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Chronic fatigue and eating troubles? I’m not aure, but if you combine that with HT practices there’s a good chance you’ll end of with some sort of yin deficiency. I’d avoid the sexual practices at least until you’ve cleared those troubles up. Have you seen a TCM doc? (If not, make sure they’re qualified, and not just a new age type with needles and herbs)
YOu may do all exercises sitting or lying. It is intention that is important. And you could be high in the sky but still have feet in core of earth just by intention alone.
No problem.It is interesting to see the responses here, ….all leading to books/vidoes. I believe very strongly that although you can learn some via book/vidio it is not good enough. In your process it would be good for you to have a teacher, someone who can “feel” you. A good one, and those are hard to find but I am sure that anyone hear will point you to at least a reputable source. Maybe anyways.
Well enough qigong for the year.
I hope “Karen” that you feel better. Have a good positive disposition and a healthy life.
I am signing off of this forum. It has been very good in that I have learned quite a bit about people’s personalities and some qigong processes. I will leave the knowledge relays to those that are more schooled.
Take care and many rainbows in your heart.
My view is that the thought that “it is not good enough” comes from fear, and that doing the best one can is always good enough. Of course “the best one can” is never a static thing, so there is always growth.
Learning from a teacher may be preferable when it is practical. But I don’t think the universe denies us what we need if we don’t have direct access to a teacher. Maybe the teacher is there, and is pointing me to books and videos because that is what I need 🙂
Blessings on your path.
Karen
Ok, I have more time now to expand more in this topic.
I would strongly recommend for you to concentrate on your breathing work FIRST before any other practices recommended by others. I see this to be the root of all your health problems and a very simple and cheap way to fix them available. If you dont fix your breathing, all your chi kung work will be ineffective. I can see that’s what happening already and just adding new meditation/visualization techniques will not help you much, unless you take care of you breathing first.
Some may say that chi kung and meditation techniques will eventually make you breath correctly. It is true but will take you years to esquire the correct skills and fix your body. The direct approach like pranayama or other breathing practices is necessary if you want to focus on fixing your body fast.
Any pranayama practice that makes you hold your breath will help you with this. There are a lot of them on the web, but I will just explain a few that are very effective.
The first one is very simple. Sit down, relax and breathe normally for a few minutes. The exhale as you normally would but this time hold your breath on the exhalation point for as long as you can. Lets say you held it for 35 seconds. Now deduct 5 seconds from the amount and continue your breathing in the following way: inhale, exhale, hold your breath for 30 seconds, inhale, exhale, 30 seconds hold, so on… Do this as relaxed as possible and as time goes on, you can increase the holding time gradually. If you do this breathing 30 minutes a day, you will see a significant improvement to your health within a week.
Another practice is a little more complicated but it’s very effective and a recommended practice by Master Nan Huai-Chin.
9 bottle wind practiceLook on Google for ‘Frolov device’ and ‘endogenous breathing’. It’s another way to look at how to train the breath. Some extended their breathing to 1 breath/4 minutes using the Frolov device.
Endogenous breathingMax,
Very interesting. Too tired right now to look into this, but I will. Any practice that includes holding the breath at all seems too tiring for me, but maybe I’ve overlooked something.
And I wonder how this reconciles with the advice to just do natural breathing at this level.
thanks,
karenOk, just for some feedback.. my body said no to any breath holding. I could only do about 10 seconds before it got extremely uncomfortable, so I stopped there and went back to simple dantien meditation. Even holding breath for a few seconds in between breaths, as in alternate nostril breathing, feels somewhat of a strain.
I do feel the urge to do deep breathing sometimes, and that does work, especially in a position that opens the chest.
karen
I second Max’s recommendations for endogenous breathing. Here is another overview of this style of breathing’s purpose and benefits.
Regarding how this reconciles with natural breathing. IMO, the whole purpose of doing work or anything difficult is to remove artifically created obstacles in place that are preventing/constricting your Tao/natural flow. So having a natural breathing style that is appropriate and nourishes you is the ideal, but at this point there may be issues (ie: fear, unconscious beliefs, trauma, bad habit, etc.) that you need to unravel and resolve in order to uncover and establish breathing patterns that work for you. Hence the myriad of techniques, some more direct than others.
Besides the Frolov device that Max recommended, you may also want to check out Be Breathed. I think really integrating your breathing with your movement with a practice like this could do wonders. 🙂
Sean.
