Can qi be felt by anyone?

[dwai]

The Notcho Mama's Chi is going to be a big seller because everyone will be able to relate. Not only will the customer be able to feel it, they will be able to eat it.

 

MH commented that Martial Artist use their Chi. I have used Fajin, and felt Chi as a tingling sensation, but have never used my Chi to break a board, submit my opponent with a small jujtsu finger lock, warded off incoming force with my Chi, or sliced a man with a kesa giri  by using Chi.

 

So, let's have a show of hands from anybody who is willing to tell us how they have used their Chi, and what did that feel like. Please show examples for me.

 

Oh, I tried the sand in the tea cup, blew into the cup, the guy on the other side screamed in pain from the sand belowing into his wide open eyes. He asked me if that was my Chi. I said no, that was sand.

 

 If it is real Fajin it is transfer of transformed Qi. My teacher explains it this way. Qi is energy. To be able to use this Qi externally, you have to convert it into power. This power is stored in the bone marrow and is called Jin (transliterated as jing in english by some). Just like gasoline gets converted to mechanical power by the engine, similarly, Qi gets converted to Jin power by the mind and stored in the bone marrow as energy. It is like storing charge in a battery.

When you do "fa jin" you are emitting this stored power onto another "body". The effect varies depending on what your "intent" is. If you send long wave of the power, the person being affected will be transported bodily from point A to point B. If you send a short burst/wave of the power and direct it inside the person, it will shatter their bones or stop an internal organ.

 

This cannot be done without Qi cultivation. Similarly, this can be used for healing.

 

At higher levels, one can directly tap into the power of the Dao and have that do what is needed to be done - like healing or protecting one from harm, see patterns in nature before they appear, and so on.

[dwai]

Boring, rambling post

 

Society for the Chee Numb.

 

I first studied the internal arts just over a quarter century ago. After a few years I gave up because since I was a kid I had had messed up posture, and that just wasn't compatible with this stuff. Not a lazy slouch cured by someone saying "Sit up straight!" Rather, thoracic kyphosis. I had a visible hunch in my teens and twenties; not like Quasimodo, but it was a chunk of muscle. It has improved over the years due to certain things I have done, but it is still pretty stiff and I can not sit or stand truly straight. I can not sit cross-legged due to tight hips, which I and others theorize either as the cause or the result of the kyphosis. This is a soft tissue issue, not a bone issue.

 

I can't feel chee. Never could. I think this may be because of my kyphosis (I know how important the back is in terms of chee), but that is just speculation. Some of my classmates could feel chee in a serious way. My teacher was very welcoming of my skepticism, though I think he considered me to be a little slow in the chee-head

 

If I do standing stake (站樁), the musculature around my thoracic area seizes up within minutes, and can even be numb right along the spine by ten minutes or less. Decades of poor neuron firing habits.

 

I was listening to an interview recently with John Upledger, son of the osteopath of the same name who brought craniosacral therapy to the masses. It came up in the interview that some people just can't seem to feel the craniosacral rhythm -- their own or another person's.

 

Maybe some people just can't feel chee, in spite of considerable practice? I had a super teacher, and some of my classmates made good progress. I know that some people take to it quickly, while others take more time. There is a tai chi teacher in Canada on Youtube who's been doing tai chi for I think 30+ years and says chee, in the sense of meridians and such, is not something he has felt or thinks is real.

 

I would feel a few wriggles here or there, but if I wasn't expecting anything, I would have thought of them as random nerve firings. My teacher was big on the idea of not telling students what to expect, and telling them not to expect chee to manifest in a certain way. That's all very nice, but if you went to a gym or went jogging, and months or years later had no sense of improvement, how long do you think you would stick with it? The enjoyment of the process comes out of the improvement. If you learned drawing or piano and never improved, you would not enjoy it. The process is enjoyable because we learn.

