What should I expect

Discussion in 'Internal Martial Arts' started by Jointlock, Sep 21, 2005.

  1. Jointlock

    Jointlock Valued Member

    I signed up for a Qi Gong class at the local community college. It's an 8 week course 1 night a week for 1 and 1/2 hours. I've been involved with martial arts for about 15 years. Hapkido does has many internal aspects, so I was hoping to learn more, get a better understanding and compliment what I already know with this course.

    So, my question is, what should I expect from someone that knows what they are doing in Qi Gong? I believe it said that we were going to learn 16 movements/techniques, so 2 a night.

    I'm sure with my experience I'll be able to figure out if the teacher is talking out of his/her butt. Just wondered if anyone else had any advise for me. I'll try to post on here how the first class goes in a couple of weeks.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2005
  2. onyomi

    onyomi 差不多先生

    You should expect someone who knows what they do know and knows what they don't know. Any teacher you encounter in the modern world will be an intermediate practitioner of qigong at best. If they claim to be a "grandmaster" or something then run. If they claim you can learn to heal others develop psychic powers with your qigong, then run. If they have an understanding of qi and what it is but with a healthy respect for what is unknown, then that's good. If people are dancing around like animals in a trance then run FAST.

    Expect breathing exercises, lots of breathing, but don't expect it to all be relaxing... it should be pretty strenuous at first. Do you know if it's Buddhist or Daoist qigong? The Buddhist system I do, for example is called Damo Yijin-jing. Does your teacher also do a martial art, or is it more a health-oriented qigong? Some system of qigong are not strictly the buddhist or daoist system but are related to a specific martial arts style, i.e. Taiji qigong, Baji qigong, Xingyi's santi-shi, etc. Ask the teacher the specific name and origin of the qigong he is going to teach and what the goals are. If he can elaborate on these and the goals seem reasonable then it's probably a good class.
     
  3. zac_duncan

    zac_duncan New Member

    Agreed with onyomi. It almost certainly should be fairly strenuous, especially if there's a lot of standing practice. Standing HURTS.

    Oh, and I'm a hapkido practitioner too, and because I practice xingyi I do a lot of santi. It can be quite uncomformtable and I shake like a leaf after a few minutes. Apparently, at this point that's very normal.
     
  4. Jointlock

    Jointlock Valued Member

    Thanks, don't worry I'm sure I'd be out the door after hearing psychic.

    The teacher also runs a Taiji Chuan class, so I'm assuming it's taiji qigong. I'm not even sure if the teacher has a school outside of the college. It was only $30 for the 8 sessions, so I figured I'd just go and see if I liked it. Maybe I should have spoken with the instructor first, but I didn't think about it at the time. If it sucks I'll just invite all of the students to my Hapkido class.
     
  5. onyomi

    onyomi 差不多先生

    well, for only $30 for eight classes, you don't have much to lose. Report back how it is and I'd be interested to hear. :)
     
  6. stillness

    stillness New Member

    huh?

    I have to respectfully disagree with a lot of what has been said.

    Meditation should not be an uncomfortable, strenuous activity. It should be relaxing and enjoyable.

    If you are struggling, it is much harder to go into quiet. The deeper you go into quiet, the more you will get out of your meditation.

    If it is tiring, hard work, your muscles are obviously tense. Tension inhibits qi flow. Training in a way that keeps you tense also teaches you many bad habits, but this isn't the thread to go into detail about that.

    Standing should not hurt. If you are uncomfortable (tense), move around a little bit - do some moving qigong exercises to get rid of the tension, and go back into standing. Remember, "nurture, nurture, nurture".

    Also, while I would be very scared of people going around claiming to be "grandmasters" of qigong, there are well qualified people out there who are far better than "intermediate". Granted, a lot of people out there are intermediate (at best), but that doesn't mean everyone is.

    That being said, people did say some very helpful things. Anyone claiming magical healing powers doesn't know what they are doing (though qigong can help your health). Dancing around like animals in a trance, as someone said, is another indicator of a class that will not be helpful. Same with their comment on the "psychic powers". Not going to happen.

    Internal work is not "mysterious" or "magical". It can help you with things that are subtle, but that's very different.

    Expect to do standing, sitting, and (possibly) laying down meditation. You should be trying to go into quiet. You should be working on relaxation, and cultivation of internal energy. You should not be in pain, stiff, or physically exhausted.

    A note should be made here that sometimes people feel some small pains in areas of old injuries slowly reappear and then disappear. Some people are also a little sore or uncomfortable when they are first learning how to meditate due to their body readjusting to a more proper way to stand / orient itself. The point is that you should not be sore from working your muscles hard, or putting yourself in a painful position to be in (or hold).

    Good luck with it, tell us how it goes.
     
