any type of movement-to-breath cycle coordination.

 

Not only does FP Qigong have nothing to do with type of movement-breath coordination, but the advanced Tai Chi Chuan that GM William C.C. Chen teaches (in the Cheng Man Ching lineage) begins with the opposite of that particular movement-breath coordination described above.

 

Carry on with no movement-breath coordination!!

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

 

 

 

_{www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html}

[zen-bear]

I feel my duty to add this postscript to my reply to Cihan's post above:

 

P.S.    Also, as I posted in Year One of this thread, I am always annoyed and irritated when I see the dilution of the meaning of the word "Qigong" in America and the west by "modern masters" who invent some cockamamy set of calisthenics interspersed with Indian yoga poses, set it all (at best) to the rudimentary coordination of movement-to-breath cycle described above, and call it "Qigong."

 

Mere coordination of calisthenic movements to breath cycle is NOT the definition of Qigong.

 

I've just come up with this standard or benchmark to add to the calibration of one's "WEIRD-SHIT-O-METER" to effectively test to see if any particular Qigong system is worth practicing:  Any authentic Qigong system should impart  at least the same health benefits as two year's worth of beginner's Tai Chi Form practice under a qualified instructor (or any other internal martial art such as Bagua, Xing-I, Liu he Ba Fa, or Tao Tan Pai, etc.).  Qigong is the art of concentrative internal energy cultivation that can serves as the catalyst and accelerant of development in any Chinese internal martial art.  As such, it should impart profound and transformative yogic benefits that are tangible, lasting, repeatable and verifiable.

 

Any Qigong system worth practicing should be transformative.  It should be twice as affective, twice as relaxing, twice as integrative, and twice as energizing as, let's say, Tai Chi Form practice.  And if it the Qigong art in question is a medical Qigong system, such as Flying Phoenix, then its healing, energizing and rejuvenating effects should be repeatable and verifiable with regular practice.  btw, feeling energy flow to the finger tips or rise up the spine to top of the head once or twice does not count--especially during one's 20's.  On the other hand, for example, repeated and then permanent activation of specific brain centers through practice of Flying Phoenix seated Monk Serves Wine Meditations, is an authentic  and admirable yogic development.

 

Another traditional standard to calibrate in one's Wierd-Shit-O-Meter in order to sniff out Qigong quackery is determine whether a particular Qigong system is being taught to anyone without at least a beginner's level background in Chinese martial arts and thereby has correct stancework or "horses."  If "Qigong"is being taught stand-alone to the unwashed masses and does not have a regimen that teaches and develops stancework, then chances are that it's downstream hokum.  

 

To add more perspective:

 

A).  How long does one normally train with a high-level Tai Chi master before one is taught the Tai Chi breathing rhythm--if at all?

 

B.)  The basic level of Tao Tan Pai Qigong teaches proper horse stances in the Tao Tan Pai 31 Exercises.   What might be considered the "next" level in TTP, the Shen Exercises are all done horse stance.  Advanced Tao Tan Pai Nei kung beyond the TTP-31 and the Shen Exercises cannot be taught unless one has become proficient in the 5 basic TTP Animal Kung Fu Forms (tiger, dragon, snake, crane, monkey).

Edited August 29, 2016 by zen-bear

[zen-bear]

A little update I'd share from my personal practice journal here for the group thread. I did the first four standing and three seated meditations from 2300-0100 last night, which has become my new practice schedule, and have done so consistently for just about forty days now. I wasn't planning on sharing too many developments here on the thread until I had done a full one hundred-day gong (maybe even 108), but I dreamt I was doing practice and using the qi developed for purposes that were not healing. From protecting myself in a haunted mansion using the standing meditations such as Monk Holding Peach or generating a wave of energy from my thumb, index, and middle fingers to blast through the wall of some science fiction scene and fly out of some mechanical danger room, escaping into the cosmos, there were moments of lucidity that made me wonder if today, upon waking, this would be considered my daily practice done already.

 

A part of me says it's just going deeper into what I have already done, and will probably continue as usual tonight, but the mental state I enter whenever I finish my FPQG practice was already tuned in the moment I woke up this morning. Practicing in dreams is usually known to be powerful and profound, but I don't want to get ahead of myself and presuppose anything just yet.

Hi Earl Grey,

 

Thanks for sharing your training experience at the 40 day mark and its effect on your dreams.  Excellent that you're aiming to 100 or 108 days of FP Qigong.

 

A lively dream life is a common side-effect of FP Qigong practice.  If you've read the entire thread, you will have come across a series of postings when I described how Grandmaster Doo Wai in 1992 set up an evening of psychic exercises for all of us FPCK practitioners that resulted in most profound lucid dreaming capability for two of us.

