I would like to point out a few of the issues I've been having since I started practicing Qigong level 1. The most important one to me is actually an issue I also had when I wanted to practice photoreading a few years ago, and that is visualization & imagination!

In both SFQ and PR, I feel stupid any time I am asked to "visualize energy moving through your body/ imagine pain turning into smoke and leaving the body / imagine energy collecting through the lower dan tien and using the whole body to breathe, etc..". I always feel like there is a missing step needed to reach that state, after all if I had known how to do that before listening to the tapes I wouldn't need too much practice, don't you think? ('^_^).

Like I said this is what I belive to be the biggest hinderance to my practice. So I would appreciate some pointers that would give some ideas on how to achive that (anything besides what's mentioned on the tapes would be more welcomed).

Visualization has always been difficult for me. How do I imagine something like energy moving through the channels in my body? Do I close my eyes and "look" at myself as if I am looking at myself through a camera? Or do I try to "realize" specific limbs, for example, as I try to move energy through them? (like I would move my eyes while they are closed along the path that I think the energy should reach). So so difficult!! (^_^)

Now to the other minor but relevant issues:

1. Do you feel tired/exhausted when you are doing the exercises? The suggested position to stand in isn't that comfortable to me, and bending the knees makes it a little more tiresome!! Is this natural? Yesterday I did the 8 active exercises and you could see some sweat on my forehead at the end (which is not that bad to be honest, makes me feel better), but is it natural to feel tired throughout the exercises?

2. Sitting exercises: I HATE THEM!! I just can't stand doing any of the 2 sitting exercises! I will be honest and say I am still new to Qigong and haven't had many sessions, but of the several sessions I had I only did the sitting exercises twice (once for small universe and another for the self concentration). Small universe was VERY annoying because he would move between "Ohm" and "Mho" a little faster than I would like and makes my breathig not so comfortable. Of course there is the visualization issue here too since there is no hand movements or anything so it's all visualization and breathing. The reason I like most of the active exercises is that there are hand/body movements which are easier to do for me than visualization.

The self concentration was also not very fun because there was nothing to do, just sit and listen. Again, this was mainly due to my inability to visualize. Hopefully they should become more bearable when I manage to visualize stuff better ('^_^).

3. Too many things to do at the same time!! Let's look at the breathing of the univ. for example: It says to feel the energy expand with inhaling, compress with exhaling. At the same time we are told to breath using the whole body, collect the energy into the lower dan tien, and expel any unwanted energy. How do we do that?? Should I inhale-expand, exhale-compress once, then do the energy collecting-expulsion? And how do I collect energy in the lower dantien anyways? Another visualization problem I see ('^_^).

So to review, we have the main visualization problem and then 3 sub points as described above. I would REALLY appreciate any help here since I would like to benefit more from the practice.

Also the idea of group healing sounds nice, but I don't know if I am ready for it yet ('^_^). I have a relative who was just diagnosed with cancer , and one of his kidneys had failed already. And I have a sister who was just diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, and our family is going through a lot of stress and sadness and we are trying all we can to help her. And finally a friend just had a baby who was born sick because of some medicine the mother was taking I think . I hope he recovers as well.

Sorry for the long post, and I appreciate all the help you are giving here. Thanks all and keep up the good work.