  7. piratebrido

    piratebrido internet tough guy

    I wouldn't confuse Qi Gong with meditation, from my understanding they aren't interchangable.

    I disagree. I don't know about you, but when I walk after a while I get tired, and if I was tensed whilst I was walking I would be walking a hell of a funny...
     
  8. zac_duncan

    zac_duncan New Member

    We're not necessarily talking about meditation, I at least am talking about standing postures and yes, they can be quite uncomfortable. Also yes, that probably means you need to relax more. However, it also likely means that you need to build up some strength.


    Disclaimer, maybe standing in santi isn't really qigung, but the intent of it, as far as I know, is as much to help develop physical power as it is to help you develop mental calmness.
     
  9. stillness

    stillness New Member

    I agree, they aren't exactly interchangable. However, I stand by my statement that meditation should not be an uncomfortable, strenuous activity. He will probably be doing some meditation in a qigong class, so I thought I'd put that in there.

    Walking doesn't really tire me out (unless done for a LONG time, or up a mountain), but that's besides the point. I wasn't implying that standing or moving qigong should be like taking a hot bath. I'm just saying if it is "tiring, hard work" then you are tensing up your muslces.

    I agree with what (I think) you were getting at, that a non-strenuous activity can be tiring after a long time. If your arms, legs, etc, are getting tired and having to work hard, though, you should change positions because you are not getting as much out of that one as you could anymore. Lower the arms, or take a break to shake out a little bit, maybe some small massaging exercises, and then go back into your qigong work. This keeps you from over exerting muscle groups and so tensing them (which I'm hoping you agree is bad), and it also insures that you will get more muscle groups worked. Many people have problems where they are strong in the direction they work out in, and weak in other directions, and we want to avoid that.

    Hmmmm, maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I normally do santi as a meditation posture, you don't? Just trying to understand. I do consider santi to be qigong, at least the way I do it, so hopefully we're on the same page.

    I'd point out that while santi (and other things) are suppose to help build up strength, it's not in the same way as weight lifting (using your arms as the "weights"). Instead, it about learning to use the right muscles, and even more importantly to not use the wrong ones. This will help increase strength, but shouldn't be done with a "working out" mentality (see above replies to Brido). The idea is to relax and use intention, this will help you start to not use the wrong muscles. Over time, you will be able to feel which muscle groups you are using (I'm blanking on the scientific term for this, if anyone knows it please post it as this will bug me for awhile), though, of course, we don't stand (sit, move, etc) there thinking about those muscle groups, as that is also a distraction from quiet.

    Of course, this is all with the BIG assumption that we are practicing santi the same, which may be very wrong. I have never taken a straight xinyiquan class before, only hunyuan taiji (which incorporates xinyiquan and chen style taijiquan), so we could be talking about completely opposite things with the same name.

    I like to think of the principle of moderation. I don't stop the second I feel like my arms are "working out" (bad term for it here), but I don't keep going to the point of feeling tired.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2005
  10. Jointlock

    Jointlock Valued Member

    Went to my first qigong session last night. Only myself and one other person showed up besides the teacher. I think the rule is there are supposed to be at least 5 people signed up for a class, so maybe some people paid and did not show up. Oh well no matter.

    The guy teaching seems like a very nice and friendly guy. I also understand that it is an introductory course to QiGong. I'm assuming most people taking the class are in it to learn relaxation techniques and not delve into it for internal martial arts purposes.

    That being said, in my opinion the teacher did not posses much confidence in his teaching. His class was very disorganised and not well thought out in my opinion. He gave us some hand outs and had us read them and the woman that came asked some basic questions. His answers to the questions were pretty close to what I've been taught, so there was a little validation both ways.

    After a little discussion about breathing abdominal/diaphragm breathing he demonstrated some Tai Chi. I could see some skill there as if he had practiced it many times so that was a good thing.

    We did some stretching on our own, then went into some standing meditation. Holding both hands in front of the Dan-Jun and move the hands close together and apart with each deep breath. I've done a similar exercise without moving the hands to feel the ki between them.

    Next we went into the techniques. We did each at least 8 times. One was bringing our hands from the side like a jumping jack slowly breathing in while bringing our hands up then exhaling and bringing the hands near the Dan-Jun. The other was bringing both arms up in front with fingers pointed down then move the arms down with the fingers up. Kind of like Karate Kid paint the fence but not so high.

    The only credentials that he gave were that he had taken an 8 week class back in '78 and that he had learned from some video tapes. I don't know what I really expected for $30 for 12 hours of training. As I said it is an introduction to QiGong. So, I'll definitely go back next week, I guess I was just hoping for someone that had a little better grasp of the information.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2005
  11. Utotin

    Utotin Valued Member

    My old Hapkido GM used to teach dan jon breathing techniques that sound very similar to what you described- with the arm movements. I think they are things he learned from GM Ji.
     
