Possible energy overload from a tai chi practice .

[Jambon]

Hi all ,

 

I am coming here to post as I am having some troubling symptoms that I believe could be related at least in part to my tai chi practice .

 

I occasionally go through bouts of strange uncomfortable  symptoms . Usually I'll first have a strong uncomfortable sensation in my throat , which then moves upwards after a few hours into my face causing my cheeks to pull apart like a wide smile , then this sensations moves up into the center of my forehead and feels like it is boring a hole in there , then it passes up into the top of the head where my impulse is to crack the bones around there . Then the next step in this sequence is that I'll have fits of burps and sometimes vomiting but with no sense of nausea or sickness . That can often be it for a while or the cycle may start straight away and continue for a day or three . I am checking out fine medically .

 

My tai chi practice is about 2 hours a day , I have learned traditionally with focus on posture repetitions and corrections by a teacher . The focus is on body mechanics and talk about CHI or meridians is for the most part avoided . I am no expert here and can only hazard a guess and use language I don't really understand  but I am wondering if it is possible that my practice is cultivating an amount of chi that my body is unable to handle within its "Chi circuitry "  . I have looked into the micro cosmic orbit and also into kundalini energy in trying to understand this . It feels like something energy or otherwise is trying to pass through various parts of my body but is getting stuck . I don't practice on the days that these symptoms are at their most severe .

 

Has anyone experienced similar or have any ideas ?

[Jeff]

Hi Jambon,

 

Your energy is starting to more broadly connect to the world around you. And you are starting to get sort of a transmission build up at the throat. It is sort of like you are subconsciously doing it, but not yet fully consciously aware of it. That conscious-subconscious split is causing the build up. As an experiment, try going out into some calm nature place and just sit quietly and still your mind. See if you can start to notice the energy flows sort of radiating out and back. Don't do anything, just sort of full body listen. Also, if you still don't feel/notice it, I can try to help with some other suggestion in the bums chatroom.

 

Best,

Jeff

[Spotless]

Yes - the symptoms are related to your practice and congratulations on practicing two hours a day.

 

You are indeed overloading the current capacities of your body to handle the energy. These are clear and relatively severe warnings so you need to heed them. We have so many overloaded practitioners coming in here - the next phase is psychosis and it would be best not to go there.

 

If you have not been practicing breathing into the lower dan tien you should be and if your teacher has not been teaching this then you should seek another teacher. You have moved beyond the current one.

 

There are many forms of Tai Chi and some are more Yang than others. Some specific forms in a practice compress Chi into your system and others in a sense play with it without compression. Practice none compression forms for several months and certainly at least until these symptoms have subsided. Probably for something like 6 months to a year would be best.

 

You are now clear that this practice is real and powerful - taking the inner work that is necessary to handle these energies as important is what is necessary. Just as putting too much electrical energy into a poor or inadequate conductor creates heat and burn out - you body and subtle bodies need transformation to a fine level of conduction.

 

Notice I said that taking these energies as important is necessary - I did not say take them seriously - taking them seriously is precisely a mind set you should not cling to. By this I mean - these are indeed powerful energies - they are the Divine Natural Essence of everything. There is no shortage and they will always be there for you. You have arriv ed at the point of knowing a bit of this power, now you can see that perhaps preparing the vessel is in order.

 

It is not necessary to subjugate the body and over ride it and engineer it. It will transform organically if given the simple teachings that are necessary and the patience to allow the transformations to occur. You can approach this from the rabbits way or the turtles way: one is to begin "doing" all sorts of remedies and nudgings of your energies in order to "fix" the "problem" and the other is to back off from this Chinese finger puzzle and instead of cutting it up and pasting it here and there - learn what you are really doing when you practice these arts.

 

From the outset you mentioned in your post that you have generally been guided in techniques of a mechanical nature and this is actually excellent. Most teachers have little idea regarding what they are doing and teach all sorts of crap that becomes ingrained incorrectly into the students concepts and references.

 

At this point practice in the fine energies of simply flow with no compression. If your teachers is able to provide you with information along these lines that would be the best start. Breathing into the lower dan tien is imparative. Do not practice other breathing exercises or other practices.

