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A Slow, Wonderful Qigong and Tai Chi Thread

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Does anyone else have a qigong or tai chi experience to share?

Tai_Chi_chuan_10.jpg


I just started qigong and it is AWESOME!

Recently I began with some simple exercises that got me feeling better than I have in a long time.

qigong.jpg


During the past few months, I started stickfighting. It made my body "harder". I felt like I had a new stiffness. I've always been a mellow person, not prone to sudden movements, etc. Stickfighting made me a little different, and I found that the combat reflexes also sometimes led me to a bit of aggression in my head. It gives me adrenaline and circulation, but it doesn't give me the stillness of mind that yoga and dance do.

I love stickfighting, so I needed something to slow me down to my normal self. Qigong is perfect, you can do it anywhere-- in your chair, in your garden, in line for stuff (if you don't care what people say), etc. There are so many styles. It has the movements of martial arts but is slow, deliberate, adaptable... like dancing!

But it's more than that. You're actually taking and distributing energy through your body. I understand that this isn't for everyone, but it's an amazing feeling, when you're able to channel your "qi" ;) . We had to do it in grade school so I was pretty used to it, but all my friends thought it was bizarre.

Of course there are stereotypes of people doing it that look like this:

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But I'm pretty normal and it fits my life well. Think it's a keeper :)
 
Good for you B :D
I was very interested in tai chi maybe four years ago....but I realized it wasn't really for me. I'm more partial to doing the 5 Tibetan rites for a daily "wellness" routine that has really given me a lot of benefits.

This is a very interesting and informative post and I'm sure there are tai chi/qui gong enthusiasts on this board too.
 
looks cool. I also like Aikido, which seems similar in that it's deliberate and defensive.
 
Qi Gong (sp? chi kung?) is wonderful. I should really get back into it but find it hard to get started ... I think daily practice is key, and I find that hard to maintain. Restlessness and sloth get in the way... but when i do do it it does me a world of good.
 
Qi qong and Chi kung are the same thing, just different ways of rendering the chinese to english. Just like Pa Kua is the same as Ba gua, Xingyi and Hsing i...

I don't do that much qi gong now that i have moved away from my class, i just try to practice the form that i have learnt, short yang style. The picture you have posted appears to be the kicking section from the short yang set. I'd say that was tai chi as opposed to chi kung, but i'm not that confident about the distinction i'm making.

What chi kung exercises do you do?

Tai chi made me realise that i'm not really terribly co-ordinated, but that if i practised, i would improve. No magic was suddenly going to do it for me! I find it easier to do a tai chi set than to meditate for a similar amount of time and i hoped that it would substitute for zazen, but that hasn't really been the case, it does make a good preparation for sitting though.
 
Ernestrome, I'm not sure what kind it is, but it varies all the time, except for the beginning parts (gathering energy). There is no mention about style or anything.

Mehm, aikido looks interesting as well. vegan (BLer) has been doing it for quite some time now.

mariacallas (I don't know what to call you on BL! Haha), maybe I should start doing the 5 rites! All this rain has got me indoors all the time.
 
In my class, we called the gathering energy part chi kung and the rest was tai chi. First we learnt yang style short form to the right, then did it to the left, then some pa kua, some hsing i, a stick set, some tai chi pushing hands and we were about half way thru the long yang from when i left. They were just about to start learning a tai chi sword set, i was quite disappointed.

That has meant i know at least one set well, and i can go ahead and practice it on my own, and if if took up another class i would know to look for yang style tai chi if i wanted to continue from where i left off, as opposed to chen style or the others.

You could always ask what style you are doing. Do you learn any sets that you could take away with you, or do you just do different stuff each week?
 
The thing is, the guy teaching is Chinese and he doesn't really speak English. I knew the gathering energy because it's one of the few things I understand ("ga-te-ring en-a-gy"). Every time there is something different added to what are pretty much the standard ones (as I've deduced).

A lot of them are similar to shibashi which I did as a child.

I'm not really sure about the definitions (they are a little confusing). On the whole I've been able to practice them at home and add some of my own movements. I've done what people called tai-chi before. They all seem pretty much the same to me.