 

A.  Continue with your FP Qigong practice and regard your dreaming as by-product. 

 

B.  If you are actually going into the dreamstate while you are practicing FP Meditaiton, that is OK, but you should quickly bone up on methods of developing lucid dreaming--if you don't have that capability already, which is being aware that you are dreaming while you are having a dream, and most importantly having active control of yourself as the participant in the dream.

 

C.   Knowing that you woke up from a dream with the lucidity and connectedness of having practiced FP Qigong is an excellent by-product of FP Qigong practice.  Don't consider it as having done your daily FP Qigong practice.  Continue to do your daily FP practice.

 

D.  Practicing FP Qigong in your dreams--by programming yourself before you go to sleep to practice FP Qigong--is an advanced practice that you can try since you say you woke up feeling as if you had practiced a session of FP  in your sleep.  However,  the superb feat to be achieved is to dream lucidly that you are practicing Flying Phoenix Qigong and actively choosing every FP exercise that you are practicing.

 

Let us know if you're able to do that.

 

Enjoy your practice and all its benefits.

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

 

 

_{www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html}

Edited August 29, 2016 by zen-bear

[Jeff495Caldwell]

Hello.

 

Just wanted to share my experience today.    

 

Today was my first time doing Wind Through Treetops.   Really enjoyed the movements and energy.   What was fun however is realizing as I did the 3 standing movement in DVD 1 and performing this natural flexion and extension movement, I seemed to have been prepping for Wind Through Treetops.   I just go with the flow of the energy and sometimes I am doing some interesting bending and extending holds, and here I start WTT and lo and behold I am doing a flexion and extension movement.   Go figure.   

 

Anyway, little things like that are always fun to chat about.   

 

Jeff

[tao stillness]

Pure synchronicity reading today's posts about breathing without effort since I just permanently closed my recently arrived ancient Taoist text called, Chen Tuan's Four Season Internal Kung Fu. The method for breathing is tortuous as you have to visualize things, including the path of the chi, and visualize the chi in your mouth, cup your ears from external noises so you can only hear pure internal sound of breathing, face a certain direction. Circulate your tongue 36 times in each direction. Swirl the saliva 36 times across your tongue and then swallow it while sensing it going into lower dan tien. The regular breathing is reversed breathing where you suck your diaphragm in as you inhale and expand your belly as you exhale while visualizing the chi coming up from lower abdomen while raising your eyes upward while imagining the chi reaching your brain. Then when you exhale, visualize the chi going back down to lower dan tian. Oops, I forgot, as you are breathing in, slightly tighten your sphincter muscles to hold the chi so it will go upward! Upon reading this I sealed the book! This is just one example. The book and a whole series of Ancient Taoist method books are translated and printed by someone in America and there are online video clips used to demonstrate these methods which is part of their daily routine. So if any of you are into what appears to be spiritual masochism, feel free to  join their online temple where this is just the beginning.

Flying Phoenix is obviously at the other end of the spectrum in terms of required effort just from the breathing process alone.

Edited August 31, 2016 by tao stillness

[Jeff495Caldwell]

Question for those who have been doing Tai Chi on a regular basis.

 

Has your Tai Chi practice lent itself well to the Flying Phoenix practice?   Have you found that your FP has helped or changed your Tai Chi practice/energy, or vice versa, Tai Chi helping your FP practice?   

 

Any input is appreciated.  Thank you.

 

Jeff

[tao stillness]

I don't do tai chi but I know that Sifu Terry and Riding the Ox have answered this question multiple times on this thread.

[Jeff495Caldwell]

Hi Toa Stillness. Appreciate your feedback. I am currently moving my way through the posts. When I used the search engine and typed tai chi, nothing came up.

 

Jeff

[Jeff495Caldwell]

Ahh. Thank you.

[tao stillness]

OK, the answer is that FP enhances tai chi and tai chi enhances FP

[zen-bear]

Hello to all practitioners,

 

Besides lying low, backing up computers, fixing vehicles, perfecting existing work and old dormant projects, being alert to missed messages and misunderstandings, abstaining form big capital purchases, and not signing new contracts for new ventures, mercury retrograde periods are ideal periods (through Sept. 27) for reviewing all the Forms and Qigong methods that you've ever learned.  And while in meditative state, figure out how to roll-back your energies and shen with the retrograde cycle so that it shoots you out forward when the planet stations direct.

 

You'll be amazed at your clarity and productivity--even during a  retrograde period--after  starting the day with two FP Monk Serves Wine meditations  each morning, followed by two standing FP meditations from any volume.

 

                                      Reversion is the Action of the Tao.

 

Enjoy it.

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

 

 

_{www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html}

Edited September 9, 2016 by zen-bear

[Earl Grey]

I second this point about clarity and productivity. It's come to a point for me that a day without practice is akin to a day without showering or brushing one's teeth.