 

If there are meridians and whatnot, if I could heal people with chee, well then I would like to be able to feel chee. I have known a few sane and sober persons who assure me they feel chee in a concrete way and can work with it and such -- and known many others who just bs-ed their chee ability, IMHO. Lots of other people take the Reiki approach of just imagine you can feel chee, even if you can't, but that's not my style. I did the first two levels of Reiki, and while my class partner for each level (two different people) reported feeling things when I worked on them that made me think they had dropped acid, I felt it was all a ridiculous scam (maybe scam is a bit harsh, as that implies intention to cheat; the teacher seemed to believe what he was doing was useful).

 

I started doing cheegong on my own a few weeks ago (no money for class right now), and am feeling some more wriggles here and there than in the past, and now an electromagnetic feeling in one posture, but I am wondering what I can do to really figure this out. Maybe it is just about getting the back beaten into shape, or maybe it is something else. I know the idea is that everyone has chee and your chee is flowing if you are still alive, but are you convinced that everyone can get to the point where they can feel _and_ manipulate chee? If not, I would just do tai chi. Tai chi is fun for me, healthy, and my back is good enough now that I can do it with some improvement and not a lot of tension.

 

I welcome thoughts from knowledgeable persons.

 

PS Please don't tell me to talk to my body, listen to my body, feel my body, dissolve the tension, ask my body what is wrong or why it is angry, et cetera. I can't  .  I've been that route before, with counseling and hypnosis (having read books that suggested that my back could be caused by something in my head) and nothing came of it. My body had nothing to say, except "%^&!, you want me to write another check?" I can tell any other part of my body to relax, and it will to some extent, but that area won't. The only time I am mostly unaware of my thoracic tension is when I am lying on my back.

 

The key to feeling Qi is relaxation. If you want to feel qi, try this. Lie down on your back on the floor (use a yoga mat if you like). Let your legs and arms settle down as they naturally will. 

 

Feel the body as wherever it touches the floor.

 

Starting with your toes, start relaxing the body by scanning your body gently, from toes up to the top of your head. Wherever you feel some tightness, imagine the floor is a hot skillet and your body part that feels tight is butter. Visualize the butter melting and flowing on the skillet. Move to the next part. 

 

Repeat this process over and over, but don't force anything. Just observe and breath naturally. Keep your eyes closed. Slowly you will feel your body starting to "melt" away and a different sensation will become apparent. You will likely feel your blood flowing under the skin. Once you feel the blood flowing, feel where the blood flow is feeling restricted. Again, using the skillet and butter method, let any congealed sensation melt away.

 

After you do this for a few days, you will start feeling your energy...it will be a flow that happens without any volition. At that point, you might get excited and exclaim to yourself "Holy crap! I am feeling Qi". And then the sensation will disappear. So, then again, do the process exactly like I outlined, without anticipating the Qi sensation you felt before. With patience and practice, you can feel this sensation at will.

 

Next, take this to a different level and sit on a chair with a straight back and no arm rests. Rest your palms on your knees without locking your elbows. And follow the same process..

 

When you have done this sufficiently enough, stand in the Tai chi Wu chi form and do this over and over again. At this point you will have accomplished relaxing and feeling your Qi.

 

HTH,

 

Dwai

[Jim D.]

Finally, someone came up with a technique to feel Chi. I like this very much.

[lessdaomorebum]

 If it is real Fajin it is transfer of transformed Qi. My teacher explains it this way. Qi is energy. To be able to use this Qi externally, you have to convert it into power. This power is stored in the bone marrow and is called Jin (transliterated as jing in english by some). Just like gasoline gets converted to mechanical power by the engine, similarly, Qi gets converted to Jin power by the mind and stored in the bone marrow as energy. It is like storing charge in a battery.

When you do "fa jin" you are emitting this stored power onto another "body". The effect varies depending on what your "intent" is. If you send long wave of the power, the person being affected will be transported bodily from point A to point B. If you send a short burst/wave of the power and direct it inside the person, it will shatter their bones or stop an internal organ.

