Does flying phoenix chi kung really work?

[Toni]

After doing fragrant qigong for more than 6 months, last year I decided to give flying phoenix a try. I bought two dvds to Terry Dunn and I practiced it for two months. I didn't like the practice to be honest, and I didn't feel much benefits, although I practiced it on a daily basis. I know this Terry Dunn knows how to sell this very well, and he has some adepts who practice it with almost religious passion. But I want to ask if some people also think that it just doesn't work. Does someone else think like me? Now I feel like I threw away my money, the promised results never came, and there are many things out there which are easier, cheaper and much more effective. What does the forum think about that?

Edited May 9, 2020 by Toni

[Toni]

I really think it is time to say the truth about this flying phoenix qigong thing. How many people has paid for this, wasting money and time ?

Edited May 9, 2020 by Toni

[Leif]

Quote

I would also like to describe my experience with Flying Phoenix Qigong after one month of practicing the level 1. Previously I practiced fragrant qigong for 7 months, and still previously several other styles. Fragrant qigong was very powerful,  but I think FPQG is still better. As another user said, it greatly improves your metabolism. I have always suffered from bad digestion, and I really feel FPQG helps with that. I also feel more strength in my whole body, and more energy throughout the day.

 

I am focusing on doing bending the bows, and I feel it is a great exercise on several accounts. I also love holding the peach and wind above clouds. However the great benefits it has had on me, I must say that my tinnitus, which started some 8 years ago, has not improved, as it neither improved with the other qigong styles. But I hope it will improve with time and with other levels of practice, which I expect to begin soon. (I train every day around 1.5 or 2 hours)

 

Thanks to Sifu Terry and to Earl Grey for sharing this great style!

 

This is your post from May 2019.

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Leif

[Toni]

I was wrong then. I just did it one month or one month and a half, while i did fragrant, which is much better, for 7 months. 

[Zork]

22 hours ago, Toni said:

I was wrong then. I just did it one month or one month and a half, while i did fragrant, which is much better, for 7 months. 

Different people react differently, to different systems.

Keep what works for you.

[senseless virtue]

Disclaimer: I practice Flying Phoenix qigong and think it's really awesome. It always works well and feels really good.

 

Sifu Terry has quoted many times this from Mencius:

 

Quote

Do not seek in your vitality what you do not find in your heart.

 

Just my very personal experience:

 

If I don't get results I want, then I always look reasons first and foremost in myself and not in external circumstances.

 

No qigong form is any substitute for proper inner work of purifying conduct and dealing with emotional clutter. Sometimes this discipline is painfully difficult and it's more tempting to look outside for fun distractions and easier options.

 

No amount of qigong will automatically push anyone over the mental dispositions that are actually holding them back from letting go and embracing full awareness into their own true being. Qigong training never is a magical push-a-button machine for instant gratification in my experience.

 

It's a matter of free will, and not formal qigong, if we want to understand how we relate ourselves to the world we experience. I sure as hell haven't been promised anything specific as for results by any teacher, but always encouragement to work hard. Especially, to look hard into myself.

 

On 5/8/2020 at 6:52 PM, Toni said:

Now I feel like I threw away my money, the promised results never came, and there are many things out there which are easier, cheaper and much more effective. What does the forum think about that?

 

Hopefully you don't mind me asking, but I got curious enough to present you some questions. You can consider them rhetorical if you may; there is no need for you to prove anything to me.

 

What if you were most importantly investing money into your own discipline and investigating that in order to learn something important about yourself?

 

What do you expect from qigong training in the first place?

 

What results were you directly promised?

 

What is supposed to be easier and more effective in the training?

 

How do you determine what is the fair and just price for learning qigong?

