Moving the body with chi

[Wishbone]

Hi all,

 

I wrote briefly in the welcome section that my background in martial arts for the most part has not been focused on the internal aspects. A few years ago I became interested in manipulating/conserving sexual energy, which is what led to me attempting to learn about the microscosmic orbit etc. After a few years of practice, not really following any particular method as I felt the most progress when just experimenting with my own methods, I have come to the point now where I have what I believe to be a good awareness of 'energies' within the body and can feel sexual energy (orgasmic feeling) in any part of my body that I wish to feel it.

So far I cannot feel any obvious physical benefits apart from perhaps increased energy, although one interesting thing that I have been experimenting with over the last year I can only describe as using this energy to move the body, its very difficult to describe... but I'll try... because I'm sure many of you can do this...Rather than 'physically' trying to move my arm for example I can just picture the arm moving and it does... only for simple movements, such as extending the arm straight forward.

As I said its difficult to describe, but really I'm just searching for others who practice this, I suppose I'm looking for what steps to take next. As I said I don't follow any particular teaching I just experiment on my own..

 

Any comments/ advice on where to go with this is welcome and appreciated.

 

 

[Taoist Texts]

So far I cannot feel any obvious physical benefits apart from perhaps increased energy, although one interesting thing that I have been experimenting with over the last year I can only describe as using this energy to move the body, its very difficult to describe... but I'll try... because I'm sure many of you can do this...

 

probably not that many;)

 

 arm for example I can just picture the arm moving and it does... only for simple movements, such as extending the arm straight forward.

As I said its difficult to describe, but really I'm just searching for others who practice this, I suppose I'm looking for what steps to take next. As I said I don't follow any particular teaching I just experiment on my own..

 

Any comments/ advice on where to go with this is welcome and appreciated.

For someone who wants to progress in the direction of internal martial arts there are only 2 non-fantasy options: 1 to practice zhan zhuang and see how the yiquan folk use that for combat, that's truncated internal MA, one can do that on his own; or 2. to try and discover the dantian rotation , which what the real IMA is all about, this is very difficult to do, almost impossible really.

[Wishbone]

Thanks for the interesting reply,  zhan zhuang seems worth some investigation, although I've known about it for a long time i dont think I've ever seen the value and hence never attempted it... although I think I am finally starting to see the importance of such things.. Cheers

[shanlung]

 

Any comments/ advice on where to go with this is welcome and appreciated.

 

Some stuff I wrote long ago on my experience in taijichuan even longer ago might amuse you even if that is not likely to be any guide to you.

 

http://thedaobums.com/topic/24575-taijiquan-styles/page-4

 

Idiotic Taoist

Edited July 26, 2015 by shanlung

[SonOfTheGods]

 

Rather than 'physically' trying to move my arm for example I can just picture the arm moving and it does... only for simple movements, such as extending the arm straight forward.

 

Any comments/ advice on where to go with this is welcome and appreciated.

 

Yi = intent

[Wishbone]

Some stuff I wrote long ago on my experience in taijichuan even longer ago might amuse you even if that is not likely to be any guide to you.

 

http://thedaobums.com/topic/24575-taijiquan-styles/page-4

 

Idiotic Taoist

 

this is definitely a good and interesting read - thanks for the info.

 

 

Yi = intent

 

Nice simple answer and yet helps me a lot in understanding what I'm trying to talk about - thanks

[RiverSnake]

What are you looking to achieve in your practice?

[doc benway]

So far I cannot feel any obvious physical benefits apart from perhaps increased energy, ....

 

Any comments/ advice on where to go with this is welcome and appreciated.

 

Do you have a teacher?

My opinion is that without a skillful teacher, it is a waste of time to practice Chinese internal martial arts.

[Wishbone]

What are you looking to achieve in your practice?

Although in the past my interest has been in martial arts, to be honest I am becoming less interested in fighting applications and more concerned with health - physical and mental

 

Do you have a teacher?

My opinion is that without a skillful teacher, it is a waste of time to practice Chinese internal martial arts.

I agree, to some extent, I have had a martial arts teacher for a long time, but not in the internal arts, as I mentioned above I'm becoming more interested in other aspects of practice. Perhaps you are right though

Edited July 27, 2015 by Wishbone

[RiverSnake]

The Internal Arts will actually make you a better martial artist (IME), it's a win-win. What martial art do you practice? It may have an internal component that you can focus on.

Edited July 27, 2015 by OldChi

[Bearded Dragon]

The MCO should open up your body. As was mentioned it's a win-win for health and martial arts. If you don't feel like running the energy is resulting in a relaxation/opening then the process needs work. It's more important to feel the opening because if you feel the energy then it's not relaxed enough along the pathway. I don't look for energy anymore. I just do it and feel for the relaxation response as feedback to tell me i'm doing it.

