Sacred Breath: How to Draw Qi from Heaven and Earth to Heal and Strengthen Your Spirit

[@MrTeabag58]

Thank you, Sifu, for this priceless information. I do some heaven and earth Qi Gong most days and will hopefully practise more mindfully after this.

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

Fantastic! Because more than quantity of practice it’s really the quality of practice. And when the quality is just right, and the mind is there to fully absorb it, you’ll get the most transformative experience! 😃🙌

[@kingofaikido]

Nice teaching Chester. Interestingly, there's been some Japanese masters of various arts talking about a similar thing recently, where the spiritual aspect of arts like aikido are returning from a long abandonment (most aikido schools today have seemingly converted to 'hard' and 'mechanical' training, forgetting aikido's spiritual origins. There are actually less than a handful of masters who can demonstrate the higher, softer, spiritual stuff who are still alive, sadly, but I gather that this is similar in China). There's a simple exercise we can try at home, assuming we have someone we can practice with. It starts with each person facing each other in a kneeling position. Then one person holds the other's outstretched arms at the wrists, like a handshake but holding the outsides of the wrist. It would be good to pair big with small people to watch the dramatic changes in outcome. What you wanna do is expand your mind to different sizes... And compare the different sizes of the mind extension in terms of your stability (and martial effectiveness in terms of unbalancing your partner). First, both sides compete to roll each other onto their sides. With people of similar size and weight, usually this ends up in a stalemate, neither side budging. The couple become one lump of tension..! As if magnetically attracted to eat other...they keep competing for the central space. Then, pause, breathe. One side is instructed to think of the walls of the room as their mind's boundary; the other is told to think of the boundary only of their skin. They then have to imagine moving that mind space, large or small. Then, we try to unbalance each other again. Again, the result is the same: The one who has the bigger image of space is relatively more balanced and suddenly stronger, regardless of size differences. That is to say, the most dramatic switch is obvious when a small and elderly lady can throw a big young man..! This exercise is then repeated with the same people but with roles reversed. After this, we pause and change the conditions again, expanding further out into space. So, for instance, while one side is instructed to expand their mind to the corners and panels of the room, the other side may be instructed to expand their mind beyond the walls out into the street or the village or town. Then we observe the effects. Further iterations may include 'town vs city,' 'city vs country,' 'planet Earth vs The Milky Way,' etc. Interestingly, when 'universal love' is used by both people, the result is, curiously, a stalemate..! It's a fun exercise but make sure people don't have problems with kneeling. It would be good to do some warmups first, like standing knee rolls and foot self-massages or some stretch involving the legs before kneeling, because tension in the legs has a way of making us get wound up or stuck with tension. ;)

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

That’s a really awesome exercise! I’m glad that these spiritual aspects are returning to Aikido practice. Because this is what makes a Martial Skill, a -jitsu, become a Martial Way, a -do, isn it not? Always nice to hear your commentary! Thanks for sharing! 😃🙌

[@AikiTom76]

We are still practicing Ki Experience in our tradituonal dojo, What sifu mention regarding Ten Chi Jin is a most common languange for us Asian though. 😅

[@alexdow8042]

Great Thanks, Sifu

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

You are very welcome! 😃🙏

[@evoo6]

👍👍👍

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

😃🙏

[@outerlast]

Hmm, some questions, if you don't mind: 1. if we can gather love, courage, and others from heaven, can't we gather the same thing from earth? or does earth give only specific thing, different from heaven? 2. can we gather from both direction at the same time or will that make some problems? is there some sort or caution or warning when we try to do that? 3. are we supposed to stand up when doing this, or can we sit or even lie down? the confusion is the position of the crown and the bottom of the foot when we're not standing up...

[@mattl6506]

1. Remember that earth gives us mainly yin qi and heaven mainly yang. Take rooting for instance: if you mix too much yang in, you will have trouble grounding, and it will feel unnatural and wrong if you try to take that in through your feet, even though technically, you can. 2. Yes, you can mix them up, but play with it, and you’ll find out that the yin and yang qi from below and above are each already a mix of both, with one more dominant. The body center (dantien area) seems to be the area where the heaven metaphor is intuitively preferable above the dantien and the earth metaphor below the dantien, and mixing the two is most harmonious in the dantien area. 3. As a beginner, it is easier to keep your thoughts and sensations in order when standing relaxed, and with your alignment in order (spine, breathing, tongue on palate, slightly bent knees, etc.) Once you got it down, you can include it with your moving art (ie Taichi, or in my case Baguazhang). After that you can do it laying down, or in whichever position you find yourself in. Before you know it, it becomes easy like riding a bicycle: very intimidating and seemingly difficult at first, but easy peasy once you figured it out. Hope that helps and encourages you to practice, practice, practice.

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

Great questions! 1. From Earth you can gather the Qi from the physical experiences that remind you of love, courage, freedom, and other blissful states of being. From Heaven you gather the infinite possibilities of these blissful states. What we are doing actually is already mixing both. To the extent that you start by remembering an experience of love or courage or freedom, you are activating that Qi within you (the Human level, but which came from the Earth as experienced by you), and allowing it to resonate with the matching Heaven Qi and attracting that. 2. You can. It’s just harder if you’re not used to it. Matt is right about letting things mix at the dantien. 3. Standing up allows the best alignment of Heaven and Earth floating through your straight and aligned posture. Sitting is pretty easy too. Lying down is harder to align with the poles. Does that make sense? Good questions! Thank you for asking. 😃🙏

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

@@mattl6506good tips and answers! Thanks for sharing! 😃🙌

[@outerlast]

@@mattl6506 oh that's a large amount of good info, thank you very much :)

[@outerlast]

@@phoenixmountaintaichi thank you for these answers. i had more questions for no.3 about postures, but they seem to have been answered there :p

[@randomimprovise1918]

Then in practice we can feel connect to energy through Laokong and yongchuan in the same time. Aren’t we ?

