1. You might feel energy but keep it to yourself. I mean, who doesn’t? When I teach it is rare-if ever-that I have students who, within a short period of time, don’t feel something. This is like being impressed that your baby crawls. What was its choice?

2. Don’t mix everything up until you are an expert. I know people like to order sushi now before their goulash but that doesn’t make it fine cuisine, just low standards. Qigong is Qigong, Yoga is Yoga, prayer is prayer. The idea that it takes a great mind to see the similarities is dead wrong. It takes a good mind just to keep things straight.

Face the facts: in most cases in the Western world, for example, despite what people think, they are acting out of a Christian-based system where such energies must be “good” or “bad”, devil or angel. This often sends  beginners into feelings of grandiose accomplishment as they go around curing friends and families while pontificating about “mind and body being one.” But, if you actually believed this stuff was normal you wouldn’t have to go around telling everyone about it. Calm down, clam up and find a real teacher who can guide you. Humble in Qigong isn’t just good manners, it’s a plan.

“If they say, “You know, I think there’s a certain energy between us…’ slap them,. they’re trying to get your underwear off.”

“My personal favorite is, ‘I don’t believe in God, per se…but I do believe in a certain energy’…”

“There was a shop near the coffee store where I used to hang out. It was one of those shops for the gullible, a lot of shiny stones, a lot of incense, and pendulums and tarot cards and things for the fucking daft…”

If you are of the persuasion, as I am, that there is something out there as yet unconsummated in our range of knowledge, it can be a little disheartening to be seen this way. Some people just ignore it all  and good for them, except that these people are often best at ignoring just about everything except their own fantasies.

You see, it’s like religion or politics. There, one of the first and most important moves is to decide who you ARE NOT WITH. Yes, the Crusaders were Christians, but I’m not one of them. Yes, some Republicans want to make America into a concentration camp but I’m not one of them. Yes, I believe in the possibility of alien life but I never took a blurry photo of Big Foot.

It is essential (not an essential oil, that is) that our more soft-headed compatriots do not write the agenda in our exploration of what will be, not may be, an important step in human progress. There are plenty of reasonable but intuitive explanations in life. We don’t have to associate with the worst of our avatars. Let’s face it, some people who share your beliefs are soft in the cabeza.

And, just to set the record straight, if you want truly uncritical acceptance of just about anything, there is no better place on earth than the UK. This is elf-land, where people photograph fairies, and plant crystals with their roses. This is the home of eccentricity.

I believe that, in many cases, what they mean is that they are spiritual and NOT religious. The difference between these two states lies here: being spiritual is a reflection of one’s individuality and participating in religion is an exercise in one’s community.

Of course, in a perfect world, these two aspects work hand in hand, like the relation of a man to his beloved home town. But in modern times, people often feel alienated from religion and that sets them off on an individual spiritual journey. At least, so they think. Searching for their own spirituality, they often read books, talk to people, study from teachers. Though there is no superficiality in their quest, all this still boils down to a form of shopping; they can cite Jung, read about the Dalai Lama, and quote the Christian Mystics. But, in a way, they are still parroting as though they had never left their religion.

So what has Qigong got to do with this? Qigong is one of the oldest methods in the world of experiencing undifferentiated human energy at its most basic level. It is existence preceding essence. It is pure. How many prophets experiencing the changes in their own energy assumed they saw an angel? Or a God? Or a demon? When you feel energetic movement in qigong, you are advised to visualize nothiing, to make no assumptions or conclusions, but rather to keep everything squarely focused on refining your perception of pure human energy. Even more than mediation, which most people engage in already with expectations, Qigong offers an un-presupposed experience of pure life energy. You may not see purple avatars. You may not feel like a chosen personage. But this proto-science gives raw data unsoiled by projections or interpretations.

Everyone must find his or her spiritual path in life. The nice thing about Qigong is that it supplies us with a flashlight.

生气 Sheng Qi: growing qi, anger.
天气 Tian Qi: Heaven’s qi, the weather.
客气 Ke Qi: Guest qi, politeness
气象 Qi Xiang: Qi Shape, meteorology
气体 Qi Ti: Qi Body, gas
电气 Dian Qi: Lightning qi, electricity
气球 Qi Qiu: Qi ball, balloon

As you can see qi has many meanings. The argument over whether of not qi “exists” when it comes to specific claims is like arguing wether certain colors exist and, it they do not, assuming that no color exists. Qi is a much bigger idea than most people suspect and as we will be discussing in upcoming posts…

Everywhere, there is movement: there are more people exercising in this expanse of trees and grass and temples than live in my town back in the US. All ages–from 9 to 99–are represented: Playing Tai Chi, learning Sword Arts, swinging their arms, rubbing their kidneys, rotating their waists, and hanging from low-hanging tree branches (to stretch their spines). And the sounds! From every direction I can hear waltzes for those students learning Ballroom dancing, intermixed with the songs of thousands of caged birds, brought to the park by old men who allow their parakeets to air while they visit their friends.

Amid all this, I see something that makes me rub my sleepy eyes to make sure that I am seeing correctly: groups of women walking backwards up the lane. Just that: walking backwards, calmly and confidently.

This ancient exercise (yes! It is an exercise!) is one of the treasures of Chinese health practice, addressing issues of balance, leg strength, back strength, and posture.  It may seem simple, but the reasons why it is a good practice are profound. Here are just a few:

1. As we age, our fear of falling makes us react wrongly.  When babies fall backwards, they roll, but this tendency disappears as we get older. Many falls end up going backward because we arch our backs. Walking backwards rounds that part of our back that we arch, and encourages ‘forward’ muscle use.

2. Everything that is wrong about your posture came from walking forward! Slumping, hunching, rounding, arching…all those bad habits. Walking backwards reverses these habits.

3. From an energetics standpoint, walking backwards actually reframes consciousness in our bodies. The simple explanation is that our attention tends to favor the front of our bodies to the exclusion of what is behind us. Chinese health and martial exercises both encourage ‘whole body’ awareness for ‘whole body’ health. Walking backwards creates a ‘sensor’ to integrate this area.

4. Walking backwards actually engages completely different sets of muscles. This is important especially as we age, since we lose flexibility and our range of motion often diminishes. By using different muscles we exercise parts of our body that need attention.

Interested? Let’s try it!

First, pick an area where the ground is fairly flat and you have about 100 safe yards (in other words, not on the edge of a cliff!)

Next, start walking backwards!

(OK, that seems a bit too simple; let me give you some things to concentrate on):

1. The ball of your foot touches the ground first
2. Don’t lean forward when you walk backward, but…
3. …If you feel tension in your neck, you are leaning back too far.
4. Try to relax the small of your back, let it be flexible
5. Stand as erect as you can, and take short steps
6. Leave your arms loose at your sides but…
7. …if you feel the need for counter-balance, hold out your arms loosely in front of your body (think Frankenstein Monster)

It subsided but you were left with two distinct and somewhat conflicting feelings: one, that you might be crossing over into some kind of physical danger zone and the other, that you are possibly an unknown Magus Incarnate.

Safe to say neither is true. As the fascia relaxes the body shakes. In Qigong terms you are opening up sections of your body and mind which have not been active for quite a while. All this is normal in Qigong.

This opening, sometimes pleasant sometimes unsettling, occurs at least once in every Qigong journey. The obstacles of a lifetime don’t shake loose easily. Sometimes you can almost hear the ice cracking. But, just as in the moment after surviving an earthquake, when the trembling subsides, there is a feeling of elation that is real. You’re still there. Shaken, but also stirred.

photo by Debbie Shayne

Qigong Meditation: Small Circulation