 

Being in nature and possibly a walk with some large healthy trees would be useful. You are arriving into an awareness of energies that were once somewhat remote and unreal. Now it is time to enjoy knowing this is very real but not jump to any conclusion that you are now somehow in a position to become its director. You have been directing it - in compressing it into your space - and it has brought you to hopefully see that it is not in need of more directing but rather that you are in need of listening to yourself and relaxing and cultivating yourself and the subtle bodies.

 

Diet of all types becomes increasingly important. Media is part of your diet.

Breathing into the lower abdomen.

Just being with your "Self" and allowing these energies to work their magic unparalized by fear and worry will go a long way.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Spotless

[Taoist Texts]

 I am no expert here and can only hazard a guess and use language I don't really understand  but I am wondering if it is possible that my practice is cultivating an amount of chi that my body is unable to handle within its "Chi circuitry "  . I have looked into the micro cosmic orbit ...

 

Has anyone experienced similar or have any ideas ?

It is not the case of you generating any excess energy but rather sending the regular inherent amount in reverse up the chest. It is due to a classic  mistake in TCC - unduly elevating the diaphragm, which happens unwittingly to everybody. With you it became a problem because of longer sessions. TCC manuals specifically warn against this. Happened to me too, but in a much malignant form - it felt like a spike poking my heart from below.

[dwai]

Hi all ,

 

I am coming here to post as I am having some troubling symptoms that I believe could be related at least in part to my tai chi practice .

 

I occasionally go through bouts of strange uncomfortable symptoms . Usually I'll first have a strong uncomfortable sensation in my throat , which then moves upwards after a few hours into my face causing my cheeks to pull apart like a wide smile , then this sensations moves up into the center of my forehead and feels like it is boring a hole in there , then it passes up into the top of the head where my impulse is to crack the bones around there . Then the next step in this sequence is that I'll have fits of burps and sometimes vomiting but with no sense of nausea or sickness . That can often be it for a while or the cycle may start straight away and continue for a day or three . I am checking out fine medically .

 

My tai chi practice is about 2 hours a day , I have learned traditionally with focus on posture repetitions and corrections by a teacher . The focus is on body mechanics and talk about CHI or meridians is for the most part avoided . I am no expert here and can only hazard a guess and use language I don't really understand but I am wondering if it is possible that my practice is cultivating an amount of chi that my body is unable to handle within its "Chi circuitry " . I have looked into the micro cosmic orbit and also into kundalini energy in trying to understand this . It feels like something energy or otherwise is trying to pass through various parts of my body but is getting stuck . I don't practice on the days that these symptoms are at their most severe .

 

Has anyone experienced similar or have any ideas ?

Sink the qi into the lower dan tien, gently. Don't do it so hard that you give yourself a headache. Your mind can rest on your lower dan tien just like you can just lay your hand on a table top. Rest your mind there and imagine a tiny hole the size of a needle tip in your dan tien where your qi sinks into. You can use visualization if you can't feel your LDT well enough...like a spiral going into the LDT (how water spirals when you drain a bath tub). Go very slowly - if it takes 5 mins, let it. We should always do this to bring the qi back into the LDT after we practice... Edited January 28, 2017 by dwai

[awaken]

Ha, it is normal, not overload.

 

I had these before.

 

Because you spent "2 hours" and your attutide is right, you don't expect anything, just concentrate on your body.

 

So...it is easy to let the energy run.

 

We just need time and right direction.

 

You got both.

 

You don't need to learn any new "methods" , the way you do is totally right, very good.

 

Please don't change your way.

 

These feeling will change.

 

Energy is always changing.

 

I hope you can keep this right direction and see what is going on next.

 

Especially, don't lead these chi to lower dan tian.

 

It will destroy your perfect condition now.

 

What you experience is very good.

 

If you think the energy is too strong and you are afraid, you just need to relax more.

 

Everything will be fine.

Edited January 29, 2017 by awaken

[RiverSnake]

Jeff, Spotless, and Dwai gave excellent advice.

 

In addition i would also recommend that you focus in on the blockages in your energy body that are causing the imbalance so you can get to the "core" of the cause. Here's a cool trick: 

 

After you do your tai chi practice and are all "charged up", open a conversation with your energy body and ask it to show you what blockages are causing the symptoms. Once you find the blockages, just meditate on them until you feel them dissolve. Hope that's helpful. Cheers. 

Edited January 29, 2017 by OldWolf

[Jambon]

Thanks to all above for your insights . I have a bit to digest .

