My new practises

Hi SD

May i suggest with the compression you do it very gently, it is easy to do it to agressively, which can create problems, better to under do it then over do it.

happy new year.

It’s too bad you have problems doing Tao Yin in the winter;
I was going to suggest you try that.

I find Tao Yin to be very energizing.

You may always want to try some of the internal breathing
techniques–not only do they create heat, but are also
quite energizing also.

In fact, a rapid reverse breathing with internal focus
is sometimes called “breath of fire”.

S

>>Is it just to do reversed more quikly with focus in the tan tien? Want to try this!

Basically, yes.
In QF3, Michael discusses a chi-packing technique that involves reverse breathing,
and moving a chi ball back and forth between the fire and water channels.

“Breath of fire” is technically a yoga technique that is effectively the
same thing but is done with a faster speed.

The technique generates warmth in the body, energizes the body,
and with the internal technique is designed to pack chi into the
internal organs.

It also works well as a supplementary technique to complement
Iron Shirt practices and strengthen them.

Given your particular situation, it may be useful to play
with this and see if you get an added benefit.

Best,
Steven

>>This sounds wery interesting. I have had much good efect from
>>breathing earlier so I believe much in it for curing my illness.
>>I feel I need more insstructions on this one though.
>>Perhaps buy the cd or DVD from Michael later on.

Yeah, I just gave a vague idea and really didn’t give you
explicit instructions on how to do it–I’m not really sure
how much we are allowed to say if we’re not certified to teach it . . .

The breathing techniques are in the CD package
for Qigong Fundamentals 3, not the DVD–so you should get that.
The DVD teaches you the “Blissful Breathing Qigong”, which is
a very nice energizing qigong form with some internal breathing
–good in its own right–and would be worth learning also in your case,
but if you want the breathing techniques, they are on the CDs.

Also on the CDs is a breathing technique called counterforce
breathing, which can–in some cases–be even more energizing . . .
although I wouldn’t necessarily say that it is “better” than
the reverse breathing (aka “energizing breath”), it just
does different things for you. The CDs contain not only
the techniques but a lot of underlying theory to go
along with it.

>>Perhaps this will be somthing to do after I have completed
>>the 100 days I’m into now. I was traveling by buss one hour
>>in each direction today and are wery much satisfied with my
>>new exercises, they seems to fit well into eachother.

I don’t know. If you are really concerned with getting well,
I wouldn’t necessarily think it good to get too rigidly
locked into some pattern–i.e. feel you need to wait 100 days
before looking into some different things while doing some
other rigid program . . . but that’s just me and my opinion.
Feel free to ignore it.

I mean you could always get some of the CDs or whatever and
listen to them/play with them when you have some spare time
or whatever. The lifeforce works better when you are more
fluid and less forcing . . . (of course, I’m saying this
as much to myself as I am to you–I tend to structure
myself too much also). At any rate, being more fluid and
playful yields better results. When you try to force
cultivation in a rigid pattern, and say, “this is how
I’m going to do it”, the lifeforce can sometimes say,
“no, I don’t want to work with you; you’re not any fun”.

>>It’s almost impossible to find a good way to continue
>>just out of Mantak Chias books. They are good but not
>>easy to follow as a course for a group of people.

Yes. Pretty much I think he says in the prefaces that
the books are meant to be a reference for those already
in the know, and not so much as a learning tool.
For instance, opening the microcosmic orbit as outlined
in the book “Awaken Healing Energy through the Tao”,
while thorough–is unnecessarily complicated in my mind.
There are some good techniques that Michael teaches in
QF2 that are not only easier and faster, but actually
end up being more powerful anyway (in my opinion).

>>A question_
>>Is the water and fire channel the same as the
>>functional and governor or somthing else?

Yes. Specifically the governor vessel is the fire
channel up the back, and the functional vessel (or
conception vessel) is the water channel down the front.
These are just different names for the same thing.

>>Smiling qi from deep within, can you feel it?

Smile felt deep within my core . . .
Sending one back your way,
Steven

There’s nothing wrong with structure; it’s rigidity that
you want to watch for.

You want to be like a young sapling (tree).
Such a tree has structure and is rooted into the ground,
but it is also flexible and can easily bend and sway in the wind.
Too rigid, and the branches break, but you still need structure
to be a tree–no structure and you’d be a pile of jelly.

In other words, in the practical, there is nothing wrong
with having a practice routine, but you should allow yourself
to be flexible.

Not saying that this is what you want to do–but as a personal
example–when I went on my personal retreat, I created a daily
schedule of what I wanted to do every single hour I was there;
however, I didn’t follow it in lock step. Basically what I
did was to use the list as a reminder that I had things I wanted
to practice, then I would practice whatever I felt like at the
moment. After doing some practice, and wanting to practice again,
I would look at my list for suggestions of what I could do.

For instance, my list said “9:30pm Inner Smile Meditation”. However,
maybe on some day, I would feel like doing it at 2pm instead–and
so I’d do it instead of whatever I had scheduled for 2pm. In actuality, I really
only used the list as a list of suggestions, but in principle I
just kind of practiced whatever felt right. I would look at the
list and see what was listed next. If it felt right I would do it;
otherwise, I would look on the list to see if something else looked
better to do at the moment–or maybe I would decide to take my
break then rather than later and do some reading, or whatever.
By the end of the day, I usually ended up accomplishing some
decent fraction of what I listed for myself in the rigid schedule,
but never all of it, and never exactly in the order I had listed.

Again, I’m not saying this is what you should do.
You should do whatever feels right of course.
My only suggestion would be that if you feel like trying something,
go ahead and do it, rather than feeling you “can’t” because you
already have something on your schedule. It’s a much freer
and happier feeling. You still end up making progress, but
just not in the rigid way you had planned for yourself.

Just some food for thought; feel free to ignore everything
I’ve written here, if you have a system that you’re happy with.

Best, S