I've been doing one hour of active exercises daily for a week. I've been feeling good otherwise, except I get some lower back pain. I can live with it, but I just have some concerns if it's safe in the long run.

Related to this: I have heard from another qigong teacher that I (or anyone with structural issues and bad posture. I have sway back and scoliosis) shouldn't do qigong movements before getting posture fixed. And that would traditionally be done by just training the standing postures for a long time. I haven't had the patience for that. I know in SFQ there's a of talk about how anyone can do it, and I hope so. I've just been concerned with getting this lower back pain, which is one the things the other teacher warned about, that doing the movements with improper posture could over time lead to problems with straining or parts of the body overheating.

I'm intending and hope to continue with doing the active exercises. I'm just wondering if anyone here would have opinions about this issue. If all the hype is true then I suppose this shouldn't be an issue since so many people have been doing SFQ and I haven't seen any complains.

Hi, slowcrawl,

Great question.

As it says in the manual, always check with your physician before starting any new exercise routines. Also, on needs to do the movements to their abilities and situation...such as pregnant folk and those with back issues will want to go easy or just visualize the heal drops and spine twisting in the harvesting of Qi.

Shawn

Hi, slowcrawl! Letting your Dr know what you're doing can be a good thing...the Dr can let you know what modifications you may need (especially in the beginning)...

I had similar low back problem while doing a different exercise program a few years ago. It also required bending the knees and tucking the tailbone. I played around a bit & found that if I only bent my knees slightly (like 1/2") it helped. I also realized I was tucking my tailbone WAY too far! Just a slight/tiny tuck was all that was needed. Making those two adjustments eliminated my lower back pain.

Shawn's advice about visualization is a good alternative if you have problems...it still works. Or cut back to 1/2 hour active exercise & then do 1/2 hour of Small Universe meditation to help clear blockages.

Just my thoughts...