Edited May 10, 2020 by virtue

[tao stillness]

To Toni I would suggest that you read the entire lengthy thread for Flying Phoenix and you will gain quite an understanding about the method while at the same time reading about what other people have experienced from this method. You are the first person that I have heard of who states that it does not work. Qigong works at different levels and works on different things for each person. So someone might be wanting qigong to heal a certain condition but instead the Qi, which has an intelligence to it, knows what it needs to work on and what order to do it. And it could be balancing conditions that we are not aware of. Also, we might have certain expectations for a method and with that a time table of when the results should happen. That might not be how these qigong methods work. If you did Flying Phoenix for a 6 month period I would be surprised if you would then say it does not work. Of the many qigong methods that I have learned, including Fragrant Qigong, Flying Phoenix Chi Kung has produced the most tangible and unique sensations of Qi. And I state that as someone who does not feel subtle energy very strongly at all. So think about your expectations and also the short of amount of time that you tried Flying Phoenix and also check to see if you learned the meditations exactly as they have been demonstrated and that you are doing the breath percentages as they are taught. I would be interested to learn what your expectations were from FP that you did not achieve. 

[Vajra Fist]

Having practiced it on an off for a few years, I think that Flying Phoenix is very subtle. It takes months of practicing several hours a day to develop a critical mass of the practice's distinctive 'sky blue' qi.

 

The daily practice seems to top up your body's repository of this qi. 

 

The benefits seem to accrue from how much of this qi you have cultivated, rather than from the individual practice sessions. Sometimes you might do an hour and feel absolutely nothing, then the next day as you're making a cup of tea you'll sense a subtle undercurrent of the blue qi and the smoothing effect of the practice. 

 

That's a lot different from other more standard qigong like spring forest or fragrant, where the benefits come from the practice itself. After doing an hour of spring forest you'll feel distinctly different than you did before. That effect will wear off after a day or two and youll feel the same as you did before you practiced.

 

That doesn't always happen with flying phoenix. The qi accumulation occurs at a deeper level that's not always immediately noticeable, but persists for weeks or months without practice. 

 

Honestly flying phoenix works differently than any qigong I've ever practiced. It's not necessarily superior, it's just a different type of system which doesn't follow normal laws in the way it works. 

 

This is why I've seen people quit after more than a year of daily practice. They say they get a more noticeable effect from practicing another qigong for an hour than they do from practicing flying phoenix for an hour. Thats because they misunderstand the way the system works.

 

-- I should add this is just my understanding of flying phoenix from what little I've practiced. I've honestly never practiced it consistently for more than two or three months at a time. It requires a great deal of patience for the effects to build up and many hours of regular practice. Long term practitioners like @Earl Grey and @virtue will no doubt correct me if I'm far off the mark. 

 

[Toni]

maybe i should try spring forest qi gong

[liminal_luke]

People naturally want to do something that gets results.  If you´re not feeling satisfied with the results you´re getting, then by all means try something else.  I´d hesitate, however, to make the categorical statement that practice X is no good.  Such a pronouncement assumes that you have the sensitivity and awareness to recognize what´s going on or not going on in your body -- and few of us do to any great extent.  Often great practices work invisibly.  Or else they work very visibly at first and then go through phases of seeming invisibility before the benefits emerge once again.  It´s like a train moving through a tunnel: when the train enters the tunnel you can no longer see it from above but it´s still moving.

[Earl Grey]

4 hours ago, Vajra Fist said:

Having practiced it on an off for a few years, I think that Flying Phoenix is very subtle. It takes months of practicing several hours a day to develop a critical mass of the practice's distinctive 'sky blue' qi.

 

The daily practice seems to top up your body's repository of this qi. 

 

The benefits seem to accrue from how much of this qi you have cultivated, rather than from the individual practice sessions. Sometimes you might do an hour and feel absolutely nothing, then the next day as you're making a cup of tea you'll sense a subtle undercurrent of the blue qi and the smoothing effect of the practice. 

 

That's a lot different from other more standard qigong like spring forest or fragrant, where the benefits come from the practice itself. After doing an hour of spring forest you'll feel distinctly different than you did before. That effect will wear off after a day or two and youll feel the same as you did before you practiced.

 

That doesn't always happen with flying phoenix. The qi accumulation occurs at a deeper level that's not always immediately noticeable, but persists for weeks or months without practice. 