  12. averan

    averan New Member

    there are all kinds of flavors of qi gong. depends on what you want and need. if you live a stressful life in an office 9-5, then maybe you only want some very yin relaxing qi gong. if you want to build good health or martial power, then you're probably going to have to work for it, doing more yang qi gong.

    most people do not have sufficient tone in the secondary muscle groups to do internal arts correctly. that's why, in the beginning, standing meditation is excellent and also quite strenuous. martial arts and good health is not for wimps. being 100%yin is not healthy. i personally had to realize this as my former training was all "relax, relax, relax more!" phewy!

    everything must be in balance. if you relax the wrong muscles, you get nowhere. you must relax the primary movers, which you had previously used for structural alignment, and you must tense the secondary muscles that are supposed to be used for structure.

    a good teacher will show you this. a good internal artist is not 100%yin or 100%yang, but has a dynamic balance between relaxed and tense. your bones don't just hold themselves up magically!----it takes muscles, tensed muscles properly balanced with relaxed muscles.

    the basic training of health/energy/power building qi gong is standing meditation.

    standing meditation is an active meditation as is sitting, in the sense that stillness outside allows movement inside.
     
  13. Jointlock

    Jointlock Valued Member

    I practice and teach Dan Jun breathing in Hapkido. A lot of the arm movements are similar for the Ki cultivation, but the way we do Dan-jun breathing is more anaerobic rather than aerobic. With each of the 4 standing dan-jun breathing exercises that I know you take a deep breath into your chest, then tighten all of the muscles in your body, then you push your arms down, up, out, or to the sides, and move the air from your chest to your stomach or diaphragm, then exhale and relax. However, many of the sitting exercises that we do have little to know tension.

    The QiGong was more of a continuous breathing without any tension. So, to me the QiGong practice is a lot different than Hapkido Dan Jun Ho Hup Bup.
     
  14. Jointlock

    Jointlock Valued Member

    Thanks for the reply and you brought up a most interesting point that I was thinking about last night through the course of the class. There was one part where he talked a little bit about the Tao (yin/yang, um/yang). And I wanted to ask the same questions. If internal martial artists stress that opposites are so important then why do internal martial arts seem to be so one sided?
     
  15. piratebrido

    piratebrido internet tough guy

    The money is in teaching it as a health thing, telling folk they will never get sick again and that they will keep going well into old age.

    With a old peoples health dance as a tag, not many people turn up looking to learn a martial art.
     
  16. zac_duncan

    zac_duncan New Member

    Some people forget the opposites and focus exclusively on one aspect, typically the yin aspect. Other people aren't martial artists at all and they're turned the fighting arts into health exercises.

    ALL arts have some balance between opposites, it's often hard to see, and many people forget them, but they're there.

    Lots of people say that xingyi is pure yang, because of it's aggressiveness, but that's just silly, if you look at the motions, the opposites are always present.


    It's also important to remember that qigong is NOT a martial art, though some martial arts have qigong components.
     
  17. onyomi

    onyomi 差不多先生

    Taiji isn't one-sided, it's completely bipolar, as the name (Taiji-quan=boxing of the great extremes) would suggest. Most of the time you stay as relaxed and soft as possible, but when releasing power it is 100% explosive.

    Even the stances in Taiji reflect this. To do the most basic step you begin in a bow stance and sit the weight backward so 100% is on the back leg as your rotate the front foot outward. Before you move the back leg, however, you must first transfer 100% of your weight to the front leg... So just to step from left bow stance to right bow stance you have to transfer all your weight to each leg once.

    For this reason my teacher is fond of saying "Taiji has only 0% and 100%"--and you have to go straight from one to the other without intermediate steps! So I would say Taiji is decidedly TWO-sided.
     
  18. Utotin

    Utotin Valued Member

    I am sure you are right. I have never seen QiGong, I was just going off of your description. does it seem like something that might end up influencing your HKD at all? Does any of it even look like it could apply to HKD? I guess its too soon to tell, huh? Interesting stuff.
     
  19. zac_duncan

    zac_duncan New Member

    Some qigong could indeed influence your hapkido, but most of it probably won't. While the Dan Jun breathing methods in HKD actually mimic some techniques, most qigong has little or nothing to do with martial arts.

    It'll probably serve to strengthen your diaphragm and intercoastal muscles, much like the dan jun breathing and might help your stabilty and rootedness, and perhaps overall health but I doubt it will have any big effect on anyone's hapkido.


    Some qigong/neigong could be pretty benefitial though, standing practice in particular.
     
  20. piratebrido

    piratebrido internet tough guy

    That's not exactly true though is it. You can have Yin Yin and Yang Yang, and Yin Yang and Yang Yin, and a billion variations thereof.
     

Share This Page