 

This cannot be done without Qi cultivation. Similarly, this can be used for healing.

 

At higher levels, one can directly tap into the power of the Dao and have that do what is needed to be done - like healing or protecting one from harm, see patterns in nature before they appear, and so on.

Thanks for posting! This is another interesting example of one of the aspects of this that I keep talking about.

 

Some teachers agree with your teacher.

 

Other teachers, and they can fling you across the room, don't give a rats bottom about qi; they think it is mechanics, microcontractions of the muscles (like what makes animals so strong, pound for pound), stuff like that.

 

I'm not even saying who's right, I am just pointing out again (Steve, are you listening ) that there are giant disagreements by highly skilled people. This leaves the novice scratching his head.

[lessdaomorebum]

Just wanted to let you know, I'm still around.

I did read what you wrote. 

I think the problem lies in your conceptualization of Qi as I wrote before.

I won't bore you with more suggestions except one - practicing the microcosmic orbit with an experienced guide could help a great deal. Practicing from books and videos, not so much.

In addition, I think it is fine to practice taijiquan, bagua, xingyi, and qigong without "feeling Qi" at all.

Your body and mind will still benefit if your practice is skillful.

After reading through most of this thread, if you feel as if you've gotten "zero useful information" then the problem may be that you aren't open to change.

When we are too fixed in our view of the world (the story we tell ourselves) we can't change and we can't grow.

If we find a way to be more open, there is much more possibility there. 

Just a thought - I may be totally off base and, if so, my apologies.

Good luck

Hi there! It's been so long I will have to go back through the thread to see when we talked before.

 

"I think it is fine to practice taijiquan, bagua, xingyi, and qigong without "feeling Qi" at all."

Me too, except for chee gong, since that is the whole purpose. Still, even for the other arts, most teachers seem to think they ought to involve chee to some extent. But they certainly are beneficial without feeling chee.

 

"I may be totally off base and, if so, my apologies."

No need to apologize, just change the way you approach things. If I wasn't open to change, how I could have spent so much time with an exercise program Cheya recommended and now be asking her lots of questions on and off thread about tai chi ruler and stick, and baoding balls? For that matter, if someone wants to chime in on their experience with Flying Phoenix chee gong as taught by Terry Dunn (I know there is an endless thread for it here) or Zhineng Qigong, those are also on my short list

 

I would do standing meditation, maybe exclusively, if I could, but that has been explained more than once by me on this thread.

 

Open does not equal agreement. I can be open to an idea and still reject it.

Edited July 25, 2016 by lessdaomorebum

[lessdaomorebum]

The key to feeling Qi is relaxation. If you want to feel qi, try this. Lie down on your back on the floor (use a yoga mat if you like). Let your legs and arms settle down as they naturally will. 

 

Feel the body as wherever it touches the floor.

 

Starting with your toes, start relaxing the body by scanning your body gently, from toes up to the top of your head. Wherever you feel some tightness, imagine the floor is a hot skillet and your body part that feels tight is butter. Visualize the butter melting and flowing on the skillet. Move to the next part. 

 

Repeat this process over and over, but don't force anything. Just observe and breath naturally. Keep your eyes closed. Slowly you will feel your body starting to "melt" away and a different sensation will become apparent. You will likely feel your blood flowing under the skin. Once you feel the blood flowing, feel where the blood flow is feeling restricted. Again, using the skillet and butter method, let any congealed sensation melt away.

 

After you do this for a few days, you will start feeling your energy...it will be a flow that happens without any volition. At that point, you might get excited and exclaim to yourself "Holy crap! I am feeling Qi". And then the sensation will disappear. So, then again, do the process exactly like I outlined, without anticipating the Qi sensation you felt before. With patience and practice, you can feel this sensation at will.

 

Next, take this to a different level and sit on a chair with a straight back and no arm rests. Rest your palms on your knees without locking your elbows. And follow the same process..

