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Since I am rather new to this forum, I will give some background
I discovered the healing dao and internal alchemy about a year ago. Started Qigong 1 in February expecting to finish rather quickly. After all, it looked pretty simple.
Well, I was surprised at what happened. Suddenly I was completely exhausted. I forced myself to keep doing the healing sounds every day, but for the rest of the time I had a hard time of it. I could barely find the energy to do anything.
This lasted for seven months. Finally I started feeling my energy coming back. I felt worse when I did the healing sounds(not tired, but headaches etc) so I thought perhaps I should stop and perhaps let my energy body heal(I wasn’t sure exactly). Things started really improving and I started feeling like my old self again.
Suddenly the seasons changed. One day it went from 75 degrees down to 30. The next day I woke up with bronchitas. It took three months of manya antibiotics to heal. And then the next month I got a nasty cold.
My thought(?) is that I spent so much time detoxing that I was really drained of energy. I came up with the idea that I needed to replentish my energy some way. I don’t think my dan tien was opened by ocean breathing yet. I even went out and bought some Iron Shirt DVDS hoping this would do the trick. But when I was going through the first one I realized I really didn’t have the stamina and physical strength to hold these postures for even ten minutes.
I looked through a book by Yudelove called taoist yoga and realized it might be just what I needed to get back on track. It seems to have iron shirt in it plus a lot of other stuff. And since it starts simply and advances gradually(including standing postures of very short duration) I thought I could get my physical self back in shape while at the same time experiencing the benefits of some basic internal alchemy practices.
I plan on finishing it this year. And then next year going back to qigong 1 and actually getting in touch with each organ spirit in turn.
I’ve been reading some of the other posts on this forum and it seems most of the other writers have been working on this for many years. I hope you don’t mind some comments from someone that’s rather near the beginning.
B
Welcome to the list!
Don’t worry about your background.
There are people ranging from just beginning up to Michael himself
on this board, and everyone can participate here. In reality,
everybody is a beginner.Regarding Yudelove, his stuff is part of Healing Tao and nothing
wrong with doing it if you find it agreeable (he is teased on here
by some though as he went nuts a little while back . . .).Sorry to hear about your health problems!
There are really a lot of different things that can be the cause.
It could be that something external is causing it,
like some lifestyle change, job change, relationship change, or
whatever–and that is/was causing a lot of stress on your system.Or it could be that you were really toxic and you overdid it
at first . . . how much did you practice daily?Or maybe you had an underlying condition that became
aggravated by the detoxing . . .Too many different possibilities to say for sure; although,
the best way to understand is to look within and ask–often
your body is smarter than you realize, and you might be surprised
at what you find.One thing you can do in the meantime, for just a few minutes a
day, is just do the “Shake the Tree” (the shaking warmup). Not only
is it a good warmup and good way to detox, but it is fairly
energizing as well. You could even make that your main practice
for a while.The best advice is to have fun.
If you’re not having fun, your body will rebel.Best,
Stevenwelcome to the forum B. I’ve only been at Qigong for a little over a year myself.
I do have a couple of suggestions, and I like Steven’s idea of “shaking the tree”, because it gets the chi moving in your body.
Sit in a comfortable chair or couch, make sure your feet are in good contact with the floor/earth. Smile from the inside out (you can download Michaels’ free ebook on the inner smile). Breathe in to your navel. hold the in breath slightly for a second or two. Then let it out and hold it out for a second or two. Do this for awhile, 20 or 30 times, slow and easy.
After this you could start breathing into your navel (dan tien)from the outside, and exhale into the point opposite your navel(called ming men). Don’t breathe too hard or your may exhaust your adrenal glands. Again breathe slow and easy. relax. Let the chi flow start to become spontaneous..it will start to feel silky after awhile.
After you get the hang of that, you could breathe up yellow earth chi through your feet into your dan tien or your ming men.
Are you tense when you do the 5 Animals?
Lastly, as dumb as it may sound, be sure that you are drinking enough water. If you are dehydrated the chi won’t flow well ( at least it won’t for me).
hope this helps…qigong can be very energizing and sometimes very exciting!
Bob
Thanks Steven.
In retropspect I think I had a major detox…Just glads its over.
The problem with going through that is when I was so exhausted and confused I think I pissed some people off. Still trying to fix some situations up. Not quite sure how to explain my state of being during that period though.
The advice for shaking the tree I will try- though I’m so out of shape standing in that posture for a short time is even difficult- but perhaps somethings better than nothing.
Glad Michael designed this course this way. Its obvious that without these fundamental courses I would have gotten nowhere in the advanced kan and li courses(my ultimate goal).
Thanks for the welcome.
BThat’s an exercise I haven’t heard of before. Does it only get chi moving or does it energize too? Guess I will find out when i try it later.
When I first started the five animals I felt resistance. After going through that long period described in last post it feels natural now.
Thanks.
BGlad to hear that you are feeling better!
With the people you upset, you don’t need to go into
any details (unless of course you want to). You can
just say that you weren’t feeling well for a period of time.Also by the way, “Shake the Tree” is just the warmup exercise where you
shake your body loose and get the chi and blood flowing–a
much easier exercise than “Embrace the Tree”, which is the
strenuous rooting posture from Iron Shirt that I think you’re
thinking of.Best,
StevenYou’re right about my mixup re shaking the tree.
That one is definately easier.
You mentioned how Eric Yudelove lost it in one of your posts. I think it is a sad thing- especially after Mantak Chia defined him a taoist Master. Just reading his system in that book of his I can tell he would have had a valuable and unique way of teaching internal alchemy.
But life happens.
I am currently working on that system from the intro, doing a step every two weeks. It definately is a different approach to this subject. I am benefitting from the energy buildup. It will keep me going until I’m able to open up my dantien and breath naturally.
In some ways it’s strange dealing with such an open system, where how you progress depends on your needs. Not that I don’t like it – I love it. Feeling the freedom and breathing some fresh air.
B
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