Functional Qigongs
Know Your Qi and Know
When People don't know their Qi
The qi-related tissues of the body are ones that involve
involuntary-muscle systems controlled by the subconscious. Respiration tissues fall into this category
because they are controlled both by the motor cortex and by the brain stem under
subconscious/unconscious control. Much
of the discussion about "qi" has to do with the subconscious control
of the involuntary-muscle tissue systems and, often, the voluntary control of respiration
for physical training.
The ancient Chinese took the involuntary-muscle systems into
account when they analyzed human strength and motion, but the ancient
Chinese also postulated (remember, this was thousands of years ago) an unseen
energetic part of the whole qi-paradigm in order to explain the actions of
blood sugar, health, congenital strength, and so on. Most westerners focus on the unseen, unmeasurable,
energetic qi postulate, but most actual manipulation and development of the
body's qi is done with the involuntary-muscle systems, the fascia they are
attached to, and the subconscious mind.
Focusing on the etheric idea of qi and "sensations" is to go
off on the wrong path.
The respiration-related tissues can be deliberately pulled
in with an inhale (traditionally with a reverse breath). Just to get a rough idea of how this
"pulling in" works, hold your arms out to your side, palms forward
and bend the arms backward a little bit at the shoulders. Lean backwards to enhance the slight stretch
across the front of your body. You
should be able to feel the tensile connection on the front of the body from the
hands to the chest and downward to the area over the abdomen. Now, inhale slowly while pulling the stomach
slightly and you should feel the tissues along the front of the body draw even
tighter. While the tissues are tight,
push the stomach out and it will pull on all the now-tight tissues and the pulling
of the frontal tissues should move your arms forward in a sort of open-armed
clap of the hands.
With the above action of breath and the elasticity of the
superficial tissues, you can perhaps get an idea of how breath and elasticity work
together. This same process can be
duplicated all over the body, although it takes a while to develop the
"pulling in" of tissues in some parts of the body (e.g., the legs).
The main point is a pulling-in contraction of the tissues,
at least at first. As the tissues are
developed, the cohesive unity of the body is developed to the point that when
one part of the body moves, the movement can be felt in the elastic tissues in
other parts of the body. Traditionally,
the dantian area/nexus of the body is the main controlling center of the body's
connected elasticity. Secondary control
nexuses (aka "dantians" or "chakras") can be found in the
crotch, the chest, the throat, the sinus area, and the top of the head.
The stretching manipulation of the tissues can have more
effects than just connecting to body as a unit. For instance, if someone does regular reverse
breathing with the slight contraction when the tissues pull-in, bone density
can be increased because each breath stimulates the affected bones by contracting
and squeezing them.
Using the squeezing of the bones with the mechanical process
of the "pulling-in" on inhale as an example of what "breathing
exercises" can do, let's look at some further examples. First, though, here is an illustration from
Mantak Chia's book "Iron Shirt Chi Kung I" showing a representation
of the squeezing done on the pull-in inhale: notice that this sort of
conditioning
Notice that although we are talking about the
mechanical actions of an elastic inhale tension and inhale pressure to selected
tissues of the body, the traditional Chinese perspective refers also to "chi"
("qi") and "energy".
This is a big problem for many practitioners because they think of qi
solely as some etheric energetic when, in fact, they should be focused on
conditioning those tissues and training and manipulating the involuntary-muscle
and respiration tissues to respond as needed.
By pulling upward from the perineum/anus area during a
reverse-breathing inhale, we can implement this type of elastic stress and pressure
on the internal organs. Or if we focus
on the skin area, we can implement this type of pressure on the bones and
muscles of the head and limbs. Here are
a couple of illustrations, also from Mantak Chia's book, but what he was
illustrating is fairly commonly practiced in Asia under the terms such as
"bone breathing", "skin breathing", "packing
breathing", and so on.
Again, mechanical processes involving the
involuntary-muscle systems and the subconscious (via imagery) are being represented
as "energy" and "Chi" ("qi").
In the above comments, "qi" and "energy"
are being portrayed as actions involving the involuntary-muscle involved
tissues of the body. Those tissues can
be thought of as the "qi" that we want to develop.
Some of the involuntary-muscle systems (aka "qi")
are able to apply stressor forces to the body frame and manipulate force vectors
from either the ground upward or the weight downward. These forces are called "jin" and
jin is defined as "the physical manifestation of the qi", aptly.
The superficial involuntary-muscle systems can form a
protective barrier to lacerations and punches, with training. The breathing exercises into the interior of
the body, compressing and stretching the fascia attached to the involuntary
muscle systems, can increase the thickness of the tissues surrounding organs,
joints, muscles, and so on. The involuntary-muscle
systems built into the vascular system can be taught to regulate blood
pressure, to some degree (in the West, biofeedback mechanisms do the same
thing).
Like most physical training, time has to be devoted to
developing the "qi" systems and strengthening them. People who hope for rapid results from exotic
postures will mostly be disappointed.
The postures and mechanisms of most qigongs are meant to
manipulate and strengthen the involuntary-muscle systems of the body and there
are functional approaches, like in the above examples, for manipulating and
training the tissues. If someone is
just copying the postures of a qigong and breathing without controlling tissues
and moving without using the jin forces, it is an empty copy of the qigong and
should be corrected in order to be functional.
Teachers who teach qigongs without the functional aspects of tissue and
mind training are not doing their students much good.
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