 

When you have done this sufficiently enough, stand in the Tai chi Wu chi form and do this over and over again. At this point you will have accomplished relaxing and feeling your Qi.

 

HTH,

 

Dwai

I have done exercises just like you describe (though not a skillet), by myself and with a professional hypnotist. If lying on my back, everything can relax really well (by the fifth session), but not my thoracic spine area. I can not feel my blood flowing, except in a few locales that are obvious. Thanks for playing!

 

Standing or sitting? I have covered that.

Edited July 25, 2016 by lessdaomorebum

[Jim D.]

As I have said on other post, Chi is a neurological phenomena...an exchange of Calcium and Potassium ions. In redirecting a man, he first needs to be in motion. It could be a little movement or a big movement. Once your opponent is in motion you use his momentum against him e.g. Ikido, Tai Chi, Judo. To the inexperienced eye, it looks like something extraordinary.

 

If we mean by Chi, energy. If we use this energy and redirect it, and we also mean the neruo pathways involved in pushing or redirecting someone, than there is really nothing special about what we are capable of doing if we use body mechanics, structure, and a little energy.

 

For instance, I put a child on a tire swing. I use muscle to get the swing going in one direction in a circle. As I keep the swing circling, it takes less and less force to keep it going.

 

There is no such thing as Chi that can stop a train, a bus, a person running at you. There is only redirecting yourself to get out of the way and letting it pass by.

 

I can bring a person running at me down with an arm bar. I can bring a person down from a standing position, but I must move and put that person in motion.

[dwai]

Thanks for posting! This is another interesting example of one of the aspects of this that I keep talking about.

 

Some teachers agree with your teacher.

 

Other teachers, and they can fling you across the room, don't give a rats bottom about qi; they think it is mechanics, microcontractions of the muscles (like what makes animals so strong, pound for pound), stuff like that.

 

I'm not even saying who's right, I am just pointing out again (Steve, are you listening ) that there are giant disagreements by highly skilled people. This leaves the novice scratching his head.

 

I guess there is bound to be disagreements. However, those who don't give a rat's ass about Qi...I'd love to cross hands with them and see how I fare

 

Without Qi and Jin, it is not real. Biomechanics can only take us to a point. Beyond that we need energy. Even beyond that we need Spiritual energy (shen). 

 

I noticed you mentioned Richard Clear. I happen to think he is one of the few teachers who post their stuff on Youtube that actually have the "Juice". Mark Rasmus is another.

 

As for my teacher or his teacher - my teacher doesn't care for popularity. Those of us who are his students are lucky.  His teacher, Master Liao is a super big league guy whom many "ordinary" folks don't even know about. He trains the likes of the head of Chinese Taiji Association in mainland China, etc. He too doesn't care about what others think or don't think of his position. If you come to either of these two (my Sifu or his Sifu), they will show you exactly what Qi/Jin feels like. It can feel like nothing (no one has touched you, yet you fly meters at a time). Other times, your innards will explode with pain and shock...

[Jim D.]

The U.S. should have used your guy to bring down Ben Laudin. We could have used him to get our P.O.W.'s out of Hanoi Hilton.

[dwai]

The U.S. should have used your guy to bring down Ben Laudin. We could have used him to get our P.O.W.'s out of Hanoi Hilton.

Why? He doesn't claim to or want to be chuck Norris

[lessdaomorebum]

I guess there is bound to be disagreements. However, those who don't give a rat's ass about Qi...I'd love to cross hands with them and see how I fare

 

Without Qi and Jin, it is not real. Biomechanics can only take us to a point. Beyond that we need energy. Even beyond that we need Spiritual energy (shen). 

 

I noticed you mentioned Richard Clear. I happen to think he is one of the few teachers who post their stuff on Youtube that actually have the "Juice". Mark Rasmus is another.