[Wishbone]

The Internal Arts will actually make you a better martial artist (IME), it's a win-win. What martial art do you practice? It may have an internal component that you can focus on.

I practice Wing Chun, so it does have an internal aspect (depending on the school) although i personally believe it should be emphasized slightly more

 

The MCO should open up your body. As was mentioned it's a win-win for health and martial arts. If you don't feel like running the energy is resulting in a relaxation/opening then the process needs work. It's more important to feel the opening because if you feel the energy then it's not relaxed enough along the pathway. I don't look for energy anymore. I just do it and feel for the relaxation response as feedback to tell me i'm doing it.

 

This is interesting - So you believe that if energy is running smoothly enough then you shouldn't be able to feel it...how would one then differentiate from not feeling anything through lack of internal awareness or not feeling anything because the energy is simply running smoothly?  do many others share this opinion?

[vonkrankenhaus]

All moving of the body is movement "with" qi.

 

The body itself is condensed qi.

 

The movement of qi is what we call life.

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Sunbeam]

I think you just need to find a teacher as stated. Dan tien rotation and mind directed energy are just the beginning... But a good start. A good teacher will have the form and methods to show you how to improve. Also note that there are something like 18? sensations of Qi... It will feel different at different times.

[Mudfoot]

These links might be useful if you want to make some changes in your wing chun:

 

http://mikesigman.blogspot.se

 

http://www.liuhebafachuan.com/theory.html

[soaring crane]

This is interesting - So you believe that if energy is running smoothly enough then you shouldn't be able to feel it...how would one then differentiate from not feeling anything through lack of internal awareness or not feeling anything because the energy is simply running smoothly?  do many others share this opinion?

 

I don't think many people achieve this level, not long-term anyway.

 

What you "feel" isn't the "energy", it's resistance to the flow of the energy, and that resistance can take many forms and have many causes. When all resistance is truly gone, there's a different sensation and it's much less exciting than the tingling warm qi flow that many people are taught is a goal in itself.

 

How to know the difference... I don't know. I think it might just be a case of slipping out of one phase and into another, so there's going to be a considerable time factor involved. If you've spent a long itme in one phase and then you realize that you're just not feeling those qi sensations anymore, at that point you can begin to look for the benfits of your practice in other places. They'll be there but they'll be more subtle (and other people may be pointing them out to you).

[GreytoWhite]

probably not that many;)

 

For someone who wants to progress in the direction of internal martial arts there are only 2 non-fantasy options: 1 to practice zhan zhuang and see how the yiquan folk use that for combat, that's truncated internal MA, one can do that on his own; or 2. to try and discover the dantian rotation , which what the real IMA is all about, this is very difficult to do, almost impossible really.

 

Uh... what? I would in no way say that Yiquan is truncated but rather it is focused on gaining neijin without taolu. Zhan zhuang is present in almost every Northern Chinese martial art and is extremely important. Dantien rotation is not the be all and end all of internal arts and is simple to train if the teacher actually knows it. Finding someone who can teach you this on the other hand is difficult.

[Taoist Texts]

. Dantien rotation is not the be all and end all of internal arts

 

without these basics there is no true skill in Dai Family Xinyiquan and trying to skip this period and advance towards combat techniques would lead to nothing.

and is simple to train

The process of Dantian development is very long and usually takes at least three years before one can proceed to the next step,

 

Even within traditional Xinyi community in Shanxi there are many who practiced hard for long time and still failed to acquire decent Dantian skill.

 

Simple? If you say so.

[opendao]

probably not that many;)

 

For someone who wants to progress in the direction of internal martial arts there are only 2 non-fantasy options: 1 to practice zhan zhuang and see how the yiquan folk use that for combat, that's truncated internal MA, one can do that on his own; or 2. to try and discover the dantian rotation , which what the real IMA is all about, this is very difficult to do, almost impossible really.

 

the real IMA is not about dantian rotation, nor about zhan zhuang. In Dai xinyi (Wang Yinghai lineage) and  in Yiquan (Zhao Daoxin lineage) we learn and teach, Dantian gong exists, but it's just a beginning. So, as usual, Taoist Texts get his/her (god knows) experience  from reading books and watching video, but obviously it's not enough. About impossibility: again, from our experience, it's possible, and not so hard to do, if the method is correct. Plus, if there is a complete Neidan school, then the progress is much faster.

