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Remember, any of these movements or forms can be altered to suit your body’s needs. Qigong is not about pushing your body to take a particular shape, but coming into better tune with your body so it can show you the shapes it wants to take.
- Preparation: Do any joint mobilization or light warmup that helps you to get prepared
- Initiation : Stand with feet fairly close together, center yourself, then rise up on toes, turn backs of feet out at an angle from the toes, then take a short jump into the air and land, making any kind of sound that feels right to you as you hit the floor. As you do so, begin shaking the whole body.
- Shake the whole body, head to toe, as gently or vigorously as feels right to you for a short while just to get into the flow.
- Everything below should be done while shaking to some extent! It can be very light shaking, or almost no visible shaking, or can be very vigorous. Periodically shake into hands and feet, twist the spine, really feel into it the whole time.
- If you ever get overwhelmed, dizzy, hot or similar, slow down or stop and just feel the energy moving through your body, then start again.
- If anything ever hurts, just slow down or stop, and make sure to do smaller or gentler movements in that region in the future.
- Basic shaking
- Connect with Yang : Connect with the top of your head, then feel the energy above it, you can then follow the energy upwards. Can visualize up through roof, up above your local area, go as high as feels right, even to the center of the galaxy! Feel the yang energy and entice it back down to the top of your head.
- Connect with Yin : Connect with the soles of your feet, feel the energy below them, you can then follow the energy downwards. Can visualize down through floor, down below the foundation, deep into the Earth, all the way deep into the water table and beyond. Feel the yin energy and entice it up into your feet.
- Connect with the surface of your skin all over, top, bottom, back, front, really feel the surface, the little body hairs, the skin pores, your whole exterior.
- Connect with your muscle layer all over, top, bottom, back, front, feel all the little muscles of the hand, neck, feet, the big muscles of the back, legs, arms. Feel it as a whole layer under the skin.
- Connect with your bones all over, skull, bones of hands and feet, spine, ribs, pelvic bone, really feel into this dense inner layer of your body.
- Channel & organ tapping
- Again, this should all be done while shaking to some extent. In some parts, such as bending over to tap the kidney channel, the shaking will be minimal or none until that channel is done.
- Tapping can be done very lightly, or even done just as a sweep over the skin surface, or can be vigorous smacking of the channel pathway. You can also do light massage down the channel if that feels good. And you can mix all of these things within a single session.
- Take care to be gentle around the neck, the upper inner thigh, the groin, the kidneys, and over any injured, depleted, or surgically repaired areas.
- All primary channels are bilateral, which means there is one on the left and right sides of the body.
- First tap the channel on both sides at least once, and as many times as you like. Then tap the area over the organ for as long as feels good, generally 15-30 seconds.
- Here is the order of the organ systems / channels. The order matters. Focus especially on the ends of the channels, where one channel flows into another.
- You will also see a link next to each organ system – that goes to a PDF image of the channel from the most popular acupuncture textbook. Don’t worry about the words, which are more technical than you need, but that gives you a visual of what the channel generally looks like on the body.
- Lung [Download Channel Image]
- From upper chest where it connects to the shoulder
- Down the outer edge of the bicep to the elbow
- Down inside of the thumb side of the arm
- Then out the thumb
- Large Intestine [Download Channel Image]
- From thumb to the outside of the thumb side of the arm to the elbow
- Up to the front of the shoulder
- Up the side of the neck
- Then gently on the face to the OPPOSITE nostril of the side you’re working on
- Stomach [Download Channel Image]
- Starts on the face, on the cheekbones just below the pupils
- Down around the corners of the mouth
- To the edges of the front of the neck
- Then out along the line of the nipple, take care to be gentle with or avoid breast tissue
- Down along that line through the abdomen to the inguinal region
- Then down the outer edge of the thigh, through the knee
- Then to the big meaty part of the muscle by the shin, down to the front of the ankle
- And out the second toe (the big toe is the first toe)
- Spleen [Download Channel Image]
- Starts on the big toe and runs up the inside of the foot
- Comes up the inside of the ankle
- Up the meatiest part of the inside of the lower leg, through the knee
- Then up the inner thigh, through the inguinal region and comes up onto the abdomen outside of the area where the stomach channel was
- Then tap the sides of the ribs about halfway up vigorously to stimulate the last point on the channel
- Heart [Download Channel Image]
- Starts in the armpit
- Then travels down the inside of the pinky side of the arm, through upper arm, elbow and forearm
- Travels out the pinky
- Small Intestine [Download Channel Image]
- Starts on the pinky
- Then travels up the outside of the pinky side of the arm, often flowing on the very edge of the pinky side of the arm, up through the inner elbow (watch out for funny bone)
- Then comes up on the back of the shoulder, do your best!