 

As for my teacher or his teacher - my teacher doesn't care for popularity. Those of us who are his students are lucky.  His teacher, Master Liao is a super big league guy whom many "ordinary" folks don't even know about. He trains the likes of the head of Chinese Taiji Association in mainland China, etc. He too doesn't care about what others think or don't think of his position. If you come to either of these two (my Sifu or his Sifu), they will show you exactly what Qi/Jin feels like. It can feel like nothing (no one has touched you, yet you fly meters at a time). Other times, your innards will explode with pain and shock...

Peter Ralston doesn't talk about chee.

 

Rasmus talks about fascia (and he's right, and Ralston does it but didn't know what he was using).

 

Clear talks about both chee and mechanics; he differentiates their uses though. I think here he would say this is just mechanics, but I don't know for sure (though yes he uses the term fa jin, but it does not seem to be in a chee sense). My former internal arts teacher did this sort of thing (and more), and he said it was mechanics, not chee. Chee was a separate force for my teacher (e.g. he did vibrating palm), as it is for Clear.

 

You see, with this thread I want to know if chee is real in the sense that it is not just something a few freaks of nature can do.

Edited July 25, 2016 by lessdaomorebum

[dwai]

Peter Ralston doesn't talk about chee.

 

Rasmus talks about fascia (and he's right, and Ralston does it but didn't know what he was using).

 

Clear talks about both chee and mechanics; he differentiates their uses though. I think here he would say this is just mechanics, but I don't know for sure (though yes he uses the term fa jin, but it does not seem to be in a chee sense). My former internal arts teacher did this sort of thing (and more), and he said it was mechanics, not chee.

Don't think I've heard about Peter Ralston. Rasmus does talk about qi, he just calls it "life energy".

 

Yes fascia is fascinating. But traditional way just covers qi, Jin, shen etc. I find that is more than enough to learn.

 

In any case, you seem to have your answers already, so good luck

[lessdaomorebum]

I checked back on my notes back when I was buying them on eBay for clients (I was obsessed   ). You're looking for balls at least 2" (50 mm) in diameter, 6.5 inches circumference, and weighing at least 13-14 oz the pair (2), without the box. (The new ones can weigh less than half that!) And then you want two sets, similar size and weight. There are some modern ones that fit those specs, but very few. The 1985 ones are pretty much all the heavy type.

 

It can be hard to get that info from sellers, but it's worth it to get Baoding balls that will really charge you up! If you get to handle the new ones compared to a pair of old ones, you will really feel the difference. They must be plastic inside somewhere, even though they do chime. 

 

Another place you can sometimes find good ones is martial arts studios. They usually sell the steel/chrome version, not cloisonné, and you have to make sure they have chimes. I keep a 3 inch pair of those around for guys, who sometimes think the cloisonné are too "pretty." If you feel the chee, those 3" steel monsters will rock you!  Disadvantage is they are much colder on your hands in the winter than the cloisonné version.

Almost a pound a pair, must chime, material they are made of is not important, 2-3 inches in diameter. Have I got that right?

 

Do you work up to three or four per hand, or just stay with two? Both hands at once? Direction of the movement?

 

Why is the chime important? That means stone is out.

 

 

Is this a useful exercise?

Edited July 26, 2016 by lessdaomorebum

[doc benway]

Thanks for posting! This is another interesting example of one of the aspects of this that I keep talking about.

 

Some teachers agree with your teacher.

 

Other teachers, and they can fling you across the room, don't give a rats bottom about qi; they think it is mechanics, microcontractions of the muscles (like what makes animals so strong, pound for pound), stuff like that.

 

I'm not even saying who's right, I am just pointing out again (Steve, are you listening ) that there are giant disagreements by highly skilled people. This leaves the novice scratching his head.

Yes, I am listening.

And yes, there are disagreements between highly skilled people. 

We see that in every discipline - physics, math, philosophy, music, martial arts...

I can certainly see how that can be confusing. 

The answer is to do what you are doing - attempt to experience what is going on firsthand.

 

 

Hi there! It's been so long I will have to go back through the thread to see when we talked before.