 

Spotless , could you expand on how I might cultivate the subtle body ?

 

J

[awaken]

Jeff, Spotless, and Dwai gave excellent advice.

 

In addition i would also recommend that you focus in on the blockages in your energy body that are causing the imbalance so you can get to the "core" of the cause. Here's a cool trick:

 

After you do your tai chi practice and are all "charged up", open a conversation with your energy body and ask it to show you what blockages are causing the symptoms. Once you find the blockages, just meditate on them until you feel them dissolve. Hope that's helpful. Cheers.

 

I don't suggest that meditation on the blockages.

 

I did it before.

 

Not very good.

 

The blockage would be strengthen

 

You need another way to deal with it.

 

The lower type of energy.

 

We have many types of energy.

 

These different types of energy work in the different layers of body.

 

Different depth of consciousness deal with different types of energy.

 

When we do meditation, we only deal with one of them.

Edited January 29, 2017 by awaken

[Rocky Lionmouth]

This sounds so much like migraine with the face-pulling, boring hole and skull splitting thing, also that it wanders fits. I'm not saying it's not related to your practice OP, just that it sounds like a list of symptoms that occur with migraine attacks.

Do you experience changes in sleep, hydration, mood, food or overall stress before a bout?

[Jambon]

Hi Rocky ,

 

I had considered migrane , but the way that I feel this "energy " or whatever its best called moving around my body from throath to forehead to crown to digestive area signals that its not . Also the headache aspect is much more like a dull pressure within the head rather than the piercing pain of severe migrane . Sleep , hydration and stress seem unrelated to it as far as I can see .

[dwai]

Hi Rocky ,

 

I had considered migrane , but the way that I feel this "energy " or whatever its best called moving around my body from throath to forehead to crown to digestive area signals that its not . Also the headache aspect is much more like a dull pressure within the head rather than the piercing pain of severe migrane . Sleep , hydration and stress seem unrelated to it as far as I can see .

I experienced similar pressure in the head when I first started doing siddhar yoga. It's not good for you. So whatever you practice, do it at 50% intensity for a few weeks.

[awaken]

When the qi go up to head, you'd better get into Hun dun. Or the qi will make you feel uncomfortable.

 

Why?

 

Because the blockage is very deep, if you keep awake, you can't let your qi go into the deep layer of your body.

 

The depth of qi depend on the depth of our consciousness.

[EmeraldHead]

The depth of qi depend on the depth of our consciousness.

I don't have much experience with a lot of stuff you've been saying but I like that statement. It reminds me of a exercise William Walker Atkinson has to increase WILL. Not willpower directly but rather WILL itself. It's kind of like feeding the spirit inside the body with chi to awaken it....assuming it is the WILL. 

 

It's more of a trick that comes easier in certain moods and for others than a meditation type exercise. Feel the spirit. That's it. The body then should feel like a piece of cloth. The spirit could be said to not feel but rather be percevied like a cloud or only slightly pressurised gas. Once good at it, it increases something that watches the mind. I would look in the distance at the sky with a few clouds here and there while keeping silent. Something behind the mind is watching and is aware. That's what it increases, and your continuity of thoughts, desire and will thorugh struggle is great, thus when forced with resistance your 'spirit' doesn't brake, and that's how it increases your willpower. While running/sprinting if I do this I run faster. and get the energy to do so. 

 

And it is a big chi eater overall. But most people on this forum shouldn't have a problem with that .

[Taomeow]

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Edited February 2, 2017 by Taomeow

[Bearded Dragon]

You want to have a downward sinking sensation in tai chi. Try to have a point about a foot under the ground suck your energy downwards, OR start from the top of the head and progressively drop any energy/feelings/tension/whatever until it starts to drop by itself. This has the effect of clearing stagnation and allowing your energy to naturally flow where it needs to. I've never noticed anyone have any bad effects if they're taught that from the beginning as the downward flows tend to play nice with the body.

 

Everything is sinking. Even rising actions are initiated through sinking. Very important stuff.

[RiverSnake]

Keep the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth. This helps draw energy away from the head and enhance circulation in the energy body. 

[beingnature]

Taking cold showers always helped immediately.And some times its also good to not practice everyday.Make sure you have a long come down phase in your practice and rest afterwards.Best wishes!