-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
exercise
qigong: basic stance
physical medicine
definition
qigong: basic stance
To do Waidan Qigong, first you have to learn how to stand; second, how to breathe. Stand with your feet parallel and shoulder-width apart, with the curves out of the back. You can practice by standing flat against a wall to take the secondary curves out of the back. Remember the back has two secondary and two primary curves. The back must become straight. Put your hand behind your back, bend your knees, and tilt your pelvis so the curves go away. Find that position and walk out from the wall. The knees should be bent enough and the pelvis turned in enough to take all the curves out of the spine, making a straight spinal column which is not held rigidly but is just allowed to be straight.
Qigong position involves turning the pelvis under, bending the knees, keeping the legs parallel, and focusing into the ground, drawing strength from the ground through the Kidney 1 point (Yong Guan). Up at the top end of the spine the shoulder girdle is held loosely. The old adage is that you should imagine an egg under each armpit. If your arms are too loose, the eggs drop and create a mess. If your arms are too tight, the eggs squish and that is also a mess. The head is held from the Governing Vessel 20 point (Bai Hui) at the top of the head, as if you are a marionette. Governing Vessel 20 (Bai Hui) is the most Yang point in the body, and Kidney 1 (Yong Guan), Bubbling Spring, on the soles of the feet, is the most Yin point in the body, sort of screwed into the ground or rooted. The spine, in the middle, is held relaxed but straight.
Then, you take the tip of your tongue and turn it upward all the way to the soft palate. This is because the Governing Vessel (Du Mo) empties or ends at the soft palate, and the Conception Vessel (Ren Mo) has an end-point underneath the tongue. The Governing Vessel is the archetypal Sea of Yang in the body and the Conception Vessel is the archetypal Sea of Yin.
In unevolved persons, the Conception Vessel rises. In acupuncture, the Conception Vessel points start from number 1 (Hui Yin) which is near the perineum and goes up to empty into the mouth. The same applies to the Governing Vessel, which also rises. By taking the tongue and turning it so the tip touches the soft palate, you make a connection between the two channels. By using the anal sphincter as a connection on the other end of the alimentary canal, you can make a circle.
The circle can go either direction; usually the energy goes up the back and down the front because the Yang channel has more of a feel for rising than the Yin one. You allow the energy to rise up the Yang channel, cross the top of the head, go down and empty into the tip of the tongue in the cavity of the mouth, and go down the front. This is called in Chinese "Xiao Jou Tien" which translates as Little Circulation Heaven. It is also called the "Microcosmic Orbit". The translation implies that you are a little heaven inside the great heaven. In your practice, as you use the magnetic force of yin and yang, you become a little version of the heavenly circulation that is happening all around us cosmically.
The basic standing position allows both the arms and the legs to act like pumps in various exercises. That is why it is important to have a good standing position as opposed to a sitting position when you are doing Qigong because when you sit you cannot use the legs and it is harder to keep your back straight. In Waidan Qigong, the energy gradually begins to work through this completed circle. It will naturally flow into the Governing Vessel (Du Mo) and Conception Vessel (Ren Mo). When you get to Neidan Qigong you make this loop conscious. You can, at will, send energy up the back to the top and down the front. Just a slight twitch of the anal sphincter sends it up where it bangs into the upper Dan Tien between the eyebrows; just a slight tension in the stomach pulls it down to the lower Dan Tien.
Then you get to the point where you dont even have to use a little twitch it goes around on its own. It is said that as the master walks down the street, when his left foot goes forward, Qi goes up; as his right foot goes forward, Qi goes down. On one step the energy rises; on the other the energy comes down. This focus of energy in the body is called "Chin Tan" or "Golden Ball". In the Ming Dynasty novel, Journey to the West, that is what the monkey symbolically drank from Lao Tzus cauldron to make himself immortal many times over. (Allee)
see also:
qigong: introduction
qigong: essentials of breathing
qigong: overview and uses
footnotes