 

"I think it is fine to practice taijiquan, bagua, xingyi, and qigong without "feeling Qi" at all."

Me too, except for chee gong, since that is the whole purpose. Still, even for the other arts, most teachers seem to think they ought to involve chee to some extent. But they certainly are beneficial without feeling chee.

 

"I may be totally off base and, if so, my apologies."

No need to apologize, just change the way you approach things. If I wasn't open to change, how I could have spent so much time with an exercise program Cheya recommended and now be asking her lots of questions on and off thread about tai chi ruler and stick, and baoding balls? For that matter, if someone wants to chime in on their experience with Flying Phoenix chee gong as taught by Terry Dunn (I know there is an endless thread for it here) or Zhineng Qigong, those are also on my short list

 

I would do standing meditation, maybe exclusively, if I could, but that has been explained more than once by me on this thread.

 

Open does not equal agreement. I can be open to an idea and still reject it.

The purpose of Qigong, IMO, is not to feel Qi. The purpose of Qigong is to use breathing methods combined with physical movement to achieve specific objectives - health, fitness, healing, martial prowess, etc... While many Qigong instructors emphasize the "feeling Qi" part, it's my opinion that one will get similar effects if one is simply open to what one feels and performs the techniques properly. Neigong like the MCO, on the other hand, is more focused on feeling, connecting with, and guiding the Qi. This is why I mentioned the value of the MCO practice earlier.

 

I applaud you for trying new things but just because you are trying some new exercises does not mean that you are open-minded about the nature of Qi. I'm referring more to your expectations and assumptions about Qi itself, not how to find it. You may still be looking for the same wrong thing in the same wrong place using a different tool. We are so perfused with others' ideas of what Qi is and is not and what it "feels like" that it can be difficult to be open enough to actually sense it and trust that we are feeling the right thing. If we are looking for a diamond, expecting it to be clear and sparkly, we may come across one that is unpolished and toss it away because it's not what we expect to find. That may not be a great analogy but hopefully you get my drift. 

 

Yes, I agree - one can be open and disagree. One can also be quite closed minded and think they are open.

Most of us do not think we are closed minded, whether we are or not.

Being open can be very challenging. Our prejudices and assumptions are very deeply rooted and can be very subtle.

In fact, there are entire spiritual disciplines devoted entirely to openness - I follow one. 

 

I'll offer a few more words FWIW -

 

Often when we are looking for something intently we just can't find it. Ever look for something for a long time, then just give up, and find it was sitting right in front of you the whole time? It's similar to when we try to think of a specific word or memory and we just can't find it until we stop trying. This is because the more we try, the more focused we become. Think about focusing, it means to narrow or close down, to shut out information so that a limited amount of information is more pronounced. In my practices, one of the major obstacles is our effort. The more effort we exert the more we disconnect with the objective - openness. And it's difficult to overcome the obstacle of effort, anything you try to do to overcome it means more effort... It's tricky.

 

Best to do what practices you can and be very attentive and open to what is happening in your body, like you're doing with the balls and the ruler. Try to feel what's going on as if you have a brand new body, one that you've never inhabited before. We take so much of our inner (and outer) experience for granted that we tend to feel little more than pain or intense pleasure. Our sensory organs are finely tuned to exclude most information and focus us on a very limited bandwidth of useful information that we can process. There's so much more out there. Your physical limitations are not preventing you from feeling Qi, your expectations and preconceived notions are, IMO.

 

I wish you the best of luck.

[cheya]

A pound a pair if they are 3" maybe. Anything over 13-14 oz is good. 

 

You want two of them for each hand. You learn to rotate them in both hands simultaneously, in either direction, usually opposite directions for each hand, or whatever feels right.

Bound to be youtubes of the possible patterns and combinations.

 

First they want rotation, then they want silent smooth rotation (no clunking), then they want you to rotate the balls without their touching each other at all (harder the bigger the balls you choose), and then I think silent and not touching. You can use as many balls as fit in your hand. I have smaller ones I can do three, haven't worked higher than that. The 3 inch balls will stretch your fingers and palms. 2 inches is a nice size to start with, even 1.75 is good, so long as they are the heavy type.