The Tao BumsKaren, I was not planning to give any MORE advice than already given by many. But I wish to add one angle which is coming from my experiences working with people. Work on your anger, a lot of women having chronical fatigue are dealing with hidden frustrations of being suppressed or having the feeling they couldn’t come forward with themselves on various levels of their life. If you release the tension in your liver/galbladder the breathing exercises offered by Max will become more easily to do. But first work on taking the suppressing anger from your liver, if you release, maybe gradually scream, your anger out, your lungs will have more space/energy… healing sounds and organmassage combined, is something to work with, cheap as well…
good luck – WendyThanks Sean.. I printed out your message that you linked to, and will read through it lying down :-). I also looked at the “Be Breathed” site, and it reminded me that I already have a program that I got from breathing.com but at the time it seemed like too much effort to learn it. Do you or anyone else have an opinion on the quality/usefulness of that program?
Meantime am reading about the Buteyko method.
Karen
Ok, have done one Buteyko session. First my “diagnostic” time was about 10 seconds. So I tried to do 12 seconds as my training time. That was very uncomfortable. Then I tried again, and then even 10 seconds was too uncomfortable. It seems that I’m tiring myself when I hit that sudden discomfort, so that I can’t keep a consistent training time.
If I knew a second in advance, I’d avoid that sudden spike in discomfort, but it seems to hit me fast.
Any suggestions? It does seem to me that working with the breath this way IS going to be helpful, just that I have to tweak the approach.
Really appreciate all this help.
Hehe, yeah, this has been a long thread, but I’m glad you jumped in, Wendy. good advice that bears repeating. have been dealing with the emotional issues head on, ongoing. also grief is a big issue, and i have been crying a lot lately. interesting how sometimes i can cry for a long time and feel congested and drained afterward, whereas other times when there is real release, the crying opens the lungs and i feel lighter.
maybe practicing the breathing methods especially at that time would give the process a boost.
it’s a tricky balance to strike, when i have such a strong will to heal, and want to be making the effort to do all these wonderful therapeutic things, but every tiny thing is such a strain. sometimes letting go of all effort is necessary, and just letting the breath breathe me. that brings tears.
that said, i go rest now.
karen
Karen, if you write me at somlorNOSPAM@gmail.com (remove the NOSPAM part) I can lend you my “Be Breathed” video if you are interested. Actually, there is another video that might even be better for you I can lend you that starts off even gentler and integrates the exact concepts in “Be Breathed” with a yoga set called “The Five Tibetans”. I can figure out who I lent that to and have them mail it directly to you. 🙂
Re: Buteyko breathing. That you are struggling at 12 seconds tells me that this is definitely going to help you as you move up to 30, 45, 60 seconds. If your absolute max is 10-12 seconds, then train that day with just 7 second holds (or even 5 if need be). Do that for 5 breaths than take a break. Just breathe normally for half a minute or so. Then do another set of 5 breaths, holding exhale for 7 seconds. Take a break, etc. Do maybe 5-10 sets of these a day and soon you will be up to 10, 15, 25 second holds no problem.
Here’s a copy and paste of a variation I wrote about a ways back on The Tao Bums that introduces movement to Buteyko breathing. It’s basicaly Buteyko + Be Breathed.
“Stand erect and on the exhale lean forward a bit, rolling your shoulders forward, curling up your pelvis and pulling up on your diaphragm. Count until the discomfort suddenly starts to rapidly increase. Subtract a second or two from that number and use that for the rest of your session that day.
On the inhale, rapidly stand up straight, rolling shoulders back, relaxing your pelvis into a subtle backward arch and let go of your diaphragm. The released tension from having your diaphgram pulled up will have it drop and, along with the movement, automatically suck in a passive inhale. In other words, you don’t need to actually inhale, the relaxation of your diaphragm and the upward movement of your body will suck in a breath for you. Without pause, immediatly contract back into the active exhale and hold.
I do 5-10 reps of these and around 10 sets.
In between reps do a very relaxed, looser version of the same thing but only hold the exhale for 1/4 or 1/3 of the time you’ve established for your main reps. I find this an important step to avoid switching to gasping/holding in between reps. Do these relaxed reps until your system has calmed down and it’s completely natural and easy. Then start a new aggressive set.”
🙂
Sean.
I’m proud of you. Even though 10 sec is very low, keep on practicing and soon enough you will lose the fear of holding your breath and your timing will probably double within a week. You will also stop crying as soon as the amount of CO2 in your body is high enough- it’s all related. Set up the time every day and stick with it. It will get easier… Everyone faces all kind of problems when they start.
When you get used to Buteyko method and reach 30 sec goal, try 9 bottle breathing. It is very short and simple yet everyone hates doing it. Literally, everyone. But it is well worth it.
> try 9 bottle breathing. It is very short and simple yet everyone hates doing it. Literally, everyone. But it is well worth it.
Good sell, Max. 🙂 I always did hate this 9 bottle breathing practice but when you put it this way I will give it another try. What should I look forward to, watch out for, etc.?
Thanks,
Sean.
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