zhang zhuang

standing practice can cause qi to get stuck and trapped. try doing the 6 healing sounds everyday and some kind of movement qigong that will help circulate and ground it. i don’t do much standing practice it but i always follow it with a movement qigong when i do. the 3 amigos may just help, or soemthing else if you prefer it.

> I will do the fab four >

I have a caution about Yi Swallows Chi. Since in that practice the starting place of the slow yi-swallow is fairly high, I am cautious that in some cases where rooting is weak and there is prone to fear, that you might not effectively be able to guide the chi all the way down. (..and pulsing high up in the body is not what you need right now.)

Instead of Yi Sw’s Chi, just breathe slowly, gently, consciously, kindly, directly into the lower tan tien. Fill in directly there.

I think you should try to approach you problem a little differently. And maybe find a teacher who can help you with the practice.

In the last week or so, I have been going through some of the same problems as you mentioned: Fear, paranoia, palpitations, heart pain, high bloodpressure, general stress, and basically feeling pretty shitty. And I have also done alot of standing practice.

And I think this, atleast for me can be traced back to 3 basic reasons.
First. If you are young, or follow through with retention, you are flaring up and fueling the latent emotional and energetic imbalances that are there constitutionally or through conditioning. Be aware of this.

Secondly, the reason for the reactions are not a part of the qigong form, they are dormant imbalances that manifest through continuous practice. And realize that this is not serious in itself. THey will pass in time, if you practice correctly. One thing to focus on is lightness in the mental attitude during a trainingsession. Constatly try to stay in tune with the chi and detatch from mental commentary and any worries or focus on negativity. Think and vizualize lightness or light in the mind and head, and imagine the heavy stuff going down to earth.It really helps.

Last but not least, the symptoms I experienced were emotions that were old and stuck. When old emotions surface in the session, let them be there, and actually FEEL them all the way, and try to transform them into something more constructive. Like anger; feel the anger, but try to not be a victim of it, but instead feel strength after a while of venting.
If the feelings and general uneasyness continue during the day, find somebody to talk to, and maybe find the source of the feelings. I find that we, as practitioners are overly focused on technique, and seldom see that what we are doing is just facing our basic human faults and pain. When I stood in my practice and actuall just vented what I had energetically for some time, and then meditated, things changed and I felt better.
You are not alone in this department, anyway.
Just my two pesetas

> I started to develop a rock like feeling in my pancreas/spleen… obviously have a block in the pancreas, by the way, sometimes when I would concentrate on the dan tien my pancreas would rumble and vibrate a little (good thing or bad?) >

Critical that you keep a clean diet. Fruit, vegies, soups, whatever you enjoy that is good healthy food. Minimize heavy foods that are difficult to digest.

Some exercise to circulate is also important (circulation is essentially how a jam-up gets resolved). Any cardio-vascular exercise: running, cycling, anything that works for you that gets your muscles moving, blood pumping, heart rate up, breathing. This will help to resolve blockages in your body, and to process – on a physical level – some of the emotions that you’ve been feeling, as well as various of the toxicities that’ve been stored in your body.

I guess that this is what happened to me about a year ago. I was practising zhan zhuang (from Stand still, be fit) and felt great. Then after some time I started to get into problems. Scary things like a racing, irregular heartbeat, the stomach felt like a pounding heart on its own after eating and some other stuff too. At the time I didn’t understand what caused it, but when I look back now I think the major cause was practicing standing. I imagined that this practice would ground the chi, and it probably does, but it also loads in great amounts of raw chi. I think it was more than my system could deal with.

It’s funny how some people talk about getting more chi – I seem to have the opposite problem – getting too much. Maybe I’m not just grounded enough or something or my tan tien isn’t open enough. A common piece of advice is to practice MO, but that really makes things worse for me.

// Peace.