 

So that's what I've read "they" want you to do.

I don't do that.

I like them to clunk each other, 'cause that's what makes the vibration.

 

All the other variations probably have chi effects, i just haven't learned them.

 

I read that older chinese men could be seen walking around the parks twirling their Baoding balls. The image really cracked me up. But I thought I probably ought to try it before I laughed too hard. Walking helps move and distribute the chee. . (Mind you, if you drop those cloisonné balls on anything hard, the cloissone can  break. So can the coffee table. You can break the chimes too.) I walked around for awhile, and then settled on rocking fore and back in the tai chi ruler style.  On a rug. That works very well for chi.

[lessdaomorebum]

 

 

I read that older chinese men could be seen walking around the parks twirling their Baoding balls.

Don't believe very much of what you read about what one sees in parks in China (tai chi, qigong, levitation, people running backwards, etc). Actually, the last thing I mentioned you will see in Chinese parks.

[cheya]

Well, even if it's not true, or is no longer true, I'm glad I read it, cause I tried it , and it works!   

But it still kind of tickles me.

[dawei]

Baoding Balls, aka chinese Health Balls, 

 

Baoding... I have spent almost a years time in Baoding... I have several Baoding Balls sitting on my shelves... Time I used them

[lessdaomorebum]

Cheya, you said one must get the balls with chimes. Why?

[cheya]

Well, the solid balls don't deliver the vibration, which IMO drives and amplifies the chi.

I don't get the same response with the solid balls. They are more a muscle thing for me.

 

But if you can try both solid and chiming you can decide.

Besides, they sound cool....

[Jim D.]

I tried my Boading Balls thanks to the influence of this thread. It seems more like juggling. I started to get the hang of it. Nothing happened accept that my tendons started to get tired.

 

Would like to call my Chi up through this method.

 

Whatched a Chi Gong demonstration on Youtube. It looked like my warm up routine form Tai Chi.

[roger]

Boring, rambling post

 

Society for the Chee Numb.

 

I first studied the internal arts just over a quarter century ago. After a few years I gave up because since I was a kid I had had messed up posture, and that just wasn't compatible with this stuff. Not a lazy slouch cured by someone saying "Sit up straight!" Rather, thoracic kyphosis. I had a visible hunch in my teens and twenties; not like Quasimodo, but it was a chunk of muscle. It has improved over the years due to certain things I have done, but it is still pretty stiff and I can not sit or stand truly straight. I can not sit cross-legged due to tight hips, which I and others theorize either as the cause or the result of the kyphosis. This is a soft tissue issue, not a bone issue.

 

I can't feel chee. Never could. I think this may be because of my kyphosis (I know how important the back is in terms of chee), but that is just speculation. Some of my classmates could feel chee in a serious way. My teacher was very welcoming of my skepticism, though I think he considered me to be a little slow in the chee-head

 

If I do standing stake (站樁), the musculature around my thoracic area seizes up within minutes, and can even be numb right along the spine by ten minutes or less. Decades of poor neuron firing habits.

 

I was listening to an interview recently with John Upledger, son of the osteopath of the same name who brought craniosacral therapy to the masses. It came up in the interview that some people just can't seem to feel the craniosacral rhythm -- their own or another person's.

 

Maybe some people just can't feel chee, in spite of considerable practice? I had a super teacher, and some of my classmates made good progress. I know that some people take to it quickly, while others take more time. There is a tai chi teacher in Canada on Youtube who's been doing tai chi for I think 30+ years and says chee, in the sense of meridians and such, is not something he has felt or thinks is real.