 

Honestly flying phoenix works differently than any qigong I've ever practiced. It's not necessarily superior, it's just a different type of system which doesn't follow normal laws in the way it works. 

 

This is why I've seen people quit after more than a year of daily practice. They say they get a more noticeable effect from practicing another qigong for an hour than they do from practicing flying phoenix for an hour. Thats because they misunderstand the way the system works.

 

-- I should add this is just my understanding of flying phoenix from what little I've practiced. I've honestly never practiced it consistently for more than two or three months at a time. It requires a great deal of patience for the effects to build up and many hours of regular practice. Long term practitioners like @Earl Grey and @virtue will no doubt correct me if I'm far off the mark. 

 

 

"That doesn't always happen with flying phoenix. The qi accumulation occurs at a deeper level that's not always immediately noticeable, but persists for weeks or months without practice. 

 

Honestly flying phoenix works differently than any qigong I've ever practiced. It's not necessarily superior, it's just a different type of system which doesn't follow normal laws in the way it works. 

 

This is why I've seen people quit after more than a year of daily practice. They say they get a more noticeable effect from practicing another qigong for an hour than they do from practicing flying phoenix for an hour. Thats because they misunderstand the way the system works."

 

Okay, so here's some clarification: FP qi works differently from most publicly available forms of qigong as it doesn't follow the TCM model--the qi is intelligent and knows where to go. 

 

If one does not feel any effect, it doesn't mean a practice is not working; sensations are usually just that: sensations, not a sign that something is effective. My greatest healing came from feeling nothing because I just allowed the qi to go where it's meant to go. 

 

Some people see the blue qi, others never see it. I've had visitations from Buddhist beings twice already, a white lady and a black wrathful deity, as confirmed by Eric Isen. There are heaps of experiences I have had, and I actually just haven't been posting them in my practice journal as much as I used to because I could fill novels and volumes worth of encounters and ecstasies in the practice, and I've only been a student for four years. 

[Earl Grey]

4 hours ago, Toni said:

maybe i should try spring forest qi gong

 

We will remember this if you post a few months later angry that you "wasted money" over "broken promises" with a "system that doesn't work". 

[JohnC]

I've practiced many systems, and found FPQG to be a stellar, and powerful practice. My experience of it was very dramatic.

 

As a test you could take one of the postures (say monk holds the pearl) and maintain that posture for an hour. If you don't feel anything, then maybe FPQG is not for you.

 

Also, you could extend the time you do all the postures to extend your overall practice time.

 

 

SFQG is as well a powerful and stellar practice.

 

On 5/9/2020 at 11:59 AM, Toni said:

I really think it is time to say the truth about this flying phoenix qigong thing. How many people has paid for this, wasting money and time ?

 

With an attitude like that you probably won't get much out of SFQG. And you wouldn't deserve to either.

 

It is above my energetic pay grade to speak on, but some lineages(Chi/the Tao?) have tests to see whether a student is worthy and can progress further.

 

If not, no access.

Edited May 11, 2020 by JohnC

[Earl Grey]

2 hours ago, JohnC said:

I've practiced many systems, and found FPQG to be a stellar, and powerful practice. My experience of it was very dramatic.

 

As a test you could take one of the postures (say monk holds the pearl) and maintain that posture for an hour. If you don't feel anything, then maybe FPQG is not for you.

 

Also, you could extend the time you do all the postures to extend your overall practice time.

 

 

SFQG is as well a powerful and stellar practice.

 

 

With an attitude like that you probably won't get much out of SFQG. And you wouldn't deserve to either.

 

It is above my energetic pay grade to speak on, but some lineages(Chi/the Tao?) have tests to see whether a student is worthy and can progress further.

 

If not, no access.

 

Let's not forget that Flying Phoenix will often not resonate with people who are evil. It is a system with built-in psychic defense, so those who are truly evil will feel nothing and not care about the system.

 

I don't see Toni the OP as evil, perhaps a bit confused and misinformed (okay, perhaps entitled too), but this is something important to point out that has been stated by Sifu Terry as well.