 

So far I cannot feel any obvious physical benefits apart from perhaps increased energy, although one interesting thing that I have been experimenting with over the last year I can only describe as using this energy to move the body, its very difficult to describe... but I'll try... because I'm sure many of you can do this...Rather than 'physically' trying to move my arm for example I can just picture the arm moving and it does... only for simple movements, such as extending the arm straight forward.

As I said its difficult to describe, but really I'm just searching for others who practice this, I suppose I'm looking for what steps to take next. As I said I don't follow any particular teaching I just experiment on my own..

 

next step is to find a teacher, because you have now 2 options: stop completely or get to the level of the power-jing in its basic, simplistic variant, but even this variant will spend your innate energy dramatically. Same thing about doing the microcosmic orbit as it's described everywhere: you just spend the fuel you have no ability to restore. It leads to no progress, sickness, bad temper, and degradation.

[GreytoWhite]

without these basics there is no true skill in Dai Family Xinyiquan and trying to skip this period and advance towards combat techniques would lead to nothing.

The process of Dantian development is very long and usually takes at least three years before one can proceed to the next step,

 

Even within traditional Xinyi community in Shanxi there are many who practiced hard for long time and still failed to acquire decent Dantian skill.

 

Simple? If you say so.

 

I don't practice Dai family Xinyi but have practiced Chen taiji, Yin and now Cheng bagua, and am also learning a variant of Hebei xingyi. Dantien rotation was something I was able to intuit in a nascent way after six months of practicing silk reeling, qigong, zhan zhuang, and push hands. I also was fortunate enough to have two very different but still very experienced teachers helping me along. Middle dantien rotation is much more difficult for me than lower dantien rotation and it's what I'm focusing on now with the xingyibagua. I'm at almost 7 years of practice and I'm just now at a place where I can really think and apply how to do the two together.

 

Honestly though, much of my practice is not about dantien gong at all - that is more of a side effect. The dantien stuff 'turns on' but there are other skills within neijia that I think are quicker to use and can be taught without a dantien. Dantien isn't always there, it's something we create through repeated practice. There are skills that can still be gained and used without dantien, when the dantien comes into it later those skills really become effortless. Believe it or not a lot of the skills in neijia are only gained from specific intent. Some use visualization, I prefer using sensitivity and gaining a somatic sense of when that skill comes in so I can feel the difference and not have to think about a trigger visual.

 

The basics are simple exercises that if done well will produce results but that is not to say they are easy or will produce anything without consistent repetition.

[Bearded Dragon]

This is interesting - So you believe that if energy is running smoothly enough then you shouldn't be able to feel it...how would one then differentiate from not feeling anything through lack of internal awareness or not feeling anything because the energy is simply running smoothly?  do many others share this opinion?

 

You can try it out. I would recommend just getting a friend to apply a force and try as much stuff as you want to. It is not a belief that it works when you test it and see the results.

 

For me now I follow the MCO up but instead of raising energy I'm raising a relaxation that flows out from the spine and you feel things start to morph and realign. The energy will naturally follow the upwards intent. What tended to happen in the past is that I tried so hard to feel the energy I was tensing up in order to do it (without realising). Another thing is that even though I don't feel the energy below I feel it when it gets to my neck because it's still quite tense and therefore you get the feeling of the energy pushing through and opening it up. You could also look for spots of tension as places that the energy is not in abundance, so focusing on the relaxation is going to help with this as well.

 

I would say that focusing on the relaxation is like watching the road while driving and focusing on chi is like watching the steering wheel. The primary concern is obviously maneuvering the steering wheel, but it is not of concern because you just have to watch the road for feedback and it naturally happens. 

[GreytoWhite]

These links might be useful if you want to make some changes in your wing chun:

 

http://mikesigman.blogspot.se

 

http://www.liuhebafachuan.com/theory.html

 

Huh... how odd. Mike Sigman's ideas aren't... quite right IMO. Also, liuhebafa is a bone power art whereas wing chun is a muscle/tendon power art. Not really compatible for the body type each art tries to develop. There is a reason that Chan Yik Yan's group told Bruce Lee he had to stop wing chun to learn water style.

[Mudfoot]

Doesnt know the man, doesnt practice the art. Let a thousand flowers bloom and all that...

In both references you can find some material on the six harmonies.

Are the six harmonies of no use if you want to understand the internal more?

I'm not saying reading about them is enough, just a step in the right direction.

If you truly want to understand the internal arts the road is to practice one of them under a qualified teacher, but hey, it's 2015, that is not a secret.

[Taoist Texts]

Doesnt know the man, doesnt practice the art. Let a thousand flowers bloom and all that...

In both references you can find some material on the six harmonies.

 

Mike Sigman is great, he is one of the precious few westerners who knows what he is talking about. I did not know he still posts so thanks for the link.