Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Spring Forest Qigong Moving of Yin and Yang

Hi,

As the right hand moves up, do you breath in, and as the right hand moves down, do you breath out?

It doesn't mention a breathing pattern in the notes or DVD, so I presume you breath normally (ie normal qigong breathing).

I'm a little confused as I looked at a website from the Wellness Directory of Minesota before I bought the level 1 course. The website says you breath as described in my first paragraph.

The website also confuses matters as the hand movements are a little fast and do not go as high as in Master Lin's DVD.
http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/qigong/qigong3.htm

I've been following the level 1 instructions for 2 weeks, and am very impressed. I just wish it was possible to do levels 3 and 4 by following the DVDs and course book.

I realise it's much better to learn in person, and that I need to spend a long time learning and mastering levels 1 and 2 (I don't plan to start level 2 for at least several weeks yet), but living in the UK, it's not possible for me come to the US to learn at the moment.

Thanks

Aloha PhilH,

I can appreciate wanting to get as much information as possible on Spring Forest Qigong, and scrounging the intranet to do so is one way. Of course that is one way get information that is old, unrelated, unintegrated, and basically unreliable.

I have seen that site while perusing the net to see what some people are doing after taking a class or two with Chunyi.

My suggestion is to ignore that and other sites and stick with what Master Lin is showing you on the videos. Also consider visiting the US for a weekend level III retreat, or join Master Lin and Learning Strategies for their next 6-day SFQ Healing Retreat in which Chunyi reviews level I and II, then works into III, IV, and topics not currently available in his classes.

P.S. Chunyi does not teach a patterned breathing with the Moving of Yin and Yang, and yes, slower is better –not to mention easier to focus on working with the whole column by moving your arms farther up and down.

Much Love, Shawn

Thanks for the advice.

Phil

This exercise is my favorite for some reason . I still get confused at it sometimes though, partly because I have to imagine the column inside the torso, while my hands are moving outside, so it becomes hard to move it. Also I still can't imagine both hands together moving the energy, I jump back and forth between the hand going up (moving the energy up) and the hand going down. Hopefully with time I will be able to accomplish that (^_^).

Get a rubber band and with a marker put a spot on it. Loop it over your index fingers, in front of your body. Right finger at the top pointing towards the left and left finger at the bottom pointing to the right. Now slowly rotate your fingers like in Moving of the Yin and Yang. You'll feel the rubber band turning on your fingers and notice the direction the spot is moving.

Now, imagine that the fingers are your arms and the rubber band is the energy column. Now, just think when my hands move like this (the fingers), the energy columin inside my my body is moving like the rubber band. And the next time you do the Moving of the Yin and Yang you can just remember the rubber band experiement to imagine what is happening while you are moving your arms

Alex

quote:

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Originally posted by Dabdoob:
This exercise is my favorite for some reason . I still get confused at it sometimes though, partly because I have to imagine the column [b]inside the torso, while my hands are moving outside, so it becomes hard to move it. Also I still can't imagine both hands together moving the energy, I jump back and forth between the hand going up (moving the energy up) and the hand going down. Hopefully with time I will be able to accomplish that (^_^).[/B]

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You're trying too hard. I would be exhausted
if I tried that hard. I started out just
trying to get the motions correct; still
haven't, but pretty close.

I find that at some times I can feel and
visualize energy easily and at other times,
nothing. I feel that my job is to show up.
What happens, happens. Every day is different.

You need to cut yourself some slack.

As to breathing, I find that I can't
always follow Master Lin's breathing
patterns, so I make up my own. I probably
take more breaths than Master Lin does,
but then again he has more years doing it
than I do. I above all do my best not to
feel guilty about my version.

If I can do good today, maybe I can do
better tommorrow, etc. If I don't do the
exercises in some form, I can't get any
good from them. Accept where you are as
being good and go from there.

Gianni

Gianni, what a lovely attitude "my job is to show up". That's right, you job is to just show up and do it. The rest, the real work is being done by the universe, or whatever name you prefer.

To often we JUDGE our performance by how we feel about what we are doing or by what we are experiencing. Eventhough Master Lin has told us that we sense the energy most when our channels are full, and that as the channels open and have greater capacity our experience of the enregy often diminishes or goes away. He also says that during these plateaus of low feedback are the periods when we can make the most progress. We too often don't trust in Master Lin's instruction and seek what we judge as positive feedback in the form of strong feelings of the energy and other manifestations visual, auditor, olfactory and intuitive.

We want these new and expanded awareness experiences but we judge them as the road signs of our progress... which isn't bad unless we judge their absence as a lack of progress.

I'm not going to go Nike on you, but I'm going to resonate with a variation on Gianni's works for quite sometime. Namely, "Just show up". Much like I've lately been doing with a variation of something Master Lin's said, which is "Eat to heal". These are simple little changes to one's approach, one's perspective, one's attitude. Changes I feel are helpful for me to lead a better life.

PhilH, actually getting to your question, which has already been dealt with very weel. I find that I synchronize my breathing and motions. I don't try to, I just do it naturally. Yet I also notice that at times my inhale will change from being synchronized from one hand to the other, even in the same meditatin, even changing several times. I just figure that's what I need. I trust it is all part of the balancing I need. I just smile and thank the universe and Master Lin for the intervention and making my practice just what I need.

You are perfection.
Iam2