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

Yes you are right that they can be open and connecting to the energy beyond your body at the same time. 😃🙏

[@randomimprovise1918]

@@phoenixmountaintaichi please correct me if i misunderstood. So the critical point in practice is hands, feet, paihui, perinium. In practice is something like : Breath in and imagine and feel the energy from all points and imagine it run to dantian. Breath out do the opposite. Or just feel the connection and let connection do to body as we feel it make sense

[@randomimprovise1918]

Just try what you taught a n minute ago and still not fully understand how. And it still feel very interesting

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

@@randomimprovise1918Ohhhh you are right about those being the important points. The feet and perineum are particularly good for interacting with Earth Qi. The crown is particularly good for interacting with Heaven Qi. Gathering to Dantien is helpful to help the Shen and body to process and make use of the Qi in the most helpful way. 😃🙏

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

@@randomimprovise1918and yes you can also just enjoy the pleasant experience and trust your Shen to guide you to heal and grow. Because in your life a part of you has always guided you to heal from wounds and a part of you knows how to help you grow into a complete human being. Even when you don’t consciously know how it happens, a part of you is fully capable and willing to guide you. So that means you can fully experience this practice and the fact that you experience it means the right energy is gathering for you to be used in the right way, at the right time! Does that make sense? 😃🙏

[@brucelundgren9558]

If the qi moves through the 4 gates, or “when you pull down from heaven” or dan tian opens and closes on its own without any of these being directly tied the rhythm of the breath, is this aligned with or part of your approach? The way I have studied these things is that the breath is more the doorway into the practice that you leave behind over time.

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

Yes you have received really good teaching. Breath is a doorway to help us begin to become aware of, and journey through to more subtle realms of experience: bodily connection, energy, spirit, and beyond. It is something you leave behind over time, if you use it at all, because as you discover, experience and master yourself as beyond just the body, to master your energy and spirit, these elements do not breathe. Breathing can be a doorway to begin to appreciate all of this. We take a different doorway, from the experience along the Fascia, to the experience of energy in the meridians embedded around the Fascia, and beyond. These too are doorways that you leave behind over time. What I love about your comment is the realization that you leave your skills and practices behind over time. Because we have to let go, to reach higher to a higher rung on the ladder, and that is something that is not alway fully appreciated. Thank you for asking your question and sharing your perspective! 😃🙏

[@marykadmon]

❤

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

😃🙏

[@MrRourk]

I used to alternate Okinawan Sanchin from Karate with Wild Goose Qigong to Swimming Dragon Tai Chi.

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

That sounds like a nice set of qigong practices from explosive to flowing, both martial and healthy. Very nice! 😃🙌

[@zinnie6420]

Hi. I read an interview with a tai chi master where he said that certain postures encourage breathing through the spine to the ming men point, which would make the breathing become "reverse breathing." Do you know what he meant? I like your vids.👍

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

Hi! Great question! If you tuck your tailbone under, kind of like slouching, it will tend to help you breathe into the mingmen, where you feel like your back expands and fills out. Does that help? Thank you for your kind comment. 😃🙏

[@nathanielbrundige5982]

Nice video again! I once heard Heaven Qi called "frisson" and that's been a helpful connection to make for me. I'm curious though, if your system calls Heaven Qi "Bliss," what does it call Earth Qi? I've been drawing up the "bulging upward" feeling as Earth Qi. I'm not sure that's correct. But I do the foot suction cup thing you described. At its softness, the experience is like the feeling of a water balloon's roundness pushing up, or cells in a plant giving structure. Harder of course is more like a pebble in my shoe. I don't know if these are correct, but they give me different experiences when i use these tactile "visualizations". What do you think? How does that compare to PMTC system's concept of Earth Qi?

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

I had to look up what frisson meant and that sounds like yes another look at some aspect of the spiritually nourishing energy. Earth Qi we actually just call Qi ha ha. All the Qi I described are information, data. And when we talk about different energy gates they are like different type of ports that can connect to different energies. And when we talk about the Shen making use of Bliss, versus the body making use of the five elemental energies it’s like how different computers or different apps can read certain file or data types. Does that make sense? Your visualizations and experiences sound good in how they help you to plug in and access these different aspects of Qi. 😃🙏

[@nathanielbrundige5982]

@phoenixmountaintaichi that makes sense. I look forward to learning more about the different types of qi. Qi Mastery class, right?

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

@@nathanielbrundige5982yes we will be discussing Qi in their various forms in all the videos to come! In the Qi Fundamentals course you learn to control the bodily Qi inside your body. The Neijin Fundamentals course teaches you to work with universal or spiritual Qi that is everywhere including outside of your body. You will learn to harness the spiritual Bliss in specific courses about healing work and self cultivation later on. Thank you for your questions! 😃🙏

[@zoran.freemand9763]

❤💙💚🤍

[@phoenixmountaintaichi]

😃❤🙏