Breath, Qi, Yi, Dantian & Kidneys Jan 30, 2021 Breath, specifically reverse-breathing , is used to condition the respiration part of the involuntary/voluntary tissues associated with breath and body movement. Reverse-breathing/'moving the dantian ' is used to pull those tissues, although not all of those breathing-related tissues are passive: they can be actively contracted because the respiration-related tissues are partially controlled by the motor cortex (voluntary), in addition to the brain-stem (involuntary). Movement and the intent, or "yi" , is also used to condition the respiration-related tissues. However, a point to note is that a person cannot develop the dantian without both reverse-breathing and the movement and stretching of the respiration-related tissues. Full development of the dantian will include the winding motion of silkreeling . The tensile-elastic tissues (aka the "qi-tissues" or "qi") are what connect the dantian at
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QI- TISSUES AND DANTIAN: OPINION PIECE There's a quick way to feel the actions of the "qi-tissues" of the face (as opposed to the topic of an etheric qi, which is a different topic). Close your mouth and inhale about half-way and then stop and try to pull the remainder of the breath through the skin of your cheeks. Of course, you can't really pull air in through the cheeks, but by imagining that the cheeks are like wet neoprene fabric and you're trying to pull air through them, the subconscious mind will trigger the involuntary muscles which would partake in such an action. Suck hard and you should feel the skin of the cheeks pulling inward. If you open your mouth and attempt to suck in the skin of the cheeks in the same way, it's hard to do. Because the involuntary-muscle/fascia tissue is difficult to control with the mouth open, most breathing exercises involve keeping the mouth shut, tongue-tip on upper palate, and inhaling through the nose. If you
Snow Shoveling Practice We've had several snows in the last few weeks and I always enjoy the workout in the fresh, cold air. Snow shoveling gives me a good chance to practice some basics and get some dantian training in, so I thought I'd give my perspective on the possibilities while shoveling. First of all, when I scoop the snow and pick it up, I try to use power mostly from the torso and the weight-shift of the body; not so much arms. I'm very aware of where my weight is and how it moves over my feet. Secondly, when I pick up the loaded shovel and hold it, I am very careful that all forces are resting on the soles of my feet and that my source of power is the soles of my feet, not my arms. Keeping all sources of forces from the soles of your feet is "sinking your qi". No matter what you do in your movement, you should always keep the source of your forces at the soles of your feet. Third, when I actually throw the snow with the shovel, at the momen
Qi Ruminations Jan 22, 2021 Qi is a pretty old term, going back at least to the fifth century, B.C. in China. That long ago, there was not much in the way of science to explain how the world worked, so the ancient Chinese devised their own paradigm in a sort of "Theory of Everything": they used qi as a building block for their hypothesis. If you look at some of the earliest, primitive drawings in China that show the flow of forces in the human body, you can see the beginnings of the so-called acupuncture meridians through which qi supposedly flows. The earliest drawings of force paths were crude and there were a limited number of recognized channels or force flow. The original force-flow lines were probably delineations of the muscles and tendon connections that support strength along different facets of the body. The Chinese, though, recognized something that we in the West seem to have missed, early on. The Chinese recognized that everyt
REVERSE BREATHING, EMBRYONIC BREATHING, EARLY HEAVEN BREATHING, PRE-NATAL BREATHING, AND SO ON. When you do the full Reverse Breathing, you pull the abdomen in slightly with the inhale (to constrain space and build up pressure) and you lift the perineum/anus area upward toward the Mingmen/lower-back. This action serves to pull inward and tauten the tissues all the way to the fingers and toes, once you've begun to develop those tissues from use. The inhale is an Open movement and it is pushed up the back. When you exhale in reverse breathing, you let the pressure area in your lower-back drop forward with the stomach/belly dropping frontward and downward, and your tissue either relaxing or, if you're exerting force, contracting on the exhale. The exhale is a Closing movement and is part of the flow of tension/forces down the front of the body in the Microcosmic Orbit. Over a period of time with this respiration maneuver, the abdomen area and the kidney area become quite stron
USING THE "SUIT" AKA "EXTERNAL QI" AKA PRANIC SHEATH TO SUPPLEMENT STRENGTH. Just to give an idea about how strength is developed, over time, using the functional "Qi" of the body, let's look at the below video of a Chen-style teacher twisting (with "spiraling strength", aka "reeling silk strength") a dried limb of wood. Bear in mind that it takes a while to develop this kind of strength and to coordinate it in the body, but we can at least get a feel or flavor of supplemental strength from analyzing the video. In order to transmit or propagate any strength, we need a good connection from source to point of application. One of the oft-stated goals of developing your qi/ki is to "take out the slack" ... which is the same idea. If we imagine that the "suit" covers the body like a leotard and we need to maximize the stretch, mostly across the back of torso and limbs, then bending the body in order to draw the
THINGS THAT ARE QI Jan 14, 2021 One of my experiences over the years has been to hear from people who have attended workshops by some Chinese teacher and they say something like "He adjusted my posture and I felt a warm flow go through me" or "I felt my qi when he moved my arms slightly". I dunno. I've had my posture adjusted by some of the same experts and I've felt a better ability to hold a position using the body-wide network of tissues and to be able to propagate jin just a little better. The warm glow in my belly I seem to have missed. So let's talk about what is "qi" and what are legitimate feelings. The general thrust of the "qi" of the body has to do with the tissues and body-responses that are controlled more by the subconscious mind than by the voluntary/conscious mind. For instance, goose-bumps on the arm are part of the general "qi" systems … yet some people have learned how to trick their subconscious into r