As I was in my younger years of Qigong I had realized through feeling there were many depths to my body. I realized over hundreds and thousands of repetitions that I could isolate and harmonize different depths and different parts of my body. Playing with different speeds as my master suggested helped me feel different aspects as well. There are keys of Qigong to mastering the self, I call these the 7 Qigong Treasures to self mastery.
As I got into Medical Qigong, I discovered how to become keenly aware of the feeling of meridians, organs and even my bones. I could not only sense it, but also coil and uncoil, relax and contract, pumping lots of Qi and bring deep circulation throughout my body. I discovered how to squeeze out the toxins out of my organs like a sponge on a daily basis. I discovered how to feel through the different depths of my body all the way into my bones. It wasn’t until I began to want to learn how to teach Qigong that I discovered what I was actually feeling and doing on an anatomical and fascia level. In my desire to express to people what was happening in our Qigong I began what is now a lifelong research into the modern research of the human body. These have truly been Qigong treasures to me.
As many of you may know by now, not all Qigong is the same. With over 3,000 kinds of Qigong documented today, it is hard to find the right kind of Qigong for you. I was fortunate enough to learn a variety of different kinds of Qigong from different masters. I kept gravitating towards deep dynamic Qigong that also had a good balance of static and Qigong meditation exercises. After trying roughly 40-50 different styles of Qigong, I found actually only about 4 or 5 styles that really I really wanted to continually practice and go deeper with because they had depth. These styles, which is now the integral part of White Tiger Qigong’s curriculum seem to have an infinite depth. You could work on these for years and not touch the bottom. Here are some layers that are added listed below.
Here are the 7 Qigong Treasures to Self Mastery:
1. Meridians
- How to coil and uncoil
- How to feel the meridians
- How to pump Qi through the meridians through pulsing
Once you can do this, then we try to feel the connection of the organs. Most beginners who attend my Qigong retreats or trainings never had felt their organs before. One of the huge benefits of Qigong is being able to sense your organs.
2. Organs
- Squeeze out toxins and emotions out of your organs like a sponge
- Sense your organs
- Send healing and loving energy to your organs
- Utilize specific colors for your organs
3. Bones
- Sensing your bones
- Squeezing Qi/energy into the bones
- strengthening the bones
Once we can begin to sense and reshape our body’s makeup then Inner Alchemy becomes quite an in depth practice. Inner Alchemy practices are more still practices that rely on specific breathing techniques combined with visualizations to move Qi/energy through even deeper, more subtle parts of the body. We also learn to pulse energy from the 3rd eye.
4. Spine Pulsing
The spine contains a huge amount of nerves along the side of it. It also has fascia that connects it all the way to the brain. The major organs all have a connection to the spine. For example, the fascia of the lungs connects directly to the spine. We need spinal movements to open the lungs more deeply. We use the Wave Qigong from our Bagua Organ Qigong form (a specific spinal undulation) in order move, squeeze and expand the bags of fascia encapsulating the organs
5. 3rd Eye Pulsing
- Essentially we are finding where our spirit resides. From an anatomical perspective this is about where the pituitary and pineal gland are.
- We learn to condense and contract this area.
Now I could always feel that I could actually contract and condense this area. From a fascia perspective, the brain has a bag of fascia that encapsulates it. We can actually contract that area and relax it bringing circulation to the brain. We use breathing in conjunction with contractions and relaxation in order to send deeper circulation and also recalibrate the nervous system.
As we focus more deeply and concentrate, we develop the spirit. Please note this is different than religious Qigong.
6. Dan Tian Pulsing
We discover how to pulse energy from the deep core of the lower abdomen. This is where our center of gravity lies, digestion and elimination also occurs. It is a powerful area of energy. Dan Tian is literally translated from Chinese as Elixer Field.
7. Connecting to Heaven and Earth
The Chinese character for person is 人 “ren”. As you can see it is like a mountain or a tree. Rooting into the earth and growing up to a single point to the sky. Humans connect between heaven and earth. This is taught first in simple Standing Qigong practices such as Zhan Zhuang, but later goes into more complex stances and practices. To feel rooted into the earth and connected to heaven is a feeling that I crave daily.
The 7 Qigong Treasures to Self Mastery are topics we will be covering in depth in our upcoming Qigong Teacher Training. For this training we will focus particularly on the organs although we will also go into meridians, bones as well as the 3rd Eye Qigong Meditation: Primordial Breath.