 

I would feel a few wriggles here or there, but if I wasn't expecting anything, I would have thought of them as random nerve firings. My teacher was big on the idea of not telling students what to expect, and telling them not to expect chee to manifest in a certain way. That's all very nice, but if you went to a gym or went jogging, and months or years later had no sense of improvement, how long do you think you would stick with it? The enjoyment of the process comes out of the improvement. If you learned drawing or piano and never improved, you would not enjoy it. The process is enjoyable because we learn.

 

If there are meridians and whatnot, if I could heal people with chee, well then I would like to be able to feel chee. I have known a few sane and sober persons who assure me they feel chee in a concrete way and can work with it and such -- and known many others who just bs-ed their chee ability, IMHO. Lots of other people take the Reiki approach of just imagine you can feel chee, even if you can't, but that's not my style. I did the first two levels of Reiki, and while my class partner for each level (two different people) reported feeling things when I worked on them that made me think they had dropped acid, I felt it was all a ridiculous scam (maybe scam is a bit harsh, as that implies intention to cheat; the teacher seemed to believe what he was doing was useful).

 

I started doing cheegong on my own a few weeks ago (no money for class right now), and am feeling some more wriggles here and there than in the past, and now an electromagnetic feeling in one posture, but I am wondering what I can do to really figure this out. Maybe it is just about getting the back beaten into shape, or maybe it is something else. I know the idea is that everyone has chee and your chee is flowing if you are still alive, but are you convinced that everyone can get to the point where they can feel _and_ manipulate chee? If not, I would just do tai chi. Tai chi is fun for me, healthy, and my back is good enough now that I can do it with some improvement and not a lot of tension.

 

I welcome thoughts from knowledgeable persons.

 

PS Please don't tell me to talk to my body, listen to my body, feel my body, dissolve the tension, ask my body what is wrong or why it is angry, et cetera. I can't  .  I've been that route before, with counseling and hypnosis (having read books that suggested that my back could be caused by something in my head) and nothing came of it. My body had nothing to say, except "%^&!, you want me to write another check?" I can tell any other part of my body to relax, and it will to some extent, but that area won't. The only time I am mostly unaware of my thoracic tension is when I am lying on my back.

 

 

A very important question is, what is "chi"?

 

I believe that, ultimately, love is all there really is. If chi exists, then, it would be love.

 

I've felt that love, that chi, very many times.

 

It doesn't happen as much these days, but for many years, for about a decade almost every day, I felt these explosions of intense love for other people within me. I see it as an experience of my divine nature.

 

So yes, I believe it's very possible to feel "chi," which is love.

 

I'll tell you a good way to release the love that ALREADY exists within you.

 

There are blocks in people to the love that is the source and reality of their being. Those blocks can be released fairly easily and naturally through effortless meditation.

 

Two techniques that are very good for releasing blocks to love are non-meditation and mantra meditation.

 

Non-meditation is done by just sitting there, not "trying" at all. It's like when you're driving your car. Just BE. Just let thoughts come and go without effort. Be like an animal. That's why I call it NON-meditation.

 

For mantra meditation, it's the same as non-meditation, but you're repeating a mantra. One of the best mantras is, "I am."

 

Just repeat the mantra. Let thoughts come and go on their own. Don't TRY. It's so simple and easy.

 

I feel that these two techniques are very helpful in releasing blocks to love, or chi, because those blocks will NATURALLY get released when you're not trying at all.

 

Releasing blocks happens effortlessly, naturally, and even automatically, when you're just being free, being natural.

[lessdaomorebum]

I consider this thread closed now. I will no longer reply to or even read posts here. If you would like to contact me, send me a PM, though I am not sure if I will be at this site often.

[Marblehead]

Great!!!  Now I can post to it.

 

Yes, nearly everyone has the capacity to feel Chi.  But it requires an empty mind with no expectations.  A state of "wu wei", if you will.

 

But it has limits.  It won't make you a superman.  And you still won't be able to do magic or perform miracles.

[Marblehead]

PS  I might even start a PPF so that I have a place to post my bad jokes.  That way I won't bother the more serious members of the forum.