- Especially runs on and above the scapula / shoulder blade
- Then up the side of the back of the neck and up around the ear ending at the front of the ear
- Bladder [Download Channel Image]
- Starts at the inner corner of the eye and stays about that distance apart as it travels up the forehead, the top of the head and down the back of the head
- Then goes down the prominent muscles on the back of the neck
- Then down to the prominent muscles all the way down the back
- Then around the sacrum and inner glute muscles, down the center of the back of the thigh
- Down to the center of the back of the knee, then it dives outward to the outer edge of the back of the lower leg
- Travels along the outside of the achilles tendon, around the outer side of the ankle and out the pinky toe
- Kidney [Download Channel Image]
- Starts on the bottom of the foot, right in the center, then ascends up to the inside of the ankle
- Travels along the inner edge of the achilles tendon, up the inner surface of the lower leg
- Then up the inner knee, almost towards the back of the knee
- Up inner thigh into groin region
- Then ascends abdomen and up to the chest fairly close to the midline
- Ends just under the collarbones
- Pericardium [Download Channel Image]
- Begins in the chest, near the nipple, lower down than the Lung channel
- Swings out to the inner surface of the bicep, then to the inner elbow
- Then travels along inner arm between the two big bones of the forearm, out the center of the wrist
- Then out the center of the palm
- And ends flowing out of the middle finger
- Triple Burner [Download Channel Image]
- Begins on the outside of the ring finger, flows to the outer wrist near the center
- Then flows between the two big bones of the forearm all the way up to the elbow
- Travels up the back of the arm (tricep) to the back part of the side of the shoulder
- Then travels along the upper part of the back of the shoulder (similar to Small Intestine)
- Up the side of the neck, curls around the ear and flows out to the face, near the outer edge of the eye socket
- Gallbladder [Download Channel Image]
- Starts at the outer edge of the eye socket
- Then zigzags all over the head – top, sides, even the forehead
- Flows generally towards the back of the head to the big depression at the base of the skull on either side of the major muscles on the back of the neck
- Then flows along the top of the shoulder where we hold lots of tension
- then dives down the side of the body, along the ribcage, does a little zig zag to the outer edge of the abdomen before going through the sides of the hips
- Then flows from the side of the hips to the middle of the glute muscles
- Travels from there down the side of the legs, tap hard here (IT band / TFL muscle) through the side of the knee
- Down the sides of the lower legs down to the big ankle bone that sticks out most laterally, then travels out the side of the top of the foot and ends on the fourth toe
- Liver [Download Channel Image]
- Starts on the big toe and travels between the big toe and the second toe to the inner ankle
- Then flows up along the inner edge of the big bone of the shin to the inner knee
- Then up the inner thigh to the groin area – the Liver channel actually encircles the genitals as well, but let’s not tap there
- Then up into the abdomen and swings out to the edge of the abdomen flowing up to the lower chest
- The channel ends just below the pec muscle / breast
- It’s important to tap/brush/massage from this point (end of Liver channel) up to where we started in the upper chest (beginning of the Lung channel)
- Lung [Download Channel Image]
- You may end in multiple ways for now – we will add more info as we go
- Just bring feet together and put hands over lower abdomen / dantian, meditating on the area for a while
- Do universe stance for as long as you have, experimenting with depth of stance and arm position