Perhaps it really tends to be like this. In the stickfighting I am doing, there are many "schools" and many tools (stick/sword/dagger/bare hands), but mostly the core movements are similar.
 
martial arts are a main influence on how i work out
internal martial arts and related belief system are a huge influence on the way i live
even tho my kung fu style is mostly made of procrastination..

i dont follow forms tho, i mix all i understand from readings with all i can feel and experience in the moment
for me its like music, you can learn the scale, you can learn some blues progression, you can learn some song
but its really about feeling them when you play them (and you can learn to play by ear)
so there is different school and techniques but they all act on the same principle behind them
yin-yang.png

stance, alignment and breathing are key
i play freestyle from there
 
Sorry to disrupt your qi flow. But it should be Qi Gong, Ba Gua, Gong Fu and Tai Ji. Foreigners really have a hard time with the 4 tones.

For exmp, Qi looks and sounds all the same to non-Chinese but for the Chinese Qi has 4 differnet tones and for each tone there could be many different characters. A better example would be Shui, Feng Shui simply translates into "Wind and Water". Shui can also mean "who" and "to sleep" when pronounced in a different tone.

Took my dad 19 years to really get somwere with his Chinese.

I apologize if I sound like a smartass, just wanted to point out some mistakes.
 
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Dxmmonster said:
Sorry to disrupt your qi flow. But it should be Qi Gong, Ba Gua, Gong Fu and Tai Ji. Foreigners really have a hard time with the 4 tones.

For exmp, Qi looks and sounds all the same to non-Chinese but for the Chinese Qi has 4 differnet tones and for each tone there could be many different characters. A better example would be Shui, Feng Shui simply translates into "Wind and Water". Shui can also mean "who" and "to sleep" when pronounced in a different tone.

Took my dad 19 years to really get somwere with his Chinese.

I apologize if I sound like a smartass, just wanted to point out some mistakes.

Pinyin (qi) is more modern than wade-giles (chi) but both are in common usage. I do like a bit of pedantry, so don't worry about being a smart ass. For this discussion i think either will do.
 
I just went to my first Tai Chi & Qi Gong classes today... it's a 6-week course. So far I like it a lot, although it all had me pretty confused, I think I'm a slow learner when it comes to co-ordination exercises. I want to practice at home this week before my next session, but can't remember many of the moves - the instructor gave us a sheet of paper with the moves drawn on it but I don't get much of it. This is why I like exercise videos :D Pause, rewind.

Pretty exciting though, I've been fascinated by the theories behind traditional chinese medicine for a while now!
 
I feel like once you understand the concept, it is all in your mind and movements become unnecessary.
 
^^^ How do you mean? That remembering the movements becomes unnecessary because they come automatically, or that you don't need movements at all? Isn't the point of Tai Chi that these movements enhance your circulation and control of qi? I am le confused.
 
^^I mean you don't need the movements to control chi. You can control it with your mind alone. This isn't to say that the movements are negative. It just means that once you feel the energy flow, you can detect imbalances and fix them with no movements.
 
I'm going to start doing this soon. I've just discovered there is a Buddhist temple in my city that offers Tai Chi classes every Sunday morning in exchange for a donation. :)
 
^^I mean you don't need the movements to control chi. You can control it with your mind alone. This isn't to say that the movements are negative. It just means that once you feel the energy flow, you can detect imbalances and fix them with no movements.

i would disagree with that
"mind alone" doesnt fit with the "whole as one" philosophy of the tao imo
the most important movement is in the breathing

and by the mind do you mean the yi ?
 
^I think that what you say is true for the physical level of consciousness. However, physical reality exists in the mind, so the mind is the ultimate master of physicality.

By mind I mean consciousness.

You are right that brain and body are one on a physical level. My contention is that both exist within a single consciousness. If you understand energy flow in this context, you can control it without moving a muscle.
 
But you'd have to be really skilled to be able to move energy flow as efficiently without movement as moving energy with movement, wouldn't you? Because I assume there are many skilled Tai Chi and Qi-Gong masters who still use these movements, and why would they if they could do it